Tourists inflow in Kaziranga National Park (KNP)

JORHAT, Oct 12 : With the start of Jeep Safaris, the first batch of tourists was let into the Kaziranga National Park (KNP) early today to catch a glimpse of the unique one-horned rhinoceros, Asiatic wild buffalo, the sambhar and Asiatic wild elephant. If one was lucky, then one could sight the lone carnivore– the Royal Bengal Tiger– holding sway over the other herbivores.

The more than 100 year old national park has had a steady stream of tourists since 2001.
Assistant Conservator of Forests LN Baruah said that last year there was 1 lakh 384 tourists from India and 5,767 tourists from abroad. The revenue raked in was Rs 71 lakh 98,504 in Indian currency and Rs 40 lakh 22,194 in foreign currency.

The largest number of tourists was from West Bengal among Indian States followed by Maharashtra while West Germany sent the maximum number of tourists from among the foreign countries.

It may be mentioned that, last year there were thousands of cancellations following the series of bomb blasts in Guwahati on November 30.

Park authorities said that, the park had lost a lot of revenue following the bloodshed and bandh calls given by various organizations. Tourists inflow began again in the new year.

Flood forces Kaziranga wildlife out of sanctuary

Kaziranga (Assam), Aug 24 : Authorities in Assam have enforced speed regulations on a highway along the famed Kaziranga National Park to prevent vehicles from hitting animals fleeing the sanctuary to escape a flood, officials said here Monday. Kaziranga is the world’s largest sanctuary of the endangered one-horned rhino.
The officials said the order prohibiting people from driving their vehicles above 40 km per hour along the national highway that passes by the Kaziranga National Park in eastern Assam was enforced Sunday because scores of wild animals have started moving to highlands as the sanctuary is getting flooded.
“We have placed police and forest guards along the highway to restrict drivers from increasing their speed beyond a limit as animals from the park are crossing the highway,” park ranger Dharanidhar Boro told IANS.
In 2004, speeding trucks mowed down at least 50 animals while they were trying to cross the highway to escape floods.
In the past one week, flash floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains have displaced at least 300,000 people in Assam. The Brahmaputra river has been flowing above the danger mark in at least eight different places in the state.
“Floodwaters have entered some fringe areas inside the park. Already small herds of elephants have started moving out of the park by crossing the highway to take shelter in an adjoining hill,” Boro said.
The 430 sq km park, 220 km east of Assam’s main city Guwahati, is home to the world’s largest population of one-horned rhinoceros. There are an estimated 2,048 rhinos at Kaziranga out of a total world population of some 2,700 of this thick-skinned pachyderm.
Forest rangers say the trend of elephant herds moving to safer areas is a “strong indicator” that heavy flooding inside the park is imminent. “Elephants have very strong senses and can anticipate impending dangers,” the park ranger said.
At least 70 animals, including rhinos and wild buffaloes, were drowned during a flood in Kaziranga in 2003.
Park officials are also worried about poachers killing animals, especially rhinos and elephants, as they move from the sanctuary towards the hills to escape the floods.
“If there is a breach in the embankment that surrounds the park, floodwaters would submerge the entire Kaziranga and then there would mass exodus of animals to the hills,” said Boro.
Every year, floods leave a trail of destruction in Assam, washing away villages, submerging paddy fields, drowning livestock and causing loss of human life and property.

HC rejects MLAs’s bail petition

Guwahati, Apr 3 : The Gauhati High Court today rejected the bail petition of Assam MLAs - Kushal Duowri and Jiten Gogoi - who were accused of vandalising the Kaziranga National Park.

The MLAs were absconding for the past fortnight, sources said adding they moved to the High Court in a bid to procure anticipatory bail but Justice I Ansari rejected the petition.

Both the MLAs, formerly militants, were accused of vandalising the world famous Kaziranga National Park and attacking the rangers for preventing them from fishing inside the park.

Meanwhile, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi informed that police would use special task force(STF) to nab the offending MLAs.

”They are hiding. They will be caught eventually. We will not spare them,” he said.
Both the MLAs are Independent and supporting the Congress.

Kaziranga guards injured

Guwahati, April 2 : Attacks by animals on forest guards at Kaziranga National Park since last night have left two injured.

