Guwahati: Greater one-horned rhinos continue to thrive due to strong protection and enforcement, as per the State of the Rhino 2023 report.
“This World Rhino Day, September 22nd, 2023, news about the world’s five rhino species remains mixed. Two species, black rhinos and greater one-horned rhinos, continue to increase in numbers, while two species, white rhinos and Sumatran rhinos, are experiencing declines. The remaining species, the Javan rhino, has an unknown population trend status,” says the State of the Rhino 2023 report brought out by the International Rhino Foundation.
Poaching and habitat loss remain two of the biggest threats, however, climate change is increasingly impacting many facets of rhino survival.
Poaching for rhino horn is the greatest threat to all five rhino species. “Across the globe, rhino populations that were once considered less threatened have seemingly become the primary target of poaching efforts, which are orchestrated by highly organised, transnational criminal syndicates. After recording no poaching incidents last year, India suffered two poaching losses in 2023, one in Kaziranga National Park and one in Manas National Park. And Indonesia’s Ujung Kulon National Park, home to the world’s only population of Javan rhinos, has seen an alarming increase in incursion attempts over the past year,” the report says.
“However, there are some bright spots. Greater one-horned rhinos continue to thrive due to strong protection and enforcement, and though the governments of India and Nepal did not conduct an official census this year, authorities believe the population is growing,” the report says.
On the Greater One-Horned Rhino, the report said Rhino translocations to Manas National Park set for the beginning of 2023 were rescheduled for 2024 while reinforcing security measures after a poached rhino was discovered in January.
The estimated population of Greater one-horned rhinos (Rhinoceros unicornis) is 4,014. It resides primarily in India and Nepal, though there is a population that occasionally crosses into Bhutan. Bhutan, India and Nepal work together to implement a transboundary management strategy for the greater one-horned rhino. “Thanks to this collaboration and strict government protection and management, the greater one-horned rhino population has steadily increased over the last century, and has grown about 20% over the last decade,” the report says.
The report says though the greater one-horned rhino population is growing, the species is still classified as Vulnerable. “Poaching remains a significant threat, and the species has been driven from many of the areas where it used to be common. Its full recovery depends not only on protecting rhinos where they have managed to survive but also reintroducing them to places from which they’ve disappeared. Another significant landscape level threat to greater one-horned rhinos is the prevalence of invasive species, which choke out native rhino food plants and limit the amount of habitat available,” it says.
In the past year, the Assam government finalised the addition of approximately 200 sq km to Orang National Park in north-central Assam, more than doubling the size of this protected area and key rhino habitat. “This proactive step will create additional space for Assam’s growing rhino population and help ensure the species’ long-term growth and security by allowing rhinos to move freely between these protected areas. With this added land, Orang National Park is now connected to Bura Chapori Wildlife Sanctuary in the east, completing the creation of a linked corridor between all the protected areas in Assam that hold (or are planned to hold) rhinos: Manas National Park, Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary, Orang National Park, the Laokhowa and Bura Chapori Wildlife Sanctuaries and Kaziranga National Park,” the report says.
Though there is no permanent population of greater-one-horned rhinos in Bhutan, Bhutan collaborates closely with India on transboundary management and officials there hope to eventually establish a Bhutanese population. Rhinos are known to cross the border and are included in the population figures for India.
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In Nepal, two rhinos were poached this January in Chitwan National Park. Fifteen suspected poachers were arrested in February and there is an investigation underway.
Across Africa, poaching patterns are changing. Over the last year, poachers have shifted their focus from the largest rhino populations to smaller, perhaps more susceptible ones. As poaching pressure increases around the continent, the number of white rhinos–the most populous of the five species–continues to decline. This can make it difficult for poachers to find rhinos as populations become less concentrated and spread out across large national parks and reserves.
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