Assam’s Environment and Forest Department has decided to destroy the rhinoceros horns, elephant tusks (ivory) and body parts of other protected animals stored in the district treasuries.
About 5% of the specimens would be preserved for education, awareness and scientific purposes, Chief Wildlife Warden M.K. Yadava said on Monday.
The destruction of the horns and other animal articles would be in conformity with a relevant section of the Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972.
A State-level committee has been constituted for this purpose and a public hearing will be held on August 29 at the Assam Forest School Campus in Guwahati in compliance with a Gauhati High Court order on December 13, 2000, Mr. Yadava said.
Ahead of the public hearing, the Forest Department constituted zonal committees for as many zones for the verification of rhino horns, ivory and other animal articles.
These committees have been tasked with cleaning the horns, getting them examined by forensic experts, generating a unique identification number to be labelled as barcode, and keep them in separate boxes for destruction after sorting 5% of the “unique character” horns to be sealed for preservation.
The horns involved in court cases confirmed to be fake and doubtful cases would also have to be kept in separate boxes and sealed.
“The entire operation would be live on big monitors outside the [sorting] hall for public viewing and transparency,” Mr Yadava said.
‘Largest’ horn
The Assam government had in 2016 constituted the Rhino Horn Verification Committee to study the specimens kept in 12 treasuries across the State. The exercise was a bid to allay public apprehensions about tampering and allegations that Forest officials having been illegally trading the horns collected from dead rhinos or retrieved from poachers and smugglers.
According to its report submitted in December 2016, the committee verified 2,020 out of the 2,033 rhino horns kept in the treasuries. The remaining 13 could not be verified because of technical reasons.
Of the verified horns, five were found to be fake.
During the course of the verification process, the committee recorded the “world’s largest” horn weighing 3.051 kg and 36 cm in height. The horn was found in 1982 from a rhino in the Bagori Range of Kaziranga National Park.
The only horn recorded to be bigger at that time was 60 cm in height and kept at the British Museum in London. The horn was collected from Assam in 1909 but there is no mention of its weight.
