ASSAM (Web Desk) – Poachers shot dead a male rhino in India’s Kaziranga national park hours after the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge enjoyed a jeep safari there during a visit to highlight conservation, Indian media has reported.
Rangers found the dead rhino with its horn missing on Thursday — the day the royal couple left the Kaziranga National Park in Assam state, home to two-thirds of the planet’s remaining one-horned rhinos.
“Our forest guards who rushed to the spot on hearing gunshots were engaged in an exchange of fire with the poachers, but the culprits managed to escape under the cover of darkness,” the Kaziranga divisional forest officer Subhashis Das told the Indian Express.
It is said to be the sixth rhino killed by poachers in the 480 sq km park this year.