The Great One Horned Indian Rhinoceros: An Endangered Species To Protect
Author: Namita Trilok Chandra
The third-largest animal in the world, Rhino, shows a differentness and dominance of wildlife. There exist five types of Rhino alive in this current world and individual of them is Unicorn Indian Rhino. Few centuries in the past this class of Rhino exist densely supply with inhabitants completely over northerly India, in two together Ganges and Brahmaputra hollow in the land moving over wide areas from Pakistan to India. But the number decreased intensely from about 1000 to just 200 fashionable the early 20th of one hundred years.
Characteristics of the Great One Horned Indian Rhinoceros
The Indian rhino has dense grey-dark skin accompanying pinkish skin folds and one horn on its nose. Its upper limb and shoulders are covered in small growth or lump on the skin-like bumps. It has very little frame hair, apart from eyelashes, ear fringes, and tail brush.
The Indian rhino's single horn is present in both men and females, but not in infants. The horn is clean keratin, like human fingernails, and starts to show after about six years. In most fully grown rhinos, the horn reaches a length of about 25 cm but has been written up to 36 cm in length.
The rich presence of the blood bowl below the tissues wrap gives them a pinkish color. The folds in the skin increase the surface area and help in regulating the body climate.
Where does the Great One Horned Indian Rhinoceros species Live?
Indian rhinos used to live across the complete northern part of the Indian Subcontinent, along the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra River basins, from Pakistan to the Indian-Myanmar border, containing Bangladesh and the southern parts of Nepal and Bhutan. They have also occurred in Myanmar and Indochina. They reside in the alluvial grasslands of the Terai and the Brahmaputra. However, the great one-horned rhino lives only in the Terai grasslands southern Nepal, northern Uttar Pradesh, northern Bihar, northern West Bengal, and in the Brahmaputra Valley of Assam due to climatic changes and demolition of its natural habitat.
The Diet and Reproduction Process of the Great One Horned Indian Rhinoceros
Indian rhinos are herbivores. Their diet contains grasses, but they also eat leaves, branches of plant and sapling, fruits, and submerged and swimming marine plants. They feed in the mornings and evenings. They use their semi-prehensile lips to grasp lawn stems, bend the stem down, bite off the top, and therefore eat the grass. They tackle very tall grasses or small trees by walking over the plant, accompanying legs on both sides, and utilizing the pressure of their bodies to push the end of the plant down to the level of the mouth.
Captive male rhinos breed at five, but wild males accomplish dominance much later when they are mature. Captive females breed as young as four years of age, but in the wild, they occasionally start breeding only when six years old, that likely displays they need to be abundant enough to refrain or stay away from being killed by hostile males. Their process of early development period happens or in general area 15.7 months, and birth pause ranges from 34 to 51 months.
The rise of Rhino Poaching
The one-horned Indian rhino is a species that is endangered. It faces several threats that affect its livelihood. Some of them are endangering the habitat and floods, the lack of diversity, and poaching
Poaching is one of the main threats faced by the great Indian rhino. Hunting was a sport in the late 19th and 20th century. The rhinos were hunted down mercilessly. In the 19th century alone close to 200 Rhinos were killed by the British inn Assam alone.
Poaching for rhinoceros horn became the single influential reason for the decline of the Indian rhino after preservation measures fixed from the beginning of the 20th century when allowable hunting ended. From 1980 to 1993, 692 rhinos were poached in India. In India's Laokhowa Wildlife Sanctuary 41 rhinos were murder in 1983, which was almost the entire rhino population in that sanctuary. By the middle-1990s, poaching had led to the extinction of the species.
The Different Methods of Poaching
There are five different methods used in the poaching of the one-horned rhinoceros. One of the most common methods is shooting down the animal. The horn traders hire shooters and supply them with guns and ammunition.
Trapping in pits is also another method used. It is carried out in regions where grass can cover the trap. The pits are dug in a way where it makes it easy for a person to saw the horn of the Rhinoceros.
Another brutal method used is electrocuting. The hunters pass high voltages of current near a protected area.
Hunters also go on to poison rhinos by rubbing rat poison on salt licks used by the one-horned rhinoceros. The last method is through strangulation. The horn hunters use a noose to cut through the skin and choke the species.
Why do people poach the one horned Rhinoceros?
Illegal rhino horn buying, and selling have been the main problems of the rhino-shielded region of Assam. According to research by Traffic and Worldwide Fund for Nature, a few Vietnamese consumers believe horns are expected a cure for cancer when ground to a fine powder. According to a survey conducted by Worldwide Fund for Nature in South Africa, it exists preserved by the upper cast in Vietnam as a "mental freedom" cure. In 1993, the rhino horn was detached from the official lists of Traditional Chinese Medicine. It is at the present only sold in Vietnam following an unproven rumor that the rhino horn helped an honorable official in Vietnam in a fight against cancer.
Assam Puts Up A fight Against Rhino Poaching at Kaziranga
The One horned Indian Rhinos are close to being wiped off the face of the earth. The Assamese government have taken a lot of steps to try and put an end to the poaching of these species especially at the Kaziranga national park.
The One-horned Indian Rhinos are close to being wiped off the face of the earth. The Assamese government has taken a lot of steps to try and put an end to the poaching of these species, especially at the Kaziranga national park.
The forest office of Assam took a suggestion of dehorning rhino to save them from poachers in contact February 2014. The Government of Assam also called for public opinion by a board en-route by the Principal Chief Conservator of Forest could take a decision.
In 2021, The Assam administration has determined to implement a zero-tolerance policy against rhino poaching and make more forceful anti-trespass activities at Kaziranga National Park. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma request the forest area to offer a proposal concerning the growth of the highland inside the park where animals can huddle during floods. He asked the park manager to guarantee the supply of condensed feed in addition to green fodder to the marooned animals.
The Chief Minister also urged measures for improving the living environment of the forest.
He also requested the modernization of anti-poaching camps situated inside Kaziranga National Park to boost the confidence of the personnel.