Posted on September, 15 2004

Kathmandu, Nepal - A set of little footprints recently found in Nepal's Royal Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve was a sign of success. They belong to a baby greater one-horned rhino (Rhinoceros unicornis) and were observed next to the footprints of a rhino translocated to the reserve in 2000. This heralds the second birth among the four rhinos translocated from Royal Chitwan National Park, and indicates once again that the animals have successfully adapted to their new home.

In the late 1960s there were less than 100 rhinos left in Nepal. Thanks to conservation projects developed by the King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation, His Majesty's Government of Nepal's Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, the Biodiversity Conservation Network, and WWF, Nepal is now home to over 600 rhinos, with Royal Chitwan National Park having the second-largest population in the world.

However, the growing rhino population in Chitwan has increasingly competed with humans. The animals have destroyed crops and caused human casualties, often leading to retaliatory actions from affected farmers. To reduce this conflict, and to prevent the disease epidemics or a massive poaching outbreak from decimating the population, some rhinos have been translocated to new sites. 

"One of the main objectives of translocation of rhinoceros from Royal Chitwan National Park to Royal Bardia National Park and Royal Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve is to establish new viable populations," explains Dr Chandra P Gurung, Country Representative of WWF-Nepal. "The other is to save endangered wildlife species from unforeseen natural calamities and human-induced threats." 
 
The rhino population at Royal Bardia National Park is now almost 100, the minimum number recommended by the Asian Rhino Specialist Group, an expert panel of scientists, as necessary for a viable population. Shuklaphanta has seven rhinos: four from Chitwan, two baby rhinos born there, and one that may have walked over through the contiguous forests on the Nepal-India border. 
 
With this successful second birth, plans for another transfer are in preparation.

"We are researching habitat management in the wildlife reserve for the next batch of rhinos from Chitwan next year," says Dr Tirtha Man Maskey, Director General of Nepal's Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation.

WWF-Nepal's support to rhino conservation is part of its Terai Arc Landscape Programme, which aims to restore and reconnect 11 national parks in Nepal and India to create one continuous Terai Arc landscape. The work includes species conservation, awareness raising, income generation, and capacity building. 

Located in the shadow of the Himalayas, the Terai Arc covers 5 million hectares from Nepal's Bagmati River in the east to India's Yamuna River in the west. The rich grasslands and forests provide critical habitat not only for rhinos, but also royal Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris), Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), 80 other mammal species, 47 reptile and amphibian species, 556 bird species, and more then 2,100 flowering plant species. The region is also home to more than 6 million people who depend on its resources for their livelihoods.

The Terai Arc forms part of the Terai Duar Savannas and Grasslands ecoregion, one of WWF's Global 200 ecoregions — a science-based global ranking of the world's most biologically outstanding habitats and the regions on which WWF concentrates its efforts.

For further information:
Trishna Gurung 
Communications Officer, WWF-Nepal
Tel: +977 1 4410942 
E-mail: trishna.gurung@wwfnepal.org