Elephants stroll in Kaziranga National Park

Guwahati, Feb. 8: Nature?s Beckon, a wildlife NGO, has accused the state government of ?perpetrating falsehood? by holding the Kaziranga centenary celebration in 2005 as the national park, they claim, was declared a wildlife sanctuary only in 1950.

?There is no justification for holding the centenary celebrations this year. Apart from its declaration as a wildlife sanctuary in 1950, the park was declared a reserve forest in 1908 and a national park in 1974,? said Soumyadeep Dutta, director of Nature?s Beckon, at a news conference today.

He said the year 1905, which was being claimed by the government as the beginning of conservation at Kaziranga was false as then it was only proposed that the park be constituted as reserve forest in the interest of the preservation of game.

Besides, rules were framed on issuing of licenses for shooting, hunting or fishing within a reserve forest, he added.

?The British government in 1905 was more interested in fixing limits on killing of animals and not in any conservation efforts,? he added.

He said conservation of a wildlife area could be considered a motive only when the area is declared a wildlife sanctuary, and in this case Kaziranga was declared a sanctuary in 1950.

?The entire history of Kaziranga will be distorted if this falsehood is perpetrated,? said Dutta.

?How could conservation start when there was rampant poaching of animals,? he asked.

He added that even famous naturalist E.P. Gee, author of Wildlife Of India, had said: ?I have talked to the forest officer who was the first to be deputed to survey Kaziranga in the mid 1930s. He had found poachers? camps in every beel and about 40 carcasses of rhinos with horns removed?.

President of Kaziranga Jeep Safari Association Kulen Gogoi, who was present at the news conference, said the large number of vehicles plying inside the sanctuary was causing noise pollution.

?The animals should not be disturbed,? he said.