Manas introduces bikes for guards

Guwahati: Manas National Park, a Unesco World Heritage Site about 176km from here, has worked out a new strategy to curb poaching. Its frontline staff has been given bikes to patrol protected areas.
With the new plan in place since early April, the park, which straddles India and Bhutan and is a tiger reserve, became the first national park in Assam to use two-wheelers for patrolling.Its frontline guards will criss-cross the remotest corners of the park that were hitherto seldom ventured into by patrol teams.
"Our objective is to increase guards' mobility so that we can avert any form of wildlife crime. Our guards will get quick access to the remote corners of the park that would otherwise have taken a long time for them to reach," park director HK Sharma said.
A park official said bike-borne patrol teams are currently covering the eastern part of the park which has been identified as relatively more vulnerable to poachers than other parts of Manas.
The park has got 10 two-wheelers from biodiversity conservation NGO Aaranyak. The NGO has also trained the guards to use GPS technology, compass navigation, handle radio. They have also been trained on basic combat and first-aid skills, crime scene investigation and animal attack action as part of a 'smart patrolling' initiative.
The 500 sqkm park has about 32 rhinos, a majority of which have been reintroduced from Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary and Kaziranga National Park since 2008. At least eight rhinos were killed between 2011 (when the park got back its World Heritage Site status) and 2014. Last year, however, no poaching incident was reported.
"Foot patrolling is also being carried out in tandem with bike patrolling. Each bike carries two frontline guards," Aaranyak's tiger research and conservation division head M Firoz Ahmed said. He explained that the area covered during patrolling has increased after 20 frontline guards started using the two-wheelers.
"We have divided the bikes between two groups. Each group is provided with GPS gadget. This enhances monitoring," Ahmed added.