Katmandu: Poachers have shot dead a one-horned rhinoceros at a national wildlife park in Nepal, officials said Sunday, spotlighting the threat faced by the rare animals.
Officials on Saturday found the male rhino with its horn gouged out in Chitwan National Park, the country’s biggest rhino conservation area.
“We performed a post-mortem and found that it had been hit by a bullet on its head,” the park’s spokesman Nurendra Aryal told AFP.
Aryal said a team had been set up to investigate the incident and security had been tightened at the district borders.
In September last year a rhino died weeks after poachers shot it in the same park, the first of the rare animals to be killed in the country in over two years.
Thousands of one-horned rhinos once roamed the plains of Nepal, but their numbers have plunged over the past century due to poaching and human encroachment on their habitat.
The population decline was particularly dramatic during Nepal’s 1996-2006 civil war, when soldiers on anti-poaching duties were redeployed to fight the Maoist guerrilla insurgency.
But the country has since made rapid progress in combating the poachers who kill the animals for their prized horns, drawing praise from conservation groups and activists.
The horns fetch huge prices in some Asian countries where they are used for medicines and jewelry.
Nepal is home to about 645 rhinos, out of which about 600 live in Chitwan National Park.
The park is in the process of relocating five rhinos to another conservation area in far-west Nepal to boost their population.
Shant Raj Jnawali, a rhino expert at WWF, said the latest death highlighted the vulnerability of the animals despite anti-poaching efforts from the community, park wardens and army.
“We hope that the investigation will help us devise new strategies to strengthen protection for these animals,” Jnawali said.
Rhino poaching carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in jail and a 100,000-rupee ($1,000) fine.
Rare one-horned rhino killed by poachers in Nepal
Rare one-horned rhino killed by poachers in Nepal
Indonesia reaffirms Yemen’s territorial integrity, backs stability efforts amid tensions
- Statement comes after Saudi Arabia bombed a UAE weapons shipment at Yemeni port city
- Jakarta last week said it ‘appreciates’ Riyadh ‘working together’ with Yemen to restore stability
JAKARTA: Indonesia has called for respect for Yemen’s territorial integrity and commended efforts to maintain stability in the region, a day after Saudi Arabia bombed a weapons shipment from the UAE at a Yemeni port city that Riyadh said was intended for separatist forces.
Saudi Arabia carried out a “limited airstrike” at Yemen’s port city of Al-Mukalla in the southern province of Hadramout on Tuesday, following the arrival of an Emirati shipment that came amid heightened tensions linked to advances by the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council in the war-torn country.
In a statement issued late on Wednesday, the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it “appreciates further efforts by concerned parties to maintain stability and security,” particularly in the provinces of Hadramout and Al-Mahara.
“Indonesia reaffirms the importance of peaceful settlement through an inclusive and comprehensive political dialogue under the coordination of the United Nations and respecting Yemen’s legitimate government and territorial integrity,” Indonesia’s foreign affairs ministry said.
The latest statement comes after Jakarta said last week that it “appreciates the efforts of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as well as other relevant countries, working together with Yemeni stakeholders to de-escalate tensions and restore stability.”
Saudi Arabia leads the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen, which includes the UAE and was established in 2015 to combat the Houthi rebels, who control most of northern Yemen.
Riyadh has been calling on the STC, which initially supported Yemen’s internationally recognized government against the Houthi rebels, to withdraw after it launched an offensive against the Saudi-backed government troops last month, seeking an independent state in the south.
Indonesia has also urged for “all parties to exercise restraint and avoid unilateral action that could impact security conditions,” and has previously said that the rising tensions in Yemen could “further deteriorate the security situation and exacerbate the suffering” of the Yemeni people.
Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country, maintains close ties with both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which are its main trade and investment partners in the Middle East.
