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201307Apr18:24

Orphaned rhino strug­gles to sur­vive after mother killed

Infor­ma­tion
pub­lished 07 April 2013 | mod­i­fied 05 April 2014
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Rhino calf orphanAn Indian rhino calf that lost its mother to poach­ers is cling­ing to life with the help of con­ser­va­tion­ists, accord­ing to WWF staff assist­ing with its care. The two week old male is in crit­i­cal con­di­tion after its mother was gunned down by poach­ers Tues­day April 2 and her horn chopped off.

The shock­ing inci­dent is the lat­est in a surge of poach­ing plagu­ing India’s Assam province where 16 greater one-​horned rhi­nos have been killed already this year.

A team of front­line staff from WWF, the gov­ern­ment and part­ner organ­i­sa­tions joined com­mu­nity mem­bers to search Manas National Park for the orphan after the car­cass of its mother was dis­cov­ered ear­lier this week. The group was deter­mined to pre­vent the calf’s death immi­nent from star­va­tion, which would surely occur with­out the nour­ish­ment of its mother’s milk. The dehy­drated and trau­ma­tised calf was located, cap­tured and brought to a safe loca­tion for urgent vet­eri­nary care. Images of the con­fused new­born show it cow­er­ing in the cor­ner of a store room where it is being held temporarily.


It was a chal­lenge get­ting hold of the calf as it was very scared but thank­fully it is fine and doing well now
Deba Dutta, WWF res­cue team »

How­ever, the calf’s sur­vival is not assured. The ani­mals are highly depen­dent on their moth­ers for the first few years of life. Work will soon begin on a spe­cial fenced enclo­sure, or boma, for the calf so that it can be raised by reha­bil­i­ta­tion experts. It is pos­si­ble, but chal­leng­ing, to suc­cess­fully rein­tro­duce rhi­nos to the wild.

Rhi­nos across their Asian and African ranges are being dec­i­mated at record rates by poach­ers and crim­i­nal traf­fick­ers. Killing has surged in recent years just as rhino horn has become a prized com­mod­ity in Viet­nam where it is mar­keted as mir­a­cle cure for every­thing from can­cer to hang­overs. Viet­nam has done lit­tle to crack­down on the ille­gal trade or curb demand by dis­pelling such rumours, which have no med­ical basis.

Oppor­tunis­tic crim­i­nals are now tar­get­ing rhi­nos rein­tro­duced into India’s Manas National Park by WWF and its Indian Rhino Vision 2020 part­ners. Four of the 18 rhi­nos moved there have been killed for their horns.

In Manas National Park itself, mon­i­tor­ing, patrolling, intel­li­gence and pro­tec­tion regimes need to be strength­ened and imple­mented on ground in a time-​bound, ver­i­fi­able and account­able man­ner,” said Dr. Dipankar Ghose, Direc­tor of WWF-India’s Species and Land­scapes Pro­gramme.

WWF strongly con­demns the rhino killings and renews its call to source, tran­sit and con­sumer coun­tries to increase pro­tec­tion and law enforce­ment.

Take action to stop wildlife crime. Join WWF’s campaign.


(Source: WWF News, 05.04.2013)

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