Two one-horned rhinos from the Chitwan National Park have been spotted in forests of Rautahat district on several occasions in the last one month. The Chandranigahapur Area Police Office has deployed plainclothes officers to patrol the forests in order to protect the gallivanting rhino pair from poachers.

Rautahat District Forest Officer Narayan Koirala said the two rhinos were wandering aimlessly, making it difficult for the police to keep track of them.

They were seen at Gaidatar, Jangalsaiya, Hilekhola and Bishrampur areas in the last one month, he added.

A joint team from the CNP and the Parsa Wildlife Reserve arrived in Rautahat on Wednesday to return the rhinos home. Nurendra Aryal, the assistant conservation officer of the CNP, said they were planning to locate the rhinos, tranquillize them and transport them back to their habitat. 

The job has to be quick a quick one as the two rhinos are no longer in the protected area, which means they are easy targets for poachers. 

In August 2016, a one-horned rhino, which had strayed from its habitat inside the CNP, was shot multiple times and left to die by poachers at a forest in Rautahat’s Chandrapur Municipality-2.  The animal died during treatment, 17 days after it was rescued. The incident had ended the CNP’s run of two successive zero rhino-poaching years.

More recently, an adult one-horned rhino was killed by poachers at Dhurbaghat area inside the CNP on April 8.