Manas Tiger Reserve celebrates rhino comeback, zero poaching for 3 years

India and Bhutan may need to become joint conservation partners to protect the one-horned rhino, experts said on World Rhino Day.

A translocation programme helped the one-horned rhino population in Manas Tiger Reserve from zero to 48 in 20 years, but increasing movement of the herbivore across the international border has raised new concerns.

Twenty years ago, western Assam’s Manas National Park and Tiger Reserve had no one-horned rhinos. A reintroduction programme begun in 2006 helped its number increase to almost 50 today, but it has brought a new conservation challenge – the park’s rhinos going international.

The national park authorities marked World Rhino Day on Tuesday by celebrating the herbivore’s “comeback” and three successive years of zero poaching. Rhino specialists, however, called for a policy shift by making Bhutan a conservation partner.