The Australian Orangutan Project, Asian Rhino Project, Free the Bears and the Silvery Gibbon Project, all long standing Registered Australian Environmental Organisations, have joined to form a new umbrella organisation called ‘Wildlife Asia’. The primary objective of Wildlife Asia is to increase conservation contribution, capacity and efficiency for wildlife conservation. We are holding our first fundraising event to launch this exciting new partnership on Sunday 18th March 2012 in Perth. Please visit our events page http://www.asianrhinos.org.au/index.php/events/to find out more details.

GUWAHATI/JORHAT: Officials of Kaziranga and Orang national parks successfully foiled two separate attempts by poachers to kill rhinos in the precincts of the parks.

The anti-poaching operations in the two national parks have been intensified following increasing attempts by poachers to kill rhinos, whose horns are in demand in Southeast Asian markets where they are used in traditional medicine recipes.

At Kaziranga on Monday, forest guards resorted to gunfire when a gang of three poachers sneaked into the Bagori forest range of the park on Sunday night. The combing operation in the dense areas of the park lasted till 11.30 am, but the poachers managed to escape. They, however, could not kill any rhino.

"We heard a gunshot inside the forest. Our staff opened fire in retaliation. But no one was injured in the exchange of fire. There were three poachers in all, equipped with a .303 rifle. However, they managed to escape," a Kaziranga park official said.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-01-24/guwahati/30658850_1_male-rhino-kaziranga-bagori

A Sumatran rhino which is 10-months pregnant is receiving special medical care after suffering two miscarriages, a conservationist said Thursday, fuelling hope for the critically-endangered species.

The nine-year old rhino, named Ratu, is expected to give birth in July to only the fourth Sumatran rhino born in captivity and the first in Indonesia.

Her partner Andalas, born in the United States in 2001, was the first Sumatran rhino born in captivity in over 112 years.

"We have given her special hormone treatments to lessen the risk of miscarriage. Thank God, it is working well and we hope she'll have a successful birth," Widodo Ramono from the Rhino Foundation of Indonesia told AFP.

"It will be the first Sumatran rhino born in captivity in Indonesia," Ramono added.

Ratu and Andalas were paired in 2009 at a sanctuary in Way Kambas national park in Lampung, South Sumatra province, two years after Andalas was brought from the Cincinnati zoo for a breeding programme.

Andalas is the only remaining male Sumatran rhino at Way Kambas since Torgamba, another male, died last year. The sanctuary has three female Sumatran rhinos.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jEIIntExT2oRoLYTylvy_48kWL9Q?docId=CNG.9b85f775f5b7b19e457520d9fc90094f.151

Captured in a Borneo forest on Christmas Day, she is the latest addition to Malaysia's Borneo Rhino Sanctuary -- and experts say she may also be one of the last hopes for a species on the brink of extinction.

Veterinarians want to introduce Puntung to Tam, a 20-year-old male Sumatran rhinoceros in the enclosure next door, in the hopes that they will breed -- although this cannot take place for a number of months yet, until Puntung is deemed ready.

Estimated to be 10 to 12 years old, she was airlifted to the sanctuary in the Tabin Forest Reserve after her capture, and has since been adjusting to her new home, eating more than 60 kg of leaves each day.

"She doesn't look stressed, she's eating well ... but the stress (of a new environment) is enough to offset her cycle, her normal cycle," said Zainal Zahari Zainuddin, a veterinarian with the Borneo Rhino Alliance.

"So she may not have a cycle now. That's why we're monitoring her."

Captive breeding is now regarded as the only way to boost the population of the two-horned Sumatran rhino, which at 500 to 600 kg and 1.3 metres tall is the world’s smallest rhino.

Though she is the right age to breed, she may well turn out to be infertile, said John Payne, at the Borneo Rhino Alliance. "The rhinos that were caught in Malaysia. Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sumatra in the past ... quite a few wild caught females did have reproductive tract problems. They weren't producing eggs or they had cysts or tumors in the fallopian tubes," Payne said.

"So we are not over the hurdle yet. It may prove that she's not fertile, in which case we need to go on what sort of treatments might be possible to make her fertile."

If Puntung shows signs of being ready after six months of observation, she'll be released into an enclosure with Tam, who walked out of a palm oil plantation in 2008 and refused to go back into the forest.

The two are now being kept in adjacent paddocks so each is aware of the other's existence. But Sumatran rhinos are solitary animals and only come together in the wild for courtship and the rearing of young.

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Rhino+romance+last+hope/6034100/story.html

The Australian Orangutan Project, Asian Rhino Project, Free the Bears and the Silvery Gibbon Project, all long standing Registered Australian Environmental Organisations, have joined to form a new umbrella organisation called 'Wildlife Asia'. The primary objective of the Wildlife