Forest guards at Assam’s Orang National Park have shot and killed a rhino poacher.
Forest guards at Rajiv Gandhi Orang National Park finally prevailed after a 30 minute gun battle with a gang of three rhino poachers.
Although two poachers fled the scene, one of the men was shot and killed. Authorities also recovered five rounds of .303 ammunition, along with an axe, a torch, and liquor.
Sushil K. Daila, Orang’s divisional forest officer, said via The Telegraph that his team had acted on intelligence input.
This is the third attempt on the Jhaoni camp this year and all the attempts were made on Sundays. There were intelligence inputs that poachers might strike.
We are keeping up the fight and this is the third poacher killed in the past five months.
Orang National Park is part of the International Rhino Foundation’s Indian Rhino Vision, which aims to increase the greater one-horned rhino population to 3,000. The park’s target population goal under IRV is 100, although after the recent bout of poaching, the park currently holds approximately 58 – 60 rhinos.
Perhaps this latest incident is a good sign for Orang’s rhino population – let’s hope that forest guards keep up the war on rhino poachers.
Rhino poaching fueled by Asian superstitions about rhino horn
Although scientific analysis has determined that rhino horn does not have any medicinal effects on humans, rhinos in Asia and Africa are still killed illegally for their horns, which are manufactured into “medicines” by Chinese pharmaceutical companies. Rhino populations have been decimated by demand for rhino horn in China, and increasingly Vietnam, due to primitive, centuries-old superstitions that rhino horn is a “remedy” for common ailments, such as fever, pain, and acne.
Image: flickr.com/lipkee/ CC BY-SA 2.0
See Rhino Horn is Not Medicine for more information.