Greater One-Horned Rhino

• 19 Feb 2022

Why in News?

Recently, a case of poaching of the world-famous one-horned rhino has been suspected inside the Kaziranga National Park in Assam.

What are the Key Points related to One-Horned Rhino?

• About:
  
  • There are five species of rhino – white and black rhinos in Africa, and the greater one-horned, Javan and Sumatran rhino species in Asia. 
    
    • IUCN Red List Status:
      
      • Black Rhino: Critically endangered. Smaller of the two African species.
      • White Rhino: Near Threatened. Researchers have created an embryo of the northern white rhino by using In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) process.
      • One-Horned Rhino: Vulnerable
      • Javan: Critically Endangered
      • Sumatran Rhino: Critically Endangered. It has gone extinct in Malaysia.
  • Only the Great One-Horned Rhino is found in India.
  • Also known as Indian rhino, it is the largest of the rhino species.
  • It is identified by a single black horn and a grey-brown hide with skin folds.
  • They primarily graze, with a diet consisting almost entirely of grasses as well as leaves, branches of shrubs and trees, fruit, and aquatic plants.
• Habitat:
  
  • The species is restricted to small habitats in Indo-Nepal terai and northern West Bengal and Assam.
  • In India, rhinos are mainly found in Assam, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh.
  • Assam has an estimated 2,640 rhinos in four protected areas, i.e. Pabitora Wildlife Reserve, Rajiv Gandhi Orang National Park, Kaziranga National Park, and Manas National Park.
    
    • About 2,400 of them are in the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve (KNPTR).
• Protection Status:
  
  • IUCN Red List: Vulnerable.
  • CITES: Appendix I (Threatened with extinction and CITES prohibits international trade in specimens of these species except when the purpose of the import is not commercial, for instance for scientific research).
  • Wildlife Protection Act, 1972: Schedule I.
• Threats:
  
  • Poaching for the horns
  • Habitat loss
  • Population density
  • Decreasing Genetic diversity.

What are the Conservation Efforts?

• The five rhino range nations (India, Bhutan, Nepal, Indonesia and Malaysia) have signed a declaration ‘The New Delhi Declaration on Asian Rhinos 2019’ for the conservation and protection of the species.
• Recently, the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has begun a project to create DNA profiles of all rhinos in the country.
• National Rhino Conservation Strategy: It was launched in 2019 to conserve the greater one-horned rhinoceros.
• Indian Rhino Vision 2020: Launched in 2005, it was an ambitious effort to attain a wild population of at least 3,000 greater one-horned rhinos spread over seven protected areas in the Indian state of Assam by the year 2020.

Source: IE