How Do You Count Wild Rhinos? Very Carefully. (And With Elephants)

CHITWAN, Nepal—It’s time for the rhino census.

This 7 days, trackers established out for the count, driving on the backs of 40 elephants. The position: the initial official tally in six decades of the rhinos roaming in 1 of Nepal’s premier character reserves.

The populace was saved from the brink of extinction in the nineteen sixties when figures dipped below a hundred. The rhino herd—also recognised as a crash—had grown to 605 by the previous census in 2015. This time all-around, the significant problem is how they have fared in the course of the pandemic.

Covid-19 has been a blessing and a curse for the 1-horned rhinos in the lush grasslands of southern Nepal. It saved men and women absent from their habitat, but opened the door to poachers and an invasive species that strangles their beloved foods.

The national park, which typically attracts far more than a hundred and fifty,000 website visitors a calendar year, was shut for most of previous calendar year.