Nepal probes rhino poaching

Nepal is investigating the poaching of rhinos after 28 of the endangered animals were killed over the past 11 months, an official said today.

Prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal and forest minister Deepak Bohara summoned conservation officials and the chiefs of police and army and ordered them to come up with a strategy to halt the killings in the Himalayan nation.

Rhinos are protected by the Nepalese government and the forests are conservation areas.

Security forces are tasked with guarding them, but increased political turmoil in Nepal has meant their redeployment to urban areas.

“Stopping the poaching is a major challenge for us. There is always an increase in poaching of wildlife in the conservation area when there is political problems,” said Department of Forest and Wildlife Conservation official Megh Bahadur Pandey.

Indian rhinos are native to northern India and southern Nepal. Only about 200 remained before tough preservation laws began to be stringently enforced in the late 20th century. Now there are an estimated 2,500