Questioning the census process and the official numbers, Choudhury had filed RTI applications and analysis of replies received by him from the forest department showed difference in the number of rhinos listed by enumerators of the census and a subsequent tally made public later.ĭata sheets submitted by enumerators after surveys done on March 26-27 last year showed the total number of rhinos in Kaziranga as 2,042. In the 14th rhino census carried out in KNPTR in March last year, authorities had stated that the total number of endangered animals had increased from 2,413 in 2018 to 2,613-a jump of 200 animals. The request for status reports on the exact number of rhinos in KNPTR, the world’s largest habitat for one-horn rhinos, came following a submission made by RTI (Right To Information) and wildlife activist Rohit Choudhury.Īlso Read: After zero-poaching last year, rhino killed in Assam

In February this year, the wildlife division of the ministry and the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), which falls under the same ministry, had asked the Assam chief wildlife warden (CWW) to submit status report on the census at the earliest.

The RTI reply revealed that no independent or media observers were present during the sample survey.

The Assam government is yet to reply to the union environment, forest and climate change ministry’s requests to submit factual reports on alleged anomalies in the last rhino census undertaken in the state’s Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve (KNPTR).

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