World Rhino Day 2024

World Rhino Day 2024 is celebrated on 22 September. It addresses key issues like poaching and habitat loss.

According to scientists, the ancestors of modern rhinos appeared on our planet more than 30 million years ago. Since the nineteenth century, the rhino population has been declining significantly due to uncontrolled hunting.

Since the nineteenth century, due to uncontrolled hunting, which later turned into poaching, the rhino population has been declining significantly. The reason is that rhino horn is a raw material for the manufacture of precious jewelry and is also used to prepare medicines in alternative medicine in some African and Asian nations.

Thanks to the measures taken, the decline in the rhino population has been halted. In particular, more than 11 thousand rhinos live throughout Africa, of which almost 9 thousand live in the national parks of South Africa.

The number of rhinos in India and Nepal has increased to 2,000.

But number of Sumatran rhinos has decreased from 900 to 350 individuals. According to scientists, it can be assumed that in recent years the western black rhinoceros, whose population was widespread in Cameroon, has finally died out.

On March 21, Nepal’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation completed the relocation of six vulnerable one-horned rhinos from the western part of Chitwan National Park to the eastern side. Image courtesy of National Trust for Nature Conservation.

A 2022 study examining cases reported from 2008-18 revealed a significant decrease in mortality due to poaching over the years, alongside a notable increase in mortality cases from non-poaching causes. Additionally, mortality patterns attributed to self-fighting and tiger attacks both experienced significant increases during the study period.

Various theories propose explanation of deaths, but the most widely believed is the over-concentration of the population in the western region. With the translocation, conservationists say they now believe the government is also thinking along similar lines. But as none of the studies have been made public, it’s difficult to understand what’s going on, they add.

Researchers highlight changes in the Rapti River, vital to the national park, due to heightened human settlement in its headwaters, which has led to land degradation and increased silt in the water.

This sediment could have reshaped the riverbed and buried waterholes previously used by rhinos. Additionally, the construction of dikes along the park’s eastern part has altered the river’s flow. Similarly, floods, such as the one in the 2017 monsoon, may have swept dozens of rhinos from the east to the west, they said.

Although the government carried out the translocation, it hasn’t made public the study that recommended doing so. Image courtesy of National Trust for Nature Conservation.

Rhinoceros unicornisor Rhinos are commonly called Greater One Horned Rhinoceros. Nepal Government sources say that there are 752 rhinos in Nepal. According to Nepal’s 2021 rhino census, Chitwan National Park is home to 694 rhinos, Bardiya National Park in the west has 38, Shuklaphanta National Park, also in the west, has 17, and Parsa National Park, adjacent to Chitwan, has three.

Categorized as Vulnerable in IUCN Red list and listed in the Appendix-I in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). It is a protected species according to the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act, 1973 A.D (2029 B.S.)

Rhinos inhabit the riparian grasslands of Terai and Brahmaputra Basins. They prefer alluvial floodplain grasslands, riverine forest and nearby wetlands. Currently, populations are restricted to habitats surrounded by human-dominated landscapes due to which they can be seen in adjacent cultivated areas, pastures and secondary forests.

Poaching is a major threat for the species, primarily for its horns, known to be used in traditional Chinese medicines. Retaliatory killings due to crop damage and human attack are also occasionally reported. Agricultural expansion and encroachment upon their habitats outside protected areas are another major issue.  (By R.P. Narayan)