Thread by @ParveenKaswan

So what is the most grotesque scene you've seen so far in life. Just think about mind flooded with hallucinations of a rhino in Kaziranga wailing in excruciating agony, left to die in the most gruesome manner in a pool of blood. Long thread reproduced with permission. 1/n

Will send chill down in ur spine ? If not, let me narrate a sordid account of how a glorious animal : the Indian one-horned Rhino is poached in wildlife areas by poachers, for your info. The Indian one-horned rhino, despite being blessed with a thick hide/skin, has a major [2/n]

disadvantage : an abysmally poor eye-sight. Hence, it demarcates its "territory" by its dung/excreta and it triangulates its destination via the smell of its dung. So, if u want to catch this majestic beast, all u need to do is simply find patches of rhino's dung in [3/n]

marshy/swampy lands. Poachers precisely exploit these two traits of a rhino : its poor eyesight and its territorial imprint with its dung. Once they find traces of rhino dung, they lay traps for the rhino in and around that area by digging the ground. Usually, the peak time [4/n]

to poach a rhino is from 1 AM to 3:30 AM. In pitch darkness, the already disadvantaged rhino falls into one of the traps laid by the poachers, since, the rhino has a habit of coming back to its favourite-spots (something like home, marked with dung). Now, once it falls into [5/n]

the trap in the swamp, the next step the poachers do is so horrific that in my opinion, it is the most cruel act a man can commit on an animal. The Rhino, despite its tough skin across the body, has relatively softer skin around its horn. So, the poachers inject tranquilizer[6/n]

in the soft area around the horn & once, it phases out due to soporific sedatives, the poacher cuts the horn with a razor-sharp knife, that is specifically designed for this purpose. Now, here, one must ask this question : Does ripping the horn apart kill the rhino ? Well, [7/n]

it depends on how the cut is made. If the cut is made on its skull such that no nerve has been damaged, then, under medication and care, the rhino can regrow its horn in 2-3 yrs. But if any connecting nerve has been ripped off, while pulling the horn out, I'm afraid there is[8/n]

no hope. These poachers are no veterinary doctors & they just cut off the horn from the skull without any surgical precision within that window of the beast in sedated state. After they cut off, they leave the poor creature to die, inundated in a pool of blood emanating from[9/n]

its skull. As the effect of the sedatives wear out, the rhino wakes up slowly & starts wailing, in pain. Have u ever heard the wailing of a rhino in pain ? God forbid that no one hears it. Our previous driver, who hails from his native in Golaghat, had witnessed it,when the[10/n]

poachers left a matured rhino to die in a hole near the swamp. His village was on the borders of the Kaziranga National Park & rhinos & elephants were a ubiquitous sight, in and around his village. He told me that he couldn't sleep the entire night because the visuals of a [11/n]

wounded rhino continued to haunt him, with its wail banging inside his head. If u can't understand the pain, well, suppose I cut off ur nail from ur finger. What will be ur reaction ? The human nail & the Rhino's horn are more or less made of the same thing : keratin, [12/n]

Link between nerves & the keratin hardened parts is critical & any rupture in connection directly reaches right in ur brain. Now, multiply the pain with 10000x times.

This all because some think #rhino horn has aphrodisiac properties, sexual desire enhancer.

@ZLaTaNp1KacHu10

With joint efforts by all Authorities, NGOs and Locals Rhino poaching has been reduced drastically now.

This particular thread is to show how gruesome the poaching thing is. Remember illegal wildlife trafficking is world’s 4th illegal trade worldwide. Which is demand led.