 Nepal |
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 October 2011 |
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 Conserving Rhinos in Nepal |
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 Dave Johnson and Brian Aucone |
October 26, 2011
Dave Johnson, pachyderm keeper and Brian Aucone, Vice President for Animal Collections, traveled to Nepal and India to assess ongoing conservation programs for Greater One Horned Rhinos (Rhinoceros unicornis). The primary purpose of this trip was to visit current conservation programs for Greater One Horned Rhinos and assess how Denver Zoo could bring our multiple resources to assist in the conservation of this species. While on our research trip, we visited four national parks: Chitwan National Park, Nepal, Bardia National Park, Nepal (visited only by Dave Johnson), Manas National Park, India and Kaziranga National Park, India. During these visits we met with many different officials working on rhino conservation in this region to discuss the ongoing programs, their scope and the resources Denver Zoo has to offer and how they could be applied.
October 28, 2011
We visited Bardia National Park, which was established as the Royal Bardia National Park in 1988. It is the largest of the protected regions in the southern Terai area of Nepal. It covers an area of 374 square miles. The park protects 642 faunal species, including 53 mammals. Some of these include Greater One-Horned Rhino (Rhinoceros unicornis), Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) and Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris). We took 12 people to visit this pristine wilderness area to observe the wildlife there, there, and check on the feasibility of moving the orphaned rhino calves in Chitwan to this western park.
Bardia contains an estimated 26 rhinos. The population suffered greatly during a ten year Maoist uprising that ended in 2008. The park was deserted and left unprotected, and the
