Vavani Sarmah (left) hands over the cheque to divisional forest officer Narayan Mahanta at the zoo on Tuesday. Pori, the rhino, can be seen in the background. Picture by Eastern Projections

Aug. 19: With love for Pori, from Washington.

Pori, a six-year-old female rhino at the Assam state zoo, today found an NRI from Assam, Vavani Sarmah, to take care of her for the next year.

“I would have loved to adopt her for a lifetime but rules say it can be done only for a year,” Sarmah, an entrepreneur, said at a function held at the zoo today.

Sarmah is a computer science graduate from Jorhat Engineering College. He left for the US in 1998 and started a software company, Clearwin Technologies, in 2005.

Pori was born in the zoo on June 6, 2002. Her mother Baghekhaiti was from Kaziranga while father Vishnu belonged to the zoo.

Sarmah, an avid animal lover who arrived here in the beginning of this month, met divisional forest officer Narayan Mahanta to know about the programmes at the zoo.

“I was keen to do something for wildlife conservation and was interested in adopting an animal. When I found that the zoo had such a programme, I got the details and decided to adopt Pori,” he said.

Expressing concern over the killing of rhinos in Assam, Sarmah said people should be aware of the importance of the state animal.

“Last year, the pictures of rhinos killed by poachers had shocked everybody,” he added.

Sarmah, who was accompanied by his family, handed over a cheque for Rs 1 lakh to the zoo authorities for the upkeep of the rhino. The money would mainly cover the cost of Pori’s diet.

Sarmah plans to develop a website on Pori so that people around the world know about her. He also plans to make a DVD on the state zoo.

Dispur had approved the animal adoption programme at the zoo recently to get more people to adopt animals.

In July, Parul Devi Das, the additional chief secretary adopted Dhundhun, the stump-tailed macaque, for a year.

“I hope no rhino gets killed from next year,” Sarmah, who is also on the board of Friends of Assam and Seven Sisters (FASS), said. He hoped that all the 750 animals in the zoo find adopters and added that the FASS would try to get people to adopt these animals.

Mahanta said it was a great day for the zoo as its programme of animal adoption had met with success.