By Basanta Parajuli
Bharatpur, Aug. 30: The number of rhinoceros deaths caused by fighting has increased in recent times at Chitwan National Park. Of the three rhino deaths recorded at the park since July, two were caused by fighting, according to Ashok Ram, national park’s information officer.
Last Saturday, a seven-year-old female rhino was found dead near the park’s headquarters at Kasara. Chief Conservation Officer Annath Baral informed that the animal died while fighting, or more precisely, was attacked. “The body of the dead rhino was covered with bruises that show she was attacked by another rhino,” he said.
Seven years is a suitable reproduction age for rhinos. “When a male rhino in heat approaches a female for mating but the female refuses, the male sometimes attacks her, which may lead to the female’s death,” Baral said.
In Baral’s experience, most fights between males and females occur during the mating season. The males also fight against each other during this season, Baral said. “If there is only one female but more than one male then the males fight against each other to win a chance to mate with the sole female.”
The losers of such fight often end up badly injured and can even die, Baral explained.
Rhino fights may also be increasing in the park because of an unbalanced habitat and a shortage of food, as per Ram Preet Yadav, former chief conservation officer of Chitwan National Park (CNP).
“The population of rhinos has concentrated in the western part of the park of late,” said Yadav, who has been active in rhino conservation under the Terai Arc Landscape Programme’s Tiger and Rhino Conservation Project. He added, “Too many rhinos in one place, coupled with a lack of grasslands, results in fighting.”
Till the 1970s, more than 20 per cent of CNP’s area was covered with grassland. This has decreased to only around 6 per cent now. The park authorities are trying to increase grassland area within the park but they acknowledge that their efforts have not been adequate.
The rhinos eat young soft grass but such grass is hard to find in Chitwan. Yadav explained, “The months between October and January are especially hard because the grass in the park becomes old and dry. This forces these creatures to venture into human settlements looking for food.” Farmers regularly complain that the park rhinos come and eat the grains and vegetables they have planted in their fields.
The annual floods and increasing human population have also been pushing he rhinos to the west of CNP, further concentrating them in one area and increasing cases of fights.
As per a census in 2015, Nepal had 645 rhinoceros. Among them, 605 lived in CNP alone. But since then, a total of 120 rhinos have died – 25 in the fiscal year 2016/17, 26 in 2017/18, 43 in 2018/19 and 26 in 2019/20.
The main reason behind their deaths is fighting.