Kaziranga got its first floating anti-poaching camp to save animals. The small anti poaching vessel has night stay arrangement, cooking facility and lavatory in it for four forest guards at a time. It can also shift small vehicles during emergency.

THE POACHERS would fear to take the river route to move in or out of Kaziranga National Park (KNP), the famous wildlife habitation of Asian one horned rhinos and elephants. Kaziranga got its first floating anti-poaching camp from the Rhino Foundation for Nature, for its protection.

 
“Now the river tract of the KNP will be guarded by a floating anti-poaching camp on the Brahmaputra, the sixth addition of the park, to protect the animals from any untoward incident,” said Dr. Anowaruddin Choudhury, chief executive (honourary) of the Rhino foundation for Nature.
 

For the floating anti poaching camp, the small vessel was prepared with support from US Fish & Wildlife Service under its Asian Elephant Conservation Fund. It also got a small support from Asian Rhino Project of Australia, which has donated a generator set for use in the vessel.
 
Despite best possible protection of animals in the KNP, rhinos and elephants face the constant pressure from the poachers, who use the river route to enter the park. And the continuous monitoring form the ship based camp on the Brahmaputra, will always alert and support the forest guards to fight against the poachers.
 
The small anti poaching vessel has night stay arrangement, cooking facility and lavatory in it for four forest guards at a time. It can also shift small vehicles during emergency in low water level.
 
“This vessel will support quite a lot in protecting of our heritage park,” says Assam forest minister Rockybul Hussain, after releasing the ship on the Brahmaputra to Kaziranga. 
 
The vessel was made by Assam’s famous ship builder group, P. Das & Company at their Shadilapur based workshop on the bank of Brahmaputra in Guwahati. “We made it within a short notice. And for a greater cause we build it for the Rhino Foundation, not on a commercial profit margin,” said one of the senior officials of the ship building company. “We are also building another ship of this kind for wildlife conservation,” informed Chiron Kumar Das, one of the owners of the company.
 
The small function on Brahmaputra bank was attended by different heads of the NGOs active in wildlife conservation along with the senior officials of Assam forest department including M C Malakar, chief wildlife warden of Assam.
 
The now ‘fixed salaried’ marginal income earning forest guards, who had no sound support to protect the KNP other than a heartfelt feeling to keep it protected from the poachers, will hopefully be happy to work with this anti-poaching vessel, to closely monitor the animals and save these to protect the national heritage site of India.