The ambitious Indian Rhino Vision 2020 (IRV 2020) came to a close with the release of two rhinos — an adult male and a female — in Assam’s Manas National Park transported from Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary about 185 km east.

Try this PYQ:

Q.Recently there was a proposal to translocate some of the lions from their natural habitat in Gujarat to which one of the following sites?

(a) Corbett National Park

(b) Kuno Palpur Wildlife Sanctuary

(c) Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary

(d) Sariska National Park

What is IRV 2020?

• In 2005, conservationists, alongside the Bodoland Territorial Council and the Government of Assam, came together to develop a long-term strategy to manage the species.
• Their vision was ambitious; to build a 3,000-strong wild population of Greater one-horned rhinos by 2020, spread across seven sites in the state of Assam.
• Thus the “Indian Rhino Vision 2020” (IRV2020) was born.

Success of the IRV

• Designed in 2005, the IRV2020 is believed to have achieved its target of attaining a population of 3,000 rhinos in Assam.
• But the plan to spread the Rhinoceros unicornis across four protected areas beyond Kaziranga National Park, Orang National Park and Pobitora could not materialise.
• Assam had at least five rhino-bearing areas till the 1980s.
• Manas, in focus for the near-extinction of the pygmy hog, lost the World Heritage Site tag it received in 1985 along with Kaziranga from the UNESCO.
• The translocated rhinos helped Manas National Park get back its World Heritage Site status in 2011.

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