Kaziranga, Assam : A rhino calf, whose mother had been shot dead by poachers two days ago in a tea estate on the edge of the Kaziranga National Park(KNP), was rescued last evening by a joint team of the Assam Forest Department, Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) .

The one and half year-old female calf was hiding in tea bushes in the Hathikuli Tea Estate and had been seen by workers earlier. She had moved out of the park boundaries with her mother as rising flood waters of the river Brahmaputra threatened to drown them. The north-east Indian state of Assam has been under the grip of severe floods for the past two months affecting millions of people.

More than 80 per cent of the 2000 surviving global population of the Greater one horned rhinocerous resides in the KNP. The rhino horn, which is prized in Traditional Chinese Medicine as an analgesic and a revitaliser, without scientific basis, is the root cause of the decimation of this species. This is the 16th rhino killed this year in the KNP and the sixth outside the park. The patrolling staff had heard gunshots on Sunday night and rushed to the Hathikuli range before the poachers were able to cut the horn.

“I am so glad she has been found, we were worried about it. The team has done a good job,” Surendranath Buragohain, Director KNP said. The department was aware that the traumatized calf was hiding in the bushes and was young enough to be predated upon by a tiger or a leopard..

After the removal of the carcass, the forest officials and a veterinary team headed by Dr. Anjan Talukdar of WTI started the search. Dr. Bijoy Dutta from the Guwahati Veterinary college also joined them. The KNP divisional forest officer, Bonkim Sharma, and Dr. Bhaskar Chaudhari of WTI were there to assist the team. The calf was spotted, but as it was getting dark, the team postponed the rescue to the next day.

The team reached the location Tuesday afternoon keeping the villagers and media away. ” We reached the spot and as per the plan, one of us started giving rhino calls. We called just a few times when the calf came out of the bushes and started furtively looking for its mother. It looked so vulnerable and insecure. It was really very sad,” Dr Talukdar said.

The calf was tranquilized and brought to Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC) in a truck around 4.00 pm. The CWRC is a joint initiative of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), the Assam Forest Department and the Wildlife Trust of India .

The calf recovered from the sedation soon after it was brought to CWRC. It walked around for a while, and then as expected it broke the electric fence, (which was not energized keeping the mind the calf’s condition) and went out into the open area around the CWRC campus.

To ensure that the calf remains safe and does not go far, the forest department has deployed five elephants & staff to monitor its movement. “The plan is to calm it down and slowly drive it into the CWRC campus,” Dr Talukdar said.

“The calf is healthy and is grazing and the CWRC team is on a round the clock vigil to make sure it is safe,” he added.