Rhinos at Kaziranga National Park. A file picture

Guwahati, July 12: Hunt them down before they hunt wildlife — this is the Assam forest department’s new strategy against poachers.

The department will set up an intelligence wing like the ones within the army and police to track the movements of poachers and their plans to strike in the wildlife sanctuaries.

The decision to form an intelligence wing has been necessitated by a rash of poaching incidents in the wildlife habitats of the state in recent months. Nine rhinos have been killed since January at Kaziranga National Park, home to roughly 60 per cent of the world’s population of this endangered mammal.

Five rhinos were killed at Kaziranga in 2006 and seven in the previous year. The official estimate is that about 500 rhinos have been poached in the state in the last two decades. Apart from Kaziranga, rhinos are found in Orang and Pobitora.

A group of regular buyers of rhino horn — considered an aphrodisiac and highly valued in the Southeast Asian countries — has been making regular visits to the northeastern states. Rhino horn fetches up to $35,000 a kg in the international market.

A senior forest official said actionable intelligence would help keep track of not only poachers but also international buyers who frequent the region under the guise of tourists and take away the booty.

“Rhino poaching is no longer an amateur crime. Organised gangs with a network spread across the world are at work,” the forest official said.

As wily and well-equipped as militants, the poachers who roam the wildlife parks of the state employ different strategies to target the prized rhino. Since it does not have an intelligence set-up of its own, the forest department has so far been dependent on the police and activists of the Wildlife Crime Monitoring Project — launched by the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria — to track the movements of poachers.

Although the department allocates funds to the national parks to strengthen their local intelligence-gathering mechanism, the amount is considered negligible. The money is used for rewarding villagers who stay on the fringes of these sanctuaries for providing information about poachers.

A police investigation into the recent rhino killings at Kaziranga revealed that the poachers used sophisticated weapons, including telescopic rifles and special armour-piercing ammunition. The poachers brought electric saws to take away the horns.

“Gone are the days of pit poaching, when poachers would lie in wait for several days for a rhino to fall into their trap,” a ranger said.

A few months ago, forest minister Rockybul Hussain announced a special action plan to check rhino poaching at Kaziranga. This includes deploying more forest guards.