Success in reintroducing orphaned and hand- raised greater one-horned rhinoceros into Manas National Park, India as part of a conservation translocation strategy

Summary

Manas National Park in India lost its entire population of greater one-horned rhinoceros to civil unrest in the late 1990s, and after peace returned in 2004, the Wildlife Trust of India pursued reintroduction using two sources: wild-to-wild translocations and, more distinctively, orphaned rhino calves hand-raised at a rehabilitation centre in Kaziranga National Park, where flooding regularly displaces calves from their mothers. Between 2002 and 2016, 33 rescued calves were admitted to the centre; 12 died within months, and of the 21 survivors, 11 were eventually moved 400 km by road to a pre-release enclosure at Manas, where they lived for about a year and a half with minimal human contact before release, fitted with VHF collars. Ten hand-raised rhinos were ultimately released between 2006 and 2013, five of them female. All three of the first released females went on to give birth, one twice, with inter-calving intervals as short as about two years, shorter than typically reported for the species, and seven of the ten rehabilitated rhinos survive today along with six calves, together making up 43 percent of the park's rhino population. Notably, none of the rehabilitated rhinos or their offspring have been poached, unlike 10 of 18 wild-to-wild translocated animals, which the authors attribute to the rehabilitated rhinos' strong site fidelity near well-secured areas. The project rates itself highly successful.