India floods increases rhino poaching risk
The Indian Rhino or the One-Horned Rhino.
Image by: Trisha Shears (Flickr)
Image by: Trisha Shears (Flickr)
Officials in north-eastern India are on alert for poachers after surging flood waters forced endangered rhinos, Asiatic elephants, a variety of deer and other animals to leave a game reserve.
At least 29 people have been killed in the past week's flooding and more than a million others have been displaced from their homes.
The director of Assam's Kaziranga National Park, S. K. Bora, said Saturday that three one-horned rhinoceros have died from drowning and several dozen deer have been killed by the floods or vehicles on a highway. The park is 225 kilometres from the state capital, Gauhati.
More than 2 000 of the estimated 3 000 one-horn rhinos left in the wild live in the 430-square-kilometre park.
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