Assam Disposes of Rhino Horns: On World Rhino Day

Nava Thakuria informs us that recently the world witnessed a unique event in Assam, where the authority set 2479 rhino horns on fire as a mission to spread the message that the horns don’t have any aphrodisiac value, because of which the gigantic animals are hunted in Asia and Africa.

- Nava Thakuria

On September 22, 2021 the world witnessed a unique event in Assam, where the authority set 2479 rhino horns on fire as a mission to spread the message that the horns don’t have any aphrodisiac value, because of which the gigantic animals, officially known as the greater one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicorns), are hunted in Asia and Africa. The pledge of World Rhino Day was to drastically reduce the incidents of rhino-poaching with the government initiatives and dull public supports.

Assam Forest and Environment Department prepared for the occasion conducting a verification process for rhino-horns, stored in 12 government treasuries across the State, to conform if there were any fake horns made of bamboo-root or plastics. The authority decided to destroy most of the rhino parts, picked up from the cache of 2623 horns, which were recovered from poachers, smugglers or extracted from the naturally or accidentally dead ones over the last four decades since 1980. The government, which has otherwise taken zero tolerance policy towards the poaching of wildlife, has preserved 94 horns, based on size and soundness of architecture, for academic purposes; those will be kept put in a proposed natural history Museum at Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve, which is widely known for over 2400 single-horn rhinos along with other precious wildlife.