The director of the park, S.N. Buragohain, said Bijoy Chetri, a forest guard was seriously injured when he was attacked by a rhino inside the Bagori range last night.

The nature of injury of Bir Bahadur Chetri, the other guard who was attacked by a herd of buffaloes this morning in the Kohora range, however, was not serious, he said.

“Bijoy has been shifted to Gauhati Medical College and Hospital,” Buragohain said. The increase in animal population inside the park could be the reason behind the attacks, he said.

A forest guard was killed and five others were injured in recent attacks by animals. A rhino was also shot dead by the forest guards.

In just 11 weeks of ’09, tiger count down by 17

NEW DELHI: India’s tiger count has dropped by at least 17 in the last 11 weeks since January 1. Poaching, poisoning, old age and infighting are the key reasons behind their deaths, say wildlife activists and forest officials.

The incidents have occurred all over India: from Manipur to Maharashtra to Uttar Pradesh. But statistics provided by NGO, Wildlife Protection Society of India, show that a majority of the deaths have taken place in Kanha Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh and Kaziranga National Park, Assam. In fact, officers from Wildlife Crime Control Bureau have already been dispatched to these reserves to carry out investigations.

Two big cats were found dead in Dhela range of Corbett Tiger Reserve on March 10 and 17 respectively. Forest officer MS Kunwar of Kalagarh says that the second incident was a result of territorial infighting. “Some portions of the dead tiger were eaten away by the tiger who had killed it. The other tiger died a week ago of old age,” he says.

Nonetheless, the confiscation of tiger body parts including 16 kgs of bones, two skulls and two paws by Army officials on the Myanmar border in February and the seizure of a fresh tiger skin in Katni the month before clearly shows that poachers continue to be active. Belinda Wright of Wildlife Protection Society of India says tigers are being killed because they are valued more dead, than alive. “Poachers make a lot of money by killing a tiger and selling its parts. Tiger parts are traded illegally, largely to feed the demand of a market in China,” she says.

Wildlife activists also feel that forest officials occasionally cover-up a tiger’s unnatural death by attributing it to a territorial fight. “There should be total transparency as a first step when tigers are killed,” says carnivore biologist Advait Edgaonkar. He believes that hiring and training more forest guards as well as involving locals in the protection of parks would go a long way in protecting the tiger.

Assam legislators carry AK-47s into Kaziranga, assault official

GUWAHATI, Mar 19 : The Kaziranga National Park, also a Unesco world heritage site, was closed to tourists on Wednesday as forest staff and jeep and elephant safari operators ceased work in protest against the alleged assault of a forest officer by two former Ulfa rebels-turned-legislators carrying AK-47s on Tuesday.

One of the legislators, Jiten Gogoi, who represents Bokakhat assembly seat, denied going to the park for fishing. Instead, he alleged that forest ranger Dharanidhar Boro quarrelled with him when he inquired about the whereabouts of rhino horns that have been either seized from poachers or recovered from dead rhinos. Jiten was accompanied by Thowra legislator Kushal Duori.

The MLA’s allegations against the park authorities came soon after chief minister Tarun Gogoi called for a report from forest minister Rockybul Hussain on the incident. The CM also assured that whoever tries to violate the law inside the park would be taken to task. Gogoi added that no one can enter the national park with firearms.

The two MLAs had allegedly brandished AK-47s while threatening the forest officials. Hussain said a park official, who is believed to have helped the MLAs, has been suspended and an inquiry has been instituted against him. ‘‘We have filed a case against them (the two MLAs) under the Wildlife Protection Act. Stern action will be taken against the culprits,’’ he added.

Jiten told TOI, ‘‘No one knows exactly what happens to the huge number of rhino horns recovered from dead animals or seized from poachers. I was inquiring about these horns from the forest officials and they filed the case against me.’’

About a year back, an environment activist group, Nature’s Beckon, had demanded a CBI inquiry into wildlife stocks after suspecting that several recovered rhino horns had gone missing. The group had filed two RTIs last year on wildlife stocks, to which the forest department had replied that there are 1,498 rhino horns, both seized and recovered from natural rhino deaths in its custody.

However, the group claims that 1,509 rhinos had died between 1980 and 1995 alone, adding that the figure revealed by the forest department was very small, and did not match with the number of rhino deaths.