Nepal has started counting rare one-horned rhinos at Bardia National Park where poaching during a decade of civil war likely cut the population by more than half, wildlife officials said yesterday.

"We started our census campaign on tracking (the) endangered one-horned rhinoceros from Friday," Omkar Joshi, conservation officer at the Bardiya National Park said. The census will last for at least two weeks, during which wildlife experts will comb the jungles of the rhino sanctuary in Bardiya National Park, 350km (218 miles) west of Kathmandu, he said.

Wildlife authorities moved 83 rhinos to Bardiya from the Chitwan National Park in southwest Nepal in 1984 to spread the population, but now say only around 36 rhinos remain as poachers seeking valuable horns and other body parts went unchallenged during a Maoist rebellion from 1996 to 2006.

"Poachers had an easy time killing the rare species during the insurgency period because most of the security posts inside the park were displaced," said Laxmi Manandhar, senior national conservation officer. The Maoists controlled vast swathes of the countryside during the rebellion and forced police and wildlife officials to flee, leaving the parks unguarded.

But with the former rebels having signed a peace deal last year and now part of the government, security against poaching has improved. "We are reinstating security posts inside the parks as the political situation has improved in the country," Manandhar said.

The population of the endangered one-horned rhinoceros at Chitwan, 70km southwest of Kathmandu, dropped to 372 in 2005 from 544 in 2000. In the past 10 months, poachers have killed at least 15 rhinos in the park, officials say. The animal's horn is valued as an aphrodisiac in China, and is used to make dagger handles in Arab countries, which can fetch as much as $14,000 on the international black market.

Source: AFP

Update (06-01-2007): The Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation confirms a sharp decline in the rhino population. It is reported that only 31 rhinos were counted during a 10-day survey from 17-27 May 2007. Eighty three rhinos were translocated to Bardia National Park from Chitwan to create a new viable population. The last rhino census in 2000 found 37 rhinos in the Geruwa River floodplain and 30 in the Babai River floodplain. The acute situation of the conflict in the past few years greatly impacted conservation in the area when the 15 existing security posts were decreased to just six to cover an area of 968 km2. Five rhinos are believed to have migrated to Katerniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary in India from the national park through the Khata forest corridor. (Source: WWF Nepal)