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| Headlines Vol. 2 Issue7-8 | June 22- July 6 , 1999 |
Sumatran rhinos may be surviving on Indo-Myanmar border A small population of the straggler Sumatran rhino, officially declared extinct in this part of the world, may still be surviving on the Indo-Myanmar border. According to the chief executive officer of the Rhino Foundation of India, Dr. Anwaruddin Chowdhury, there was definite information about its presence till the middle of the nineties in the Tuensang district of Nagaland and Ukhrul of Manipur. He is planning to visit this high risk extremist-infested area for a fresh survey.Dr. Chowdhury is an authority on rhino, red panda and birds of the North-East. He recently discovered a new wintering site of the highly-endangered black-nacked crane near Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh. Javan and Sumatran rhinos are two of the five species of rhinos and their population has become precariously low. They are found in the unadministered areas of Myanmar and Thailand. “These rhinos were found in Assam and Manipur besides Nagaland till a century back. Unlike the great Indian one-horned rhino, the Sumatran rhinos love jungles and they inhabited the NC Hills, Karbi Anglong beside the jungles of Nagaland and Manipur. However, the Javan rhinos were basically found in the plains of Barak and Brahmaputra valley,” he said. Dr. Chowdhury feared that poachers could wipe out these exquisite creatures as conservation was not possible in these literally unadministered areas. “I went there in 1996 and deep inside Tuensang district along the Indo-Myanmar border the villagers could easily tell me the difference between the one-horned and the Sumatran rhino they have been seeing occasionally in the deep jungles. I was carrying posters of one-horned rhinos, I had no problem in coming to a conclusion that these are stragglers —— the last survivors,” Dr. Chowdhury said. He said he kept quiet “basically due to the fear of poachers who might kill the rhinos, but my findings were published in a British journal. The poachers can shoot down those animals very easily as the entire area is extremist-infested and very few outsiders dare to go there.” The Sumatran rhino is very different from the one-horned rhino. They are short and hairy with two small horns. Most interestingly, they are forest loving while in Kaziranga, the one-horned rhinos prefer grasslands. He, however, confirmed that there were no available records of sighting of the Javan rhino. “Foreign environmentalist organisations are pressing me for more information. I am planning to go there next winter,” he said. Dr. Chowdhury has been exploring the jungles of the North-East for the past 20 years, and has been credited with many discoveries. Regarding the fate of smaller rhino sanctuaries like Dudhwa, he said that Dudhwa can survive only with gene transplantation by bringing in rhinos from Kaziranga. |
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