Kaziranga, Assam: The rhino calf, whose mother was shot dead last Sunday by poachers on the edge of the Kaziranga National Park(KNP), was finally brought to its new home at the Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation & Conservation (CWRC) this afternoon.

The one and half year-old female calf, which had been rescued and brought to the CWRC last Monday, had instinctively broken out of its paddock and was grazing near the boundary of the CWRC at the edge of the Methoni tea estate.

It was being monitored 24 hours by the CWRC staff and the Assam Forest Department, which had deployed nine working elephants to keep watch on its movement and ensure that it was safe from predators.

This afternoon, a joint team of the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and the Assam Veterinary College(AVC), tranquilised it and released it in a reinforced paddock at the CWRC. Dr Bijoy Dutta and Dr Bhupen Sharma were deputed from the AVC to join the operation.

“We dressed some minor scratches that it had sustained while running around the tea garden and waited for it to wake up,” Dr Anjan Talukdar of the CWRC said.

The CWRC is a joint initiative of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), the Assam Forest Department and the Wildlife Trust of India. It is a systematic and scientific initiative to deal with wild animals in distress where immediate human intervention is required for their survival.

“The calf woke up late in the afternoon and it is still a bit groggy, but it is moving around. We are not allowing anyone but one keeper near the paddock and it should settle down by morning,” Dr Talukdar added.

The calf’s mother had been shot dead on Sunday by poachers after both had moved out of the KNP as the rising flood waters of the river Brahmaputra threatened to drown them. The north-east Indian Assam state has been under the grip of a severe flood affecting millions of people.

However, floods are an annual and natural phenomenon in the plains of the Brahmaputra valley and the animals deal with it by moving to higher grounds till the water recedes.

“Animal lives are lost on a large scale only when there are flash floods due to dykes or dams being broken and this year there has been no such incident,” Aniruddha Mookerjee, senior director, WTI said.

More than 80 per cent of the 2,000 surviving global population of the Greater One Horned Rhinoceros resides in the KNP. Rhino horn, which is prized in traditional Chinese medicine as an analgesic and a revitalizer (though not scientifically proved), 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 could cut the horn.