Elephant escorts, special teams fail to save injured rhino

Elephant escorts stood guard and special teams monitored his wounds but the injuries inflicted by other rhinos during a fight proved too much for a 11-year-old rhino that died in Salukapur area here.
The rhino, Sahdev, was found roaming with two other male rhinos Bheem and Nakul by the monitoring teams in Salukapur near Rhino Rehabilitation Area (RRA).
"However, things went wrong when on January 24, Sahdev was spotted with injuries on its private parts with blood oozing out from them", Deputy Director, Dudhwa Tiger Reserve VK Singh said today.
Special teams were deployed to take care of his wound and elephants were pressed into service to keep away big carnivores from causing any further injuries to the rhino which later died, Singh said.

A team of veterinary doctors comprising three from WWF carried out the autopsy, which found nine injuries on the body.
Deep injury marks were detected on the private parts, which indicated intense infighting among the rhinos, he said.