Poachers have often gone deeper into the park and in some cases shown the temerity to kill the rhinos right in the vicinity of the security posts. They have been able to make off with the rhino horns even when gunshots were heard by park staff.
Park warden Dr Narendraman Babu Pradhan concedes that this has made conservation work more challenging although the actual number of poaching has decreased. “The number of posts has been increased and patrols have penetrated deeper but poachers are still killing rhinos in the vicinity of the park office,” says a baffled Pradhan. He says there is no lack of resources and security personnel but feels it´s about time security policy was reviewed.
Poachers killed a rhino inside the park just three days after the last rhino count was completed on March 23, 2008, and the body of another de-horned rhino was found inside the park 10 days later. Even when the counting process was on, a rhino was killed by the side of Tamor Lake near the main office of the park at Kasara. A gravid rhino was found killed at the same place Wednesday, taking the number of rhinos poached since the last count to eight.
While the absolute number of killings has gone down, the scale of the poaching against the present level of security is worrying. Fifteen rhinos were killed from July, 2005 till June 2006 and an equal number were killed the following year, but the security then was not at today´s level.
The number of security posts in the part shrank to seven from 34 after the declaration of emergency in November, 2001 and 37 rhinos were killed the following year. After the restoration of democracy the number of posts went up to 47 and two additional companies of Nepal army personnel from another battalion have been deployed but poachers have been active in the park area just the same. Of the eight rhinos killed after the last count, only two were killed outside the park while three were killed within the park between July, 2006 and June 2007.
A patrol had reached the spot within 10 minutes of hearing a gunshot last Tuesday, and found nothing there. But the rhino carcass was found there the next morning. Similarly, last August when Indian and Nepali officials were in talks on stop the poachings, poachers killed a rhino near Ghatgai post, embarrassing the security officials.
“When rhinos are killed inside the park, locals blame security and when they are called outside the park officials blame the locals,” chairman of Mrigakunj Central Users Group Bashu Chapagain says. “Poachers may have been using this strategy of keeping the two sides engaged in a blame game,” he adds.
Chapagain says this proves that merely increasing the security personnel will not be sufficient for conserving the endangered rhinos whose numbers shrank to 372 in five years from 544 in 200.
The last count put the number at an encouraging 408, but this may dip again if proper measures are not taken immediately.
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