Leonardo DiCaprio applauds Assam govt’s efforts to end poaching of endangered one-horned rhinoceros

Hollywood superstar Leonard DiCaprio has praised the government of the Indian state of Assam for its relentless efforts to end the poaching of the endangered Greater One-Horned Rhinoceros in Kaziranga National Park.

In his recent Instagram post, the Titanic star quoted a news report which said that this was a result of the government’s efforts, following the killing of around 190 rhinos for their horns between 2000 and 2021. The report further stated that for the first time since 1977, no rhinos were poached in the national park.

Sharing a picture of a rhinoceros, DiCaprio wrote on Instagram, “In 2021, the government of the Indian state of Assam set out to end the poaching of the Endangered Greater One-Horned Rhinoceros in Kaziranga National Park following the killing of around 190 animals for their horns between 2000 and 2021. In 2022, they met their goal and no rhinos were poached in the area for the first time since 1977.”

The actor further wrote, “Kaziranga National Park is home to 2,200 Greater One-horned Rhinos, which is about two-thirds of the world’s population. This triumph in India also comes with more good news, as @wwf also reports that the world population of the rare rhino soared to around 3,700 from about 200 at the turn of the 20th century.”

The special director general of police, Gyanendra Pratap Singh, who spearheads a task force to tackle poaching, said, “We need to keep the pressure on the spawning gangs. We have to ensure that the graph of spawning stays flat at nil for a few years until that becomes the norm.”

The Kaziranga National Park in Assam is located in the floodplains of the Brahmaputra River and is the biggest habitat for one-horned rhinos globally and draws visitors from across the globe.

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