Guwahati: The sprawling Kaziranga National Park, the abode on one-horned Indian rhinoceros in Assam, was thrown open for tourists for the season at a ceremony graced by Assam’s forest minister Rakibul Hussain.
Reopening the park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the forest minister lauded the efforts of the forest staff especially frontline staff and cooperation of people in general in scripting success story of wildlife conservation in Kaziranga National Park overcoming odds like constant threat from well-armed rhino poachers.
Conservation efforts in Kaziranga National Park dates back to 1905where there were only 20 pairs of
rhinos in the area. In the last census carried out in March, 2013, total 2329 rhinos were found to inhabit in Kaziranga landscape.
The authorities of the KNP declared that they counted 645 adult males and 684 adult females apart from sub-adults and the cubs.
The park also boasts of the highest density of Royal Bengal tigers. The number of tigers in the park stood at 118 when last recorded.
A large number of tourists thronged the park to enjoy elephant ride to sight rhinos in the sprawling grassland of the park this morning.It was a majestic sight to behold when the park’s tourists elephants were lined up for the opening ceremony much to the cheer of the crowd of tourists and forest staff.
All these trained elephants were subjected to thorough medical checkup during the past week. Besides elephant rides, jeep safaris are also organised regularly in all the ranges in the Park during the tourist season.A senior park official said, all tracks and wooden bridges within the park which were damaged due to floods earlier this year had been repaired before the onset of the tourists season.
Kaziranga National Park which has five main ranges- Agratoli, Bagori, Burapahar, Kohora and Uttarpara. The 858-sq km national park was visited by record number of 1,25,911 tourists during the last season of 2013-14, including 6922 foreign tourists, mostly coming from European countries and the US.The number of domestic tourists registered a significant increase over the years — from 53,640 during 2007-08 to over 1.19 lakh in the last tourist season.
The number of foreign tourists visiting the Park increased from 3772 in 2003-04 to 6922 during 2013-14, as per the official records.
In 2011, the rhino population in Kaziranga National Park was 2290. In the year 1999, this was 1672. In 2009, this increased to 2048.
The forest minster commented that despite the threat from poaching the rhino population continued to increase in the Park because of relentless efforts to protect the species.
Besides the rhino and other in situ animals, tourists visiting the grassland of the national park see large number migratory birds of numerous varieties which flock the wetlands inside the park during every winter.