West Bengal: Male rhinos kill female rhino after she refuses to mate
A female rhino was gored to death by two male rhinos after she rebuffed their sexual advances in Jaldapara National Park on Wednesday.
A female rhino was gored to death by two male rhinos after she rebuffed their sexual advances in Jaldapara National Park on Wednesday.
Officials at Jaldapara National Park (JNP) in Alipurduar district of West Bengal confirmed on Wednesday that an adult female rhino died due to injuries she suffered when two male rhinos tried to mate with her forcefully.
A senior official at JNP, which houses many one horned rhinos, said, “The dead rhino which was hardly five or six years old sub-adult had suffered injuries as dominant male rhinos overpowered her for mating.”
This is not the first time a female rhino dies due to ‘forced mating’.
Every year, JNP and Gorumara National Park in northern part of West Bengal, lose one or two rhinos for similar reasons. Often male rhinos get irritated after rejection and attack the female rhinos which results in grievous injuries or sometimes death.
“Rhinos have sharp and strong teeth, and they often attack female if they are denied mating,” a forest official said.
Deaths of three animals in a span of one week has spooked the forest officials.
A four-year-old female elephant died on Wednesday night in the Chilapata range of JNP. It drowned after fracturing its bones.
Days back, a swamp deer died near JNP’s Holong forest bungalow, due to a rare disease.
Jaldapara is among four forest tracks in India where one-horned rhinos are found. Gorumara National Park, Assam’s Kaziranga and Manas National Park are the others.
In January 2015, three rhinos died at JNP. One was poached, second died a natural death and another collapsed after infighting.
On October 17, 2014, carcass of a rhino was found inside the core area of the Gourmara National Park. The rhino was shot for its horn by smugglers from the Northeast.
On October 6, 2014, members of a forest gram sabha foiled a poaching bid at Chilapata range of JNP and caught the poacher, who was a resident of Kokrajhar in Assam.
Five persons were arrested on February 10, 2015, with horn of a rhino, three days after an adult rhinoceros was found dead inside JNP.