The current unprecedented floods in Assam have affected the State’s wild life also inasmuch as the Kaziranga wild life sanctuary is now almost bereft of its animals, most of them having migrated to the nearby Mikir hills. The 166-square mile sanctuary — noted for its one-horned rhinoceros — presents the spectacle of a vast sheet of water with no trace of the wild animals — rhinos, tigers, Som deer, elephants and wild buffaloes, which till last month roamed the area in hundreds. The chirpings of innumerable varieties of birds too are not heard, nor are they seen on their wings. This was the impression of a PTI correspondent who visited the sanctuary — described by naturalists as the world’s most natural sanctuary — late last week. A large number of animals, particularly Som deer, it is stated, have perished in the floods. Officials said the number of Som deer killed by poachers and of those swept away in swirling flood waters of the Brahmaputra, Dhansiri and other streams — numbering about 40 — origination from the Mikir Hills watershed has not been assessed, but it could be “pretty high”. An order of ‘shoot at sight’ has been given to forest guards and Home Guards by sanctuary authorities to check the menace of poaching in the sanctuary area. Four alleged poachers were believed to have been killed and several others to have sustained bullet injuries in an armed encounter with Home Guard personnel inside the sanctuary yesterday [July 1], according to an official report reaching Jorhat. The Sibsagar district police chief had rushed reinforcements to Kaziranga.
