Mining, erosion threaten Indian rhino haven

India’s Kaziranga National Park, which harbors the world’s largest population of greater one-horned rhinoceroses (Rhinoceros unicornis), is at a “high risk” of “permanently” losing its habitat connectivity with the larger Karbi Anglong landscape, part of the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot, due to rapacious quarrying and river erosion, a new report has warned. The Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve (KNP/KTR) is located in the eastern state of Assam, sandwiched between the Brahmaputra River in the north and the verdant Karbi Anglong hills in the extreme south. Together they make up the 25,000-square-kilometer (9,650-square-mile) Kaziranga-Karbi Anglong Landscape. The expansive grasslands, swamps and open jungle of the park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, are home to more than 2,400 rhinos, 100 tigers and 1,100 elephants. During the fierce monsoons, when the Brahmaputra bursts its banks and floods Kaziranga’s grasslands, Karbi Anglong serves as a refuge for the wildlife that migrates over to the hills. Map of Kaziranga National Park. Image by Pradiptaray via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.5). This landscape connectivity, crucial for the survival of long-ranging species like Indian elephants (Elephas maximus indicus) and Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris tigris), is under threat from indiscriminate rock mining and quarrying, according to a report by India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) seen by Mongabay-India. “Wild animals can get the sense of upcoming flood and they often move towards high land in the landscape during the flood,” said Bibhab Kumar Talukdar, secretary general and CEO of the NGO Aaranyak in Assam. “Though there are some highlands in Kaziranga, the Karbi…

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