![]() Regular monitoring of populations is therefore essential to guide protection efforts and management decisions. 400 in 2005 (DNPWC, 2005).īecause of its late age at first calving, long gestation period, long inter-calving interval and single offspring the rhinoceros is a highly K-selected species and hence vulnerable to extinction by deterministic factors such as poaching (Poudyal et al., Reference Poudyal, Rothley and Knowler2009). Subsequently, during the armed conflict of 1996–2005, rhinoceros conservation in Nepal was compromised by poaching, resulting in local extinction of the Babai population, reduction of the Bardia Karnali population to 22, the Suklaphanta population to four and the Chitwan population to 372 (Thapa et al., 2013). ![]() 35), and Suklaphnata Wildlife Reserve (c. During this period intensive protection and metapopulation management resulted in the establishment of populations in Bardia Karnali floodplain (c. After the establishment of Chitwan National Park in 1973 and strict law enforcement the rhinoceros population gradually recovered to c. Rhinoceroses suffered a catastrophic decline in Nepal during the 1960s, when the population was reduced to 70% of the forests were cleared in Chitwan valley alone (Caughley, Reference Caughley1969 Laurie, Reference Laurie1978 Dinerstein, Reference Dinerstein2003). 2,800 rhinoceroses survive, in protected areas in India and Nepal (Talukdar, Reference Talukdar2009). In the 15th century rhinoceroses were abundant throughout the floodplains of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Sindh Rivers and their large tributaries between the Indo–Burmese border in the east and Pakistan in the west (Blanford, Reference Blanford1891 Laurie, Reference Laurie1978 Dinerstein, Reference Dinerstein2003). The populations of the Indian or greater one-horned rhinoceros Rhinoceros unicornis in Asia have thus been seriously compromised. Populations of such species are mostly confined in small, isolated protected areas (Owen-Smith, Reference Owen-Smith1988 Sukumar, Reference Sukumar1989). Megaherbivores are globally threatened as a result of habitat conversion, fragmentation and poaching to fulfil the illegal demand for their body parts. The sighting–mark–resighting technique provides the statistical rigour required for population estimates of the rhinoceros in Nepal and elsewhere. We recommend a country-wide block count for rhinoceroses every 3 years and annual ID-based monitoring in a sighting–mark–resighting framework within selected subpopulations. In the Sauraha area of Chitwan estimates of the population obtained by block count (77) and ID-based monitoring (72) were within the 95% confidence interval of the estimate from sighting–mark–resighting. The model with different detection probabilities for males and females had better support than the null model. The population estimate from sighting–mark–resighting was 72 (95% CI 71–78). In Chitwan 66% were adults, 12% subadults and 22% calves, with a female : male ratio of 1.24. A total of 534 rhinoceroses were found during the census, with 503 in Chitwan National Park (density 1 km −2), 24 in Bardia National Park (0.28 km −2) and seven in Suklaphanta Wildlife Reserve (0.1 km −2). The validity of the block count was assessed by comparing it with counts obtained from long-term monitoring using photographic identification of individual rhinoceroses (ID-based), and estimates obtained by closed population sighting–mark–resighting in the 214 km 2 of Chitwan National Park. In April 2011 5,497 km were searched in 3,548 elephant-hours over 23 days. We assessed the abundance and distribution of the greater one-horned or Indian rhinoceros Rhinoceros unicornis in all its potential habitats in Nepal, using block counts.
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