A rhino in my garden
COHABITING WITH THE WILD 7/7. In Nepal, rhinos are doing better and better. “The Guardian” observed their sometimes difficult coexistence with villagers living near Chitwan National Park.
“I can’t speak to you right now, I’m in the hospital,” explains the person on the other end of the line. “There’s been a rhino attack.” Several times a year, Ram Kumar Aryal, one of the founders of Nepal’s renowned rhino conservation program, finds himself in one of the hospitals bordering Chitwan National Park following an attack by the horned mammal. This time, three women were injured by a female earlier in the day outside the village of Laukhani, in the park’s buffer zone.
The result: broken legs and ribs, and bites to the hips and knees. “Rhinoes are vegetarians, but they attack with their incisors,” says Ram Kumar Aryal. And these incisors can measure up to 7.5 centimeters in length.
This kind of incident is not uncommon. In the past six months, rhinos have killed eight people in the Chitwan National Park buffer zone – a 750-square - kilometer area surrounding the park and home to 45,000 homes. The behemoths are regularly seen roaming the streets, strolling past restaurants, bars, and motorcycle parking lots, napping on hotel lawns, and grazing in backyards, under the half-curious, half-worried gaze of
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