The Indian Rhinoceros is a majestic beast. As the second largest type of rhinoceros still present today, it counts amongst the most iconic species of megafauna to be encountered in the natural world. This legendary beast is largely confined to the Terai and Duar sub-montane jungles between the Himalayas and the Ganges and Brahmaputra plains in Nepal and India, with a few specimens occasionally wandering into Bhutan. Although now long extinct in Pakistan it was once common in the Indus basin and was one of the animals most strongly associated with the region. The idea of reintroducing it to Pakistan has come up time and again but it has never effectively materialized: perhaps now is the time to bring back this beast of legend back to its historic home.
Millions of years ago what would eventually become Pakistan was home to the Paraceratherium (also known as Baluchitherium) a long necked hornless rhinoceros which according to the fossil record may have been the largest terrestrial mammal ever to have lived. Several other species of rhinoceros also called this land home until historic times when the Greater One Horned Rhinoceros or Indian Rhinoceros became the final representative of this genus in South Asia. Historically the rhino has left a strong cultural impact on what would become Pakistan. Three prime examples would be the presence of the Indian Rhinoceros on the Indus Civilization Seals, it is one of the most commonly encountered animals featured on Harappan seals. Going forward a few thousand years, the Rhinoceros Sutra was penned down in Gandhara. This Buddhist sutra is one of the earliest Buddhist prayers, based upon the words of Mahatma Siddhartha Gautama himself in the surviving notes known as “The Discourses”. It uses the rhino as a metaphor for solitary meditation and mindfulness. The earliest surviving examples of the Rhinoceros Sutra were discovered in Gandhara.
Indus Civilization era - Rhinoceros Seal
Indian Rhinoceros, side profile
The most famous story of the rhinoceros in Pakistan is also set in Gandhara, by then known as the Peshawar Valley, where the first Mughal Emperor Babur wrote in his Baburnama of hunting rhinoceros in the marshes along Kabul River in Nowshera. Soon afterwards the rhino disappeared from the historical record.
I first encountered the Indian Rhinoceros on the outskirts of Chitwan National Park in Nepal. The large, silent creature is majestic in his own way but you wouldn’t want to come across one unexpectedly on foot, as it has a habit of charging unpredictably when startled. On a subsequent trip to the same location a few years later I was able to photograph one feeding on aquatic plants. I had known about the historical presence of this rhinoceros in Pakistan and kept thinking how we could reintroduce it. This was attempted for the first time in the 1980s and Nepal played a vital role. His Majesty King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, the King of Nepal, presented a pair of rhinos to Pakistan and they were shifted to Lala Suhanra National Park in Bahawalpur. Unfortunately this pair never succeeded in breeding, probably because they were not allowed to live naturally in the environs of the park and were kept locked up in enclosures like zoo animals. This kind of an existence puts immense stress on wild animals and it’s not surprising that they did not breed. A pair of animals who grew up in the enchanting wilderness of the Nepal Terai suddenly found themselves locked up in cages on the edge of the Thar Desert! Even more depressing is the fact that recent visitors to Lala Suhanra have mentioned that the rhinos are no longer in their enclosures. Thus it’s safe to assume that the last two rhinos in Pakistan are either dead or they have been shifted to some other, even less suitable, caged facility. Hopefully this is not the case and they were just in another part of the park on that particular day.
Mughal Emperor Babur hunting rhincoeroses in the Peshawar Valley
Rhino Photographed by the author in Nepal
The King of Nepal presented a pair of rhinos to Pakistan and they were shifted to Lala Suhanra National Park in Bahawalpur. Unfortunately this pair never succeeded in breeding
There are still many locations in Pakistan where the rhinoceros can be reintroduced. As the animal was historically present in the region, it can eat the local flora. This particular species of rhinoceros is semi aquatic and eats both terrestrial grasses and shrubs as well as aquatic plants. The biggest issue would be to find a location remote enough that the animals would not come into contact with the local population as rhinos love to feed in agricultural fields, particularly paddy. Thus any possible reintroduction site would have to carefully assessed to minimize human-wildlife conflict. There are plenty of such riverine scrub jungles still around in the D.I. Khan division of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa as well as Punjab and Sindh. As these areas have all been subjected to environmental degradation in the form of deforestation and the extinction of local species of fauna, any site would have to be reforested and other riverine mammals such as the hog deer and swamp deer reintroduced so that the original eco-system can be revived before the rhinos can be brought in. As for where to get some fertile rhinos, Pakistan would have to once more turn to our friends in Nepal. Where there’s a will there’s a way. The legal, financial and logistical aspects of the project can all be handled and there are plenty of people around the world who would be willing to assist Pakistan in this effort.
Pakistan is place where two parts of the world meet: the dry highlands of West and Central Asia and the subtropical lowlands of South Asia. The country tends to romanticize its links to the former at the cost of the latter. This even spreads on into the realm of wildlife where the ungulid species of the mountains are today stable, indeed thriving in many areas, whereas the lowland species are on the brink of extinction. The markhor is currently the national animal of Pakistan but given its stronger historical credentials a case can be made for the one horned rhinoceros filling this role.
Reintroducing the rhino is a feasible option and it would be an environmental success story unlike any other and a way for our people to rekindle their relationship this legendary creature, a relationship which goes back over four thousand years!
The author is the ceremonial Mehtar of Chitral and can be contacted on Twitter: @FatehMulk
