Floods leave 124 animals dead in Kaziranga

From a Correspondent
JORHAT, July 31:  In the recent floods, nine rhinos along with 115 other endangered species lost their lives when the Brahmaputra’s water submerged 85 per cent of the park area, which inundated 175 forest camps for 10 days, said Rohini Ballav Saikia, the DFO of Kaziranga tiol Park (KNP) here on Monday.
Like previous years, this year too, the park area was submerged for over 10 days which created panic and chaos among the species of the KNP. Though the park authority kept ready nearly 200 highlands for the animals during the period of flood but several highlands remained under water due to rise in water level and high current for which the water level of the mighty Brahmaputra and Difloo remained parallel for a couple of weeks, said KNP officials. As per KNP official figure, during the recent flood, nine rhinos were found dead, four drowned, four died due to old age and one died due to tiger attack while taking shelter at a highland. On the other hand, 17 species were found dead after being hit by a speeding vehicle on NH-37. These include 11 hog deer, two swam deer, one lotus cat, two skes and one porcupine.
Meanwhile, 125 hog deer, four swam deer and one rhino cub were rescued from the highlands and flood-prone areas and from residential areas. They are still under treatment at the Wildlife Rehabilitation and Rescue Centre of Wildlife Trust of India at Kaziranga and 10 hog deer and three swam deer are almost fit to be freed into the park in a day or two, informed KNP sources.
Several areas within the park are still under water. Twelve camps are still under water - one at Agoratoli, nine at Kohora and two at Bagori - and are still disconnected with the other parts of the KNP.