ELEPHANT AND RHINO CONSERVATION - ENVIRONMENT
News: Explained
| Are rhino and elephant conservation efforts a success?
What's in the news?
● Greens
worldwide called the Kaziranga National Park the greatest conservation success
story in 2005 when it completed a century.
● Much
of it is attributed to a rhino protection force that shoots alleged poachers at
sight; more than 55 armed men have been killed within the boundary of the 1,300
sq. km tiger reserve for unauthorized entry since 2012-13.
Greater one-horned Rhinos:
● The
greater one-horned rhino (or “Indian rhino”) is the largest of the rhino species.
Physical Appearance:
● Indian
Rhinos are brownish-gray in color and are hairless.
● They
have knobby skin that appears to be armor-plated. A single horn sits on top of
their snout, and their upper lip is semi-prehensile.
● The
greater one-horned rhino is identified by a single black horn about 8-25 inches
long and a gray-brown hide with skin folds, which gives it an armor-plated
appearance.
Habitat:
● It
is confined to the tall grasslands and
forests in the foothills of the Himalayas.
● The
Great one-horned rhino is commonly found in Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan and in Assam, India.
Conservation Status:
● Greater
One-Horned Rhinos (Rhinoceros unicornis) - Vulnerable.
Conservation efforts:
● The
Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF)
● has
launched a National Conservation
Strategy for Indian One-Horned Rhino and the conservation initiatives for
Rhino has also enriched the grassland management which helps in reducing the
negative impacts of climate change through carbon sequestration.
● New Delhi Declaration on
Asian Rhinos 2019: Signed by India, Bhutan,
Nepal, Indonesia and Malaysia to conserve and protect the rhinos.
● Project to create DNA
profiles of all rhinos by the Ministry of
Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).
● Indian Rhino Vision 2020:
It is a unique programme where the government partnered international, national
and local organizations for the conservation of the rhinos. Under it, Manas has
received a total of 22 rhinos from other protected areas.
● The
Indian and Nepalese governments have taken major steps toward Indian Rhinoceros
conservation with the help of the World
Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Go back to basics:
Five Rhino species:
● White
Rhinos - Africa
● Black
Rhinos - Africa
● Greater
one-horned Rhinos - India
● Javan
Rhinos - Asia
● Sumatran
Rhinos - Asia.
Status on the IUCN Red List:
● Black Rhino
- Critically endangered. The African species is the smaller of the two.
● White Rhino
- Near Threatened. Researchers used In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) to generate an
embryo of a northern White Rhino.
● One-Horned Rhino
- Vulnerable.
● Javan
- Critically Endangered.
● Sumatran Rhino
- Critically Endangered. In Malaysia, it has become extinct.
● In
India, only the Great One-Horned Rhino may be found.
Another Key takeaway:
● India is home to nearly
60% Asian elephants and the last count of
the species in 2017 had put the number at 29,964.
● While
the number of elephants in India has increased in the past few years, the
species is listed as ‘Endangered’ on
the IUCN Red List of threatened species and Schedule I of The Wildlife Protection Act.
Asian Elephants:
● It
is distributed throughout the Indian
subcontinent and Southeast Asia, from India in the west, Nepal in the
north, Sumatra in the south, and to Borneo in the east.
● Elephants
are keystone species.
● The Asian elephant is the
largest living land animal in Asia.
Habitat:
● In
India, the Asian elephant is found in four fragmented populations, in the
south, north, central and north-east of India.
● Their
habitat ranges from wet tropical evergreen forests to semi-arid thorn and scrub
forests. However, the highest densities of the elephant population are found in
tropical deciduous forests.
Significance:
● Asian
elephants are extremely sociable,
forming groups of six to seven related females that are led by the oldest
female, the matriarch.
Subspecies:
There
are three subspecies of Asian
elephants such as
● Indian
● Sumatran
and
● Sri
Lankan.
The
Indian has the widest range and accounts for the majority of the remaining
elephants on the continent.
India’s Initiatives for Conservation of Elephants:
● Gaj Yatra:
A nationwide campaign to protect elephants, was launched on the occasion of
World Elephant Day in 2017.
● Project Elephant:
It is a centrally sponsored scheme which was launched in 1992.