Amid boycott call, Kaziranga to be closed for elephant census

An elephant census, and not a global boycott call following a controversial BBC documentary, will make the 430 sqkm Kaziranga National Park shut down for two days during this tourist season.

Kaziranga, 225km east of Guwahati, is the largest habitat of endangered one-horned rhinos in the world.

Park officials said the popular elephant rides would be closed on March 25 and 26 for the elephant population estimation. The last census, done in 2012, put the number of elephants in the park at 1,165. Jeep safari will also be closed.

“But while three ranges – Kohora, Bagori and Burapahar – will be out of bounds for jeeps on March 25, only Agratoli range will be closed for such safari the following day,” R B Saikia, divisional forest officer of Eastern Assam Wildlife Division, said.

Declared a wildlife preserve in 1905, the national park earned Unesco’s World Heritage Site tag in 1985 and has been regarded as one of the world’s greatest conservation success stories.

But, a BBC documentary aired in February this year, said the success came for a price – 106 people were killed in 20 years in the name of protecting the park’s endangered one-horned rhinos from poachers.

The BBC documentary titled ‘Killing for Conservation’ attributed the deaths to a shoot-onsight policy implemented in Kaziranga. It also suggested that tribal people were mostly at the receiving end of this policy.

Unhappy with the programme, the National Tiger Conservation Authority banned the BBC from filming in tiger reserves across India for a period of five years.

Survival International, a global NGO, reacted to the ban by writing to 131 tour operators in 10 countries and urging them to boycott Kaziranga “till the park stops shooting people on sight”. Some locals agreed with the documentary, demanding inquiry into the alleged killings. But a majority said it was designed to put Kaziranga in bad light. Assam forest minister Pramila Rani Brahma said the boycott call will not have much impact. “Tourists are not as much our concern as protecting rhinos, which are our pride. We need to deal with poachers strongly,” she said.

The rhinos are killed for their horn, considered an aphrodisiac in China and Southeast Asia despite being a clump of hardened hair. The horn fetches at least $60,000 per kilogram in the international grey market.

Kaziranga, according to the last census in 2015, has 2,401 rhinos. Between 2005 and 2015, 127 rhinos were killed by poachers while forest guards killed 67 poachers during this period.

A BBC DOCUMENTARY SAID THAT 106 PEOPLE WERE KILLED IN 20 YEARS IN THE NAME OF PROTECTING THE PARK’S ENDANGERED RHINOS FROM POACHERS