Himalayan News Service

Nawalparasi, February 24:

Instead of spending their nights sleeping off the day’s worries, people residing in villages near the Royal Chitwan National Park (RCNP) are found chasing rhinos from their fields all night long.

The residents of Narayani, Kolahuwa, Argyauli, Kumarwarti, Kawasoti, Pithauli, Pragatinagar, Rajahar and Mukundpur have been spending their nights on machans (raised platform built on poles that can be used to sit or sleep) that have been constructed in the middle of their fields.

“When the herd of rhinos come, we frighten them away by banging on tins,” said Sher Bahadur Gurau of Kawasoti-3. Deer and rhinos usually destroy the crops in the fields just when they are ready to be harvested, he said. Potatoes, beans, cauliflowers and other vegetable crops are all the same to these rampaging animals.

Though the Royal Chitwan National Park administration made an attempt at controlling the incursions of the beasts through the Madhyawarti (buffer zone) Region Development Committee, locals said the national park’s efforts have not become effective so far.

They added that it is not at all easy to chase rhinos off the fields. In fact, they said it was risky, and chasing angry rhinos is a very dangerous business, most of the times. If nothing works and the situation demands it, the farmers try to chase the rhinos by lighting torches, said a farmer from Pithaulo, Lok Bahadur Basnyat.