Chitwan, January 23
A rhino has been found dead on a roadside in Bharatpur of the Chitwan district, outside the Chitwan National Park, on Sunday.
The rhino was found dead in a roadside ditch along the Narayangadh Pulchok-Gondrang road of the district. The protected one-horned animal was found pierced by a rod there as the structure was still under construction.
It has been suspected that the rhino came from the Barandabhar forest area inside the national park, the biggest natural habitat of one-horned rhinoceros in Nepal.
The park’s information officer Ganesh Prasad Tiwari says the park has launched an investigation into the case.
Of late, the news of rhinos dying in Chitwan has been quite frequent, raising concerns among conservationists.
The national rhino census conducted last year has found 752 one-horned rhinos in Nepal, of which, 694 are in Chitwan. After the census results came out in April 2021, at least seven other rhino deaths have occurred in the park.
