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The park guards on duty
It is the presence and dedication of these men that holds back the all-consuming appetite of man for easy meat and more land. The would-be consumers of the park are the poachers these guards fight off in gun battles, and the villagers on the fringes who are constantly trying to get in unseen to graze cattle or exploit resources on the inside.
Eight rhinos were killed by poachers in 2001, and without vigilance on the part of the guards this would skyrocket due to the huge sum of money the black market pays for each rhino horn. The lesson from Manas National Park, also in Assam, stands as the example. All eighty rhinos there were wiped out in a few years when the National Park guards had to retire due to nearby insurgency problems.
Life in the scores of camps scattered throughout the park is tough and extremely basic. The guards are provided rice, vegetables and spices to survive on, and supplement this with fish from the streams and ponds. Most of their simple forest houses are in desperate need of maintenance. But the park is poor and receives bare survival funding from the central government.
With a single rhino horn worth up to 500,000 rupees, the temptation to turn poacher, or to turn a blind eye to them must be tremendous for men earning just 5,000 rupees a month. Temporary workers, brought in form the surrounding villages that produce the poachers, get much less money while also learning the workings of the park and the locations of the animals. But still the motivation of the men to save this last significant holdout of the rhino seems to be the stronger.
Park rangers on guard patrol in the early morning. Their guns are carried for protection against poachers, and if necessary, to sound off warnings against aggressive rhinos.
Guards patrol dangerous territory, for the rhino will often charge intruders in its domain unprovoked. The animal’s eyesight is poor, and cannot see these guards who wait for an opportunity to get past the danger. But the rhino has extremely acute senses of smell and hearing and will pick up the scent or sound of man if downwind. In this photo the guards (and photographer) had the wind to their advantage.
Guard hut in a sea of grass: it might look pretty, but life out here is lonely and dangerous. The guards have daily patrolling duties to discourage poachers, and they have to walk dangerous trails.
Checking rhino dung heaps: rhinos are creatures of a strange habit, they always return to drop their dung in the same place, creating huge heaps of droppings. By checking if the rhino has added to his dung pile in the past 24 hours guards can ascertain if an animal is alive and well.
Guards eating their simple meals of rice and vegetables, supplemented, sometimes by fish in one of their huts.
Elephants help with the heavy work of delivering rice and other supplies to distant guard camps. Here the grass has been burnt, an annual task of the guards. This encourages fresh growth while removing the inedible old stalks.
Boat patrol across Donga Beel (lake) takes guards through the untouched, primeval beauty of the park.
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Ranger killed by rhino: in 2000 a guard was checking tiger tracks in the Western range during a tiger census. An unseen rhino suddenly charged out of the thick grass, hitting and killing him before he could use his gun. Rhinos do not normally kill with their horns, but with the two long ivory daggers protruding from their bottom jaw. They bite a man to death.
Rhino killed by ranger: in 1999 a jeep with four foreign tourists was charged near the gate of the Central range. This is not such a dangerous situation, since the rhino can be discouraged by noise or speeding up the vehicle. In the week when these photographs were taken my vehicle was charged several times. But unfortunately for that rhino the guard was nervous, and instead of shooting in the air, he panicked and shot the rhino. Dead.
Events like the above are very rare, indeed, but serve to show that the rhinoceros is a very dangerous animal for humans.