Dudhwa's Rehab Programme
The plan to replicate one of the country's most successful rhino rehabilitation programme at the Dudhwa National Park in Uttar Pradesh is stuck for want of a sedating drug
Etorphine
Etorphine (M99) and its antidote - a drug banned in India and produced in some African countries.
The drug is used to immobilise large animals like the rhino. It is required to shift some of them from their present enclosed area to the new one, and to do tests.
What's the programme all about?
The plan is to rehabilitate three rhinos in an enclosed area of the Belraya Range of the forest to Sonaripur Range's enclosure where 34 rhinos thrive.
Dhudwa national park
Abode to a highly diverse ecosystem at the heart of Terai region bordering Nepal, Dudhwa has several endangered animals, including tigers, elephants, Indian rhino, leopard, barasingha (swamp deer), sloth bear and others.
Considered as an example of one of the most successful rehabilitation programmes in India, rhinos were re-introduced in Dudhwa in 1985. A natural habitat for rhinos, with a mixture of dense Sal forests, grasslands and ponds, Dudhwa's first batch of six rhinos was brought from Assam in