Have male rhinos outnumbered females in Chitwan?
CHITWAN: Wildlife rangers who scoured Sukhibhar and Budhirapti regions of the Chitwan National Park are left bewildered as they discovered that three out of four rhinos caught for translocation were males.
Have rhino bulls outnumbered cows in Chitwan? The CNP's chief conservation officer, Ramchandra Kandel, does not have a concrete answer.
Most of the rhinos that we spotted yesterday and today are males, he said. He, however, could not say whether it was a coincidence only.
Since rhino bulls of same age group live and wander in a group, Kandel has felt a need for studying the status and number of the conserved mammals in other blocks that have good rhino population.
The Chitwan National Park provides house to more than 600 pachyderms that are on the verge of extinction.
A study on the male-female ratio and their habitat will be started after the ongoing translocation project is accomplished, according to him.
The CNP plans to translocate one male and four female rhinos to the Shuklaphanta National Park.
Using tranquiliser darts, the wildlife rangers had caught two one-horned rhinos yesterday. Since both of them were bulls, the second one was subsequently released into the jungle.
Tuesday's finds included a bull and a cow, aged eight to 10.
The bull has been sent to the Babai Valley in Bardiya district, according to Kandel.
One among five rhinos that were translocated to Babai last year was found dead.
The bull caught on Monday has already been released in Shuklaphanta this afternoon.
As many as 30 elephants with mahouts, 30 support staff and 10 CNP rangers are deputed to catch rhinos for the translocation project.
Other 100 people including Nepal Army personnel and representatives from different conservation agencies are also involved in it.
In 2000, four rhinos were taken from Chitwan to Shuklaphanta. Their population increased to nine.
Earlier, the government had decided to translocate 25 rhinos to Bardiya National Park and five to Shuklaphanta National Park from Chitwan National Park.
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