1993, 34
1992, 33
Poaching 1993, 1
Poaching 1991, 1
1953-54, 30-56, cf. Annual Report of Game Preservation
1965-66, 75
40-50, cf. Fawcus 1943
7, cf. Annual Report on Game Preservation.
7, cf. Directorate of Forests, W.Bengal.
8, cf. Annual Report on Game Preservation.
14, cf. Directorate of Forests, W.Bengal.
12, cf. Annual Report on Game Preservation.
5 cf. Annual Report on Game Preservation.
8
8
7, cf. Annual Report on Game Preservation.
1936-37, 4-5, cf. Annual Report on Game Preservation
1995, 35
12
1964, 72
West Bengal's rhinos include two sub-adult males which were introduced in October 1995 from Assam to improve the gene pools of the two rhino populations.
15
1957, ca. 50
1958-59, ca. 65
1968-69, 75
18
Poaching 1982, 3
1989, 27
13, cf. Annual Report on Game Preservation.
ca.12, cf. Gupta 1958.
map of West Bengal and surrounding regions showing sanctuaries.
1975, 23
1980, 22
1986, 14
Poaching 1968-72, 4
Poaching 1990, 1
Poaching 1972-73, 6
Poaching 1984, 2
1948, ca.60, cf. Shebbeare & Roy
The main reason for the decline from the 1890s to the 1920s was legal hunting. One man, the Maharajah of Cooch Behar, killed more rhinos than anyone else: 207 between 1871 and 1907. After 1932, with the exception of the Maharajah and his family, nobody was allowed to hunt rhinos. Photo of Palace of Cooch Behar: in the dining room, six rhino heads decorated the walls until the Palace was abandoned by the family in the early 1970s.
1988, 24
Poaching 1981, 1
Poaching 1968-72, 28
Poaching 1955-56, 2
During the 1970s, officials raided houses surrounding Jaldapara and Gorumara and some rhino horns were found, but there were very few convictions. The methods used by poaching gangs and trading syndicates were too sophisticated for the Forest Department staff. There were at least three groups involved in rhino poaching in Jaldapara during the 1970s. Their family names were 'Karjee', 'Baraik' (both belonging to the Mech community) and 'Tamang' (from Nepal). After a poacher had killed a rhino, he would immediately escape from the sanctuary and tell another member of the gang to go and fetch the hom from the carcass. This made it more difficult for the authorities to apprehend all the gang members.
1973-74, 21
1978, 19
Poaching 1983, 1
Poaching 1992, 1
Poaching 1992, 1
Poaching 1984, 1
Poaching 1980, 2
Poaching 1978, 1
1930-1931, 50
Poaching 1954-55, 1
Poaching 1981, 1
Poaching 1985, 2
Poaching 1983, 1
1993 - West Bengal, Poachers are paid for each horn they obtain rather than by weight. In 1993 the price per kilo was from $640 to $896. Usually the killer, who is often the gang leader, will receive twice as much as the others.
1992, Bhutan, Indians to Bhutanese for around $8,600 a kilo
In addition, there was strong evidence that some horn from West Bengal was sent at that time to Phuntsholing in Bhutan, via traders living in and around Hasimara, near Jaldapara (Dey, pers. comm., 1995).
West Bengal. There are no records of meat being taken from a rhino.
A Bhutanese Princess educated at Cambridge University, Dekichoden Wangchuck, aunt of the present King (the King's father's half sister) was arrested at Taipei's Chiang Kai-shek airport in September 1993 with 22 Indian rhino horns, the biggest consignment of Asian horns ever intercepted in Taiwan. The Princess's 22 horns ranged in weight from less than 100 gm to over one kilo with a total weight of 14.9 kilos. Nearly all the horns would have originated from Assam, especially Manas, but a few could have come from West Bengal. In an interview carried out by Joe Loh of TRAFFIC Taipei on 20 September 1993, she claimed to have obtained these horns from Indian traders coming to Bhutan during the previous year. She explained that she owned a company (Dezany Beverages) near Phuntsholing and that businessmen periodically offered her horns. She denied buying any horns directly from poachers. This Princess had bought the horns for $6,666 a kilo on average. She said she knew there was a major demand for them in Hong Kong, so first she flew there with the horns, but she did not have 'reliable' contacts among Hong Kong's medicinal traders and after 15 days failed to find a buyer. She then went to Taipei where she was arrested after officials found the horns, using a routine x-ray machine.
1960s, 1970s - Calcutta as exit point. In the 1960s and 1970s most horn was smuggled by various trading syndicates to Calcutta. It was then exported illegally from Calcutta to eastern Asia. Although officials knew that Calcutta was the main exit point for rhino horn during this period, almost no horns were intercepted nor traders convicted. In 1978, however, at Calcutta's Dum Dum airport one hom was seized which had been consigned to Japan, the address of the sender being a Calcutta cemetery.
From West Bengal through Siliguri. A second route for the movement of rhino horn from West Bengal then developed through the town of Siliguri (where several of the traders live) to Nepal. In 1985, the Indian authorities arrrested a man with a rhino horn, who was on a bus in Siliguri ready to depart for Nepal. This has not become a major smuggling route, however, as Nepal is not an end market for rhino horn, and the authorities there are alert to the problem, having to control their own country's rhino poaching and rhino horn smuggling.
In the late 1960s, in the northern part of West Bengal, there was some demand for rhino hom for use in medicines, but this had declined sharply by the early 1970s (Dey, pers. comm., 1993).
