Guwahati, August 1: Manas National Park and Tiger Reserve in Assam has lost a precious rhino due to an infighting involving one female juvenile rhino and an adult bull rhino, in which the female rhino lost its life.
The carcass of the rhino was detected at around 7.30 pm under Kahitama Beat of the Park on July 31, according to a communique issued today by the Deputy Director of Manas Tiger Reserve.
The deceased female rhino was being continuously reported till July 23 by the personnel deployed at Sidajhar camp, as part of daily rhino monitoring. It was reported that the female had an internecine fight with the bull rhino on July 23, after which it was not detected by the monitoring team.
The personnel undertook extra efforts to locate the rhino, whose carcass was detected during night on July 31.
On receiving the news, the Range Officer Bansbari, along with the Field Director rushed to the spot to evaluate the situation. The carcass was assessed to be around 48-72 hours old with intact nasal bone and undeveloped horn.
A postmortem was conducted this morning, wherein testing with a deep search metal detector did not yield any metallic object. The report stated that the horn was not developed with a decomposing tissue mass over the nasal bone. The same has been collected for processing and deposition in the State Treasury as per procedure.
The pictures of the rhino have been collected which also indicate an undeveloped horn. Keeping in view circumstantial and documentary evidence available, the said case has been recorded as a natural death due to infighting.
