Sunderbans tigers' prey ‘die of shock'

THE HINDU, KOLKATA, August 21, 2010:  Six spotted deer from a herd of 25 that was being moved from the Bibhuti Bhushan Wildlife Sanctuary in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district to supplement the prey base of the Sunderbans tiger died early on Thursday morning.

A “post-mortem” will be carried out and it seems they died of “shock” experienced during transportation, Sunderbans Tiger Reserve field director Subrat Mukherjee told The Hindu over telephone.

The herd was being brought to the Deer Acclimatisation Centre in Dobaki. Here they would be constantly monitored before being released in the wild — over a distance of about 200 km, Mr. Mukherjee said.

“There was a delay at a place where the road was severely damaged. The deer had to be shifted from the trucks onto tractors, and then moved back onto the trucks, which took considerable time. It is possible they experienced some trauma then.”

“While three were found dead on arrival, three others were alive. But we could not do much.”

Such occurrences are not uncommon, as spotted deer were delicate animals, Sunderban Biosphere Reserve director Pradeep Vyas said.

Transferring the deer into the wild was essential as several facilities where the animals were being kept were overcrowded.

“The Bibhuti Bhushan Wildlife Sanctuary has nearly 450 spotted deer, whereas it has a capacity to accommodate only 150 deer,” Mr. Vyas said.

The Alipore Zoological Garden in the city is facing similar problems. It had decided to relocate about 60 deer to the Sunderbans. However, it may be deferred for some time.

“The proposal has been sanctioned by Chief Wildlife Warden S. B. Mondal, but we shall have to proceed slowly in this matter. We have to ensure that such incidents are reduced to a minimum,” Mr. Vyas said.

Rhino population in West Bengal forest goes up

Kolkata: The rhino population in a national park at the Himalayan foothills has gone up. Elated officials of the West Bengal forest department are now getting ready to carry out a census in another reserve forest.

During a census last November in the Gorumara National Park, located in the Himalayan foothills area of West Bengal called the Dooars, the officials found the number of the one-horned giants had increased to 35 from 27, the state's Forest Minister Ananta Roy told mediapersons. Now the officials are getting ready to carry out a rhino census in the Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary, also in the Dooars. The census will start later this month.

"We'll begin the rhino census in the Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary in the last week of February. The census will also collect specific information about the male-female ratio," Roy said. According to forest department officials, the census will also point out all information about each rhinoceros that will be required to identify it in case of emergency.

"The number of rhinos in Gorumara rose to 35 from 27 recorded in 2006," the minister said. The officials say the main reason for the increase in rhino population in Gorumara is that forest guards as well as local residents are "extremely vigilant" against poachers.

Most of the one-horned rhinos, found only in India, are in the Kaziranga National Park in Assam, where about 1,700 are estimated to be grazing in the vast marshy grasslands on the banks of the Brahmaputra river.

"We're trying to emphasise on increasing rhino habitat in both the Jaldapara and Gorumara forests. We're working in tandem with the state forest department towards achieving this goal. But it's a great sign the rhino population there is increasing through a natural process," said Animesh Bose of the Himalayan Nature and Adventure Foundation (HNAF) - a Siliguri-based wildlife welfare organisation.

Bose agreed: "The forest management has been very good in protecting the lives and livelihood for this animal (rhino). We have also given a few suggestions to the state forest department to click photographs of all the rhinos in the forest and give them specific identification marks on the basis of their physical differences."

Rhinos face the danger of poaching due to the mistaken belief that their horns yield a "medicine" that acts as an aphrodisiac. In the illegal international market, a kilogram of rhino horn fetched $60,000 in 1994.