Indian officials burned around 2,500 old rhino horns on Wednesday to raise awareness of the need to protect the rare animal on World Rhino Day.
Dozens of Hindu priests performed rituals and chanted prayers as the top elected official of the state of Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma, lit the fire on a large platform at a sports stadium near the famous Kaziranga National Park.
The horns, which had been in storage for years, were from rhinos that died of natural causes in Kazaringa and other smaller habitats in the state of Assam and were confiscated from poachers.
Kaziranga is home to nearly 2,500 one-horned rhinos and is the world’s largest habitat for this rare animal. Armed forest guards protect the rhinos, but poachers still manage to kill some of them.
Poachers sell rhino horns in South Asia, China, Vietnam, and some other countries due to the belief that they contain aphrodisiac and medicinal properties. The sale of horns is illegal in India.
“The rhino horn trade must stop and the claim that these horns have medicinal properties is false,” said Sarma.
What people are reading
Sarma decided to burn the horns to raise more awareness of the need to protect one-horned rhinos and end poaching, said MK Yadava, Assam’s wildlife director.
The park is 250 kilometers (155 miles) east of Gauhati, the capital of the state of Assam.
Reference-www.nationalobserver.com