Greater One-Horned Rhino | 24 Mar 2021

Why in News

The claims by different political parties over significant reduction in poaching of Greater One-Horned Rhino has become an issue in Assam Assembly Elections.

• According to the Assam Forest Department, poaching has reduced by 86% in the last three years.

Key Points

• About:
  
  • The Greater One-Horned Rhino is one among the five different species of Rhino. The other four are:
    
    • Black Rhino: Smaller of the two African species.
    • White Rhino: Recently, researchers have created an embryo of the northern white rhino by using In vitro Fertilization (IVF) process.
    • Javan Rhino: Critically endangered in IUCN Red List.
    • Sumatran Rhino: Recently gone extinct in Malaysia.
  • There are three species of rhino in Asia—Greater one-horned (Rhinoceros unicornis), Javan and Sumatran.
  • 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.
  • Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (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
• Conservation Efforts by India:
  
  • 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 is 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 -TH