Guwahati: Kaziranga National Park’s rhino population has risen by 39 in the 11 months till March 2013 despite the growing number of poaching cases.

The population of rhinos has grown in the latest census, which concluded in the Kaziranga National Park on Monday, bringing relief to the Assam forest department.

Jorhat: Kaziranga National Park authorities launched a rhino census on Sunday.

KAZIRANGA: “The rhino census in the Kaziranga National Park will be held on March 24 and 25” officials said. The census, will be held in all the five ranges of the Kaziranga National Park. Due to the census, the KNP will remain closed from March 23 to 25.

The five ranges of the KNP will be divided into 86 parts in view of rise in the number of the rhinos. As per last census, the population of the rhinos was 2,290. But during the last year 26 rhinos were killed by poachers.

The Kaziranga National Park, abode of one-horned Indian rhino and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in Assam has been facing a stiff challenge in keeping poachers at bay primarily because of growing number of settlements of suspected illegal migrants from Bangladesh around the park’s core area.

Poachers have been virtually on a rampage in the park since the beginning of this year, killing nine rhinos so far. This is alarming given the fact that the park, where conservation of wildlife goes back to over a century, is one of the biggest success stories in terms of conservation of rhinos.

Guwahati: The famed abode on one-horned Indian rhino and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Kaziranga National Park in Assam has faced tough challenge to keep rampaging rhino poachers under check basically because of growing number of settlements suspected illegal migrants from Bangladesh around the Park’s core area.

The poachers have been virtually on rampage in the Park since the beginning of this year killing nine precious rhinos so far in the Park, according to official figures.

The shrinking forest cover has not only escalated man-animal conflict in Assam, but has also resulted in increasing casualties on both sides.

DIBRUGARH: The impunity with which poachers are killing wild animals, especially the one–horned rhinoceros in the State, is worrying. The recovery of the headless carcass of an elephant at Charaipung range reinforces the ineffectiveness of the wildlife protection measures of the forest department.

Since 2007, 93 rhinos have been killed, 12 of them in the last two months. In September last year, five rhinos were killed, two on consecutive days. The discovery of a rhino whose horn had been cut away while it was left to die a slow death last year, sent shock waves but since then, more such killings with the same modus operandi have taken place.

Kaziranga: Protesting against the death of 12 rhinos in the last two months at the Kaziranga National Park, activists of the Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuva Chatra Parishad (AJYCP) today staged a rally from Kohora to Mihimukh under Central Range, Kaziranga National Park and burnt the effigy of the Forest Department.

Dipak Hazarika, Joint Secretary of the AJYCP said, “The increase in poaching activity has made it clear that our Forest minister and the Forest Department has failed to protect rhinos and other wild animals in our national parks.”

Poachers in northeast India have slaughtered 13 endangered one-horned rhinos in the last two months, officials said as another death added to worries about a recent surge in killings.