We are planning to give AK-47 to select anti-poaching guards: Kaziranga director P Sivakumar

P Sivakumar, director of Kaziranga National Park, says there’s a move to give AK-47 rifles to a select group of guards in poaching-prone areas. Edited excerpts from an interview with Shantanu Nandan Sharma:
Are the animals, including the one-horned rhino, safe in this flood?
The floods in Kaziranga are severe this time because the water level of the Brahmaputra and its key tributaries such as the Subansiri, Buroi and the Bargang rose way above the danger level, flooding the park and also the National Highway 37 that passes through it. The highway had to be closed for two days. But the animals have basic instincts. Before the floods, they start rushing towards the highlands. That’s an indication for us, too, that floods are coming.

We have recently constructed 33 highlands, taking the total number of humps to about 140. Some of the early ones constructed in the 1990s are getting eroded now. A highland typically has an area of 1.5 hectares and is at a height of 4 to 5 metres. Most of the rhinos are now in those highlands. More than 90% of our elephants and deer have migrated to the nearby Karbi Anglong hills, which are on the other side of the highway. They will return to the park in September. The problem is, there are about two lakh people living on the fringes of nine animal corridors. That’s the main source of regular man-animal conflicts.

How serious is poaching during floods?
The number of poaching incidents has come down (from a high of 27 each in 2013 and 2014), but the number of poaching attempts is still very high. The arrest of a major rhino-horn dealer — Toyikhu Zhimomi alias Master — early this month has been a major breakthrough. This man from Dimapur has smuggled at least 10 rhino horns since 2014.

Recently, two other raids took place in Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh in connection with rhino poaching, after it came to our notice that there’s a transit point to China beyond Pasighat. The traditional smuggling route is Nagaland-Manipur-Myanmar-China.

Is your staff well equipped to take on the poachers?
We have 900 permanent staff of whom 600 are armed. They use .303 rifles and SLRs (self-loading rifles). Now, 82 personnel of the newly raised battalion called the Assam Rhino Protection Force are given INSAS rifles. We are also planning to give AK-47 to a select group of guards posted in some poachingprone areas along the hills and on the river Brahmaputra. We have stepped up the anti-poaching drive during the floods.