Guwahati, Jan 3: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday lauded the people of Assam for being proactive in their efforts towards rhino conservation after the state reported zero poaching cases in the year 2022.
This is the first time in at least 22 years that the state recorded zero rhino poaching cases.
“This is great news! Compliments to the people of Assam, who have shown the way and been proactive in their efforts to protect the rhinos,” Modi said, taking to the micro-blogging site, Twitter, where he also shared a tweet by Assam chief minister of Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma in reference to the ‘landmark’ feat.
The chief minister had during a media interaction here on the occasion of New Year’s Day, had termed 2022 as a landmark year, saying that “after 22 years, not a single case of rhino poaching was reported in the state, be it from Kaziranga National Park, Manas National Park, Orang National Park or Pobitora National Park.”
“In the past few years also, there has been a considerable reduction in rhino poaching cases even as a few isolated cases have been reported in the state,” Sarma said, while lauding the efforts of the Assam Police and state forest department to keep rhino poachers at bay.
Notably, nearly 85 percent of the global Indian rhinoceros population is concentrated in Assam.
Sharing official data of the significant drop in rhino poaching incidents in the state on Monday, special DGP (law and order) Gyanendra Pratap Singh said the anti-poaching drive would be relentless in order to keep the poaching “graph flat”.
“Anti-rhino poaching efforts in the state have yielded spectacular results. There has been no rhino poaching in Assam in the year 2022. Last poaching was reported on December 28, 2021 at Hilakunda in the Kohora area of Golaghat district. We would strive to keep the graph flat,” Singh said.
According to the data shared by the special DGP, the highest number of rhino poaching cases in Assam was recorded in the years 2013 and 2014, when as many as 27 such cases were reported in both the years. In 2012, 11 cases were reported in the state.
In 2016, the state recorded 18 cases of rhino poaching while 17 such cases were recorded in 2015.
However, there was a decline in rhino poaching cases in 2017 with six such incidents reported in that year, followed by a marginal increase with seven cases in 2018, and again a dip in the next three years with three cases in 2019 and just two cases each in the years 2020 and 2021.
Back in 2007, as many as 16 rhino poaching cases were recorded in the state even as the crime graph dipped in the subsequent four years to six (2008), six (2009), five (2010) and three cases in the year 2011.
Seven years prior to the year 2007, all such cases were in single figures, with four cases reported in the year 2000 followed by cases doubling to eight in 2001 and then again a dip with four cases in 2002, three in 2003, four in 2004.
In 2005, seven cases were reported while five cases were reported in the year 2006.