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(Goutam Narayan is a well-known personality in the field of conservation. He is at present based in Guwahati and heads a project on the Pigmy Hog.)
 In a short span of twenty years, two of the five populations of the great Indian one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) in Assam have been annihilated, and the third is on its way out. First it was Laokhowa, then Manas and now it is the turn of Orang. The next target may be the Pabitora population. And finally, after all other rhino populations of the Northeast have been decimated, the poachers would be after Kaziranga rhinos. Not that Kaziranga population is safe now, but the comparative ease of operating in other areas of Assam due to much poorer protection and insurgency is helping the poachers eliminate the smaller populations first.
Laokhowa Wildlife Sanctuary, located on the southern bank of Brahmaputra, just 40 km downstream from Kaziranga, is also close to Burachapori and Orang. By late 1970s the rhino population in Laokhowa was down to 30-35 as a result of sustained poaching over the past decades. Then in 1980-81, each and every rhino, young and old, was mercilessly butchered within a few months. The poachers took the advantage of lax security and protection following severe political unrest during the Assam Agitation. The local human population, a large proportion of which is suspected to be recent immigrants, is believed to have participated in this mayhem. But there is little doubt that well-equipped professional poachers were involved and they were just after the horns. Straggling rhinos visit Laokhowa and the nearby areas such as Burachapori even today, but they either move on due to degraded habitat or are killed soon. Sometimes, they are reportedly shooed away by the protection staff, who do not want the ‘trouble’ in their area!
There were over 80 rhinos in Manas National Park till mid or late 1980s, when the Bodo agitation hit the Park. This was followed by a period of severe political unrest in the region, wherein several protection camps were attacked, watchtowers and bridges burnt and foresters killed. Though the involvement of some insurgent groups was evident, but the main culprit again were organised poaching gangs that wanted to spread terror in the Park to plunder trees for timber, rhinos for horns, elephants for ivory and tigers for bones and claws. Huge quantities of illegal timber were floated down the Manas and Beki rivers out of the Park, where they were ‘legalised’ by a nexus of a few officials, local political leaders, poachers and smugglers. Some honest forest officials did manage to impound a few lots, but they failed to stem the rot. Rhinos, elephants and tigers continued to bleed. In less than a decade, the rhino population was more or less finished and for several years in the 1990s no rhino was seen in the Park. Today, even if a few (3 to 5 according to some estimates) rhinos have reappeared in the Park, probably as the result of dispersal of some remote populations from adjacent Bhutan Manas, this perhaps represents the diversion of poachers’ attention to tigers or larger populations of rhinos such as those at Orang.
Although Orang (officially Rajiv Gandhi National Park) also lies in the politically disturbed tribal zone, the poaching and encroachments were largely carried out with support from immigrant population inhabiting the islands and flood plains (chars) of the Brahmaputra as well as some locals from other villages around the Park. There were over 70 rhinos in the early 1990s in the Park that is located 10 km downstream from Laokhowa on the northern bank of the river. Then, after the Manas rhinos wee finished, the poachers intensified their operations in Orang and, every year a number of rhinos, often 10 to 12, went down to poachers’ bullets in the late 1990s. The plight of Orang rhinos was brought to light during the 1999 census. The census was abruptly abandoned citing operational difficulties, but many believe that it was done because the total estimate indicated population less than 40. Little was done to provide additional protection and the decline continued steadily. Now, the Orang rhinos may number less than 25 but some reports suggest that much fewer rhinos may be left in the Park.
There are over 70 rhinos in Pabitora Wildlife Sanctuary and all are restricted to an area less than 16 sqkm in extent. The entire area is completely surrounded by increasing human population and intensive cultivation. The severe human and livestock pressure is tightening the noose around the Sanctuary. The animals will be easy picking for the poachers once they consolidate their operations here after the usual cycle of spreading terror among protection staff and involving local miscreants. The poachers are one more of many beneficiaries of the ‘economy’ around insurgency and political unrest in the region. The only losers are the poor people and wild animals. It is in the interest of the beneficiaries of the insurgency to perpetuate the perception of fear in the region, and it continue to reap the harvest at the expense of people, forests and animals.
Other than depriving the above protected areas of one the most magnificent of wild animals, this elimination of rhino population has another implication on the long-term survival prospects of the species. A small number of rhinos from these populations in Brahmaputra valley were and are known to disperse and intermix with each other, allowing a fair exchange of genetic material and mitigating any possible effect of inbreeding in these seemingly isolated populations. With other populations of rhinos gone, the Kaziranga population, even if it survives, will be deprived of this natural dispersal and may become vulnerable to stochastic processes leading to genetic uncertainties in the future.
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