Some 26 rhinos died in Nepal last year, including four from poaching, the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation said. Indian Rhinos are brownish-grey in colour and are hairless. The rhino population has climbed in recent years amid the government's anti-poaching and conservation initiatives.īut the illegal trade of rhino horns - prized in China and Southeast Asia for their supposed medicinal properties - remains a threat. The habitat of rhinos includes Tropical and Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas, and Shrublands. "The overall growth in population size is indicative of ongoing protection and habitat management efforts by protected area authorities despite challenging contexts these past years," the WWF's Nepal representative, Ghana Gurung, said in a statement. Global conservation group the World Wildlife Fund - which provides financial and technical assistance for the census - called the population increase a "milestone" for Nepal. Another official was injured when a wild elephant attacked the team. During the census, an elephant mahout was attacked and killed by a tiger, authorities said. It functions a bit like one also: Flexible skin between the thicker hide plates. "Rhinos were counted through a direct observation method, where the counting team reached as close as 100 metres (330 feet) from the wild animal," Acharya added. Their segmented hide looks like a formidable coat of natural body armor. In this file photo from January 2020, a one-horned rhinoceros walks on the banks of the Rapati River in Sauraha Chitwan, some 150 km southwest of Kathmandu. The feeding habit of aquatic plants requires an abundance of water around their surroundings. The census - delayed for a year due to the coronavirus pandemic - was carried out using GPS equipment, binoculars and cameras. Tall grasslands with wetlands around are the best habitat. Some 250 personnel - including enumerators, soldiers and veterinarians - rode on 57 elephants for nearly three weeks from late March to count the rhinos. In the first census in 1994, 466 rhinos were counted. Since 1994, the Himalayan nation has conducted a rhino census once every five years, as authorities stepped up their efforts to boost population numbers for the species listed as vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation for Nature.Īlso read: Covid-19 hits wildlife tourism market Thousands of one-horned rhinos once roamed the southern plains, but rampant poaching and human encroachment on their habitat reduced their numbers to around 100 in Nepal in the 1960s. "But we have challenges ahead to expand the habitat areas of this animal to maintain the growth." "The increase of rhinos is exciting news for us," the department's information officer, Haribhadra Acharya, told AFP on Sunday. The population rose to 752 across four national parks in the southern plains, up from 645 in 2015, the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation said Saturday. Nepal's population of endangered one-horned rhinoceros has grown by more than a hundred over the past six years, officials said, with campaigners hailing the increase as a conservation "milestone". Rhinoceros requires a very special type of habitat, which is generally a composition of grasslands and low laying areas covered by lot of water.
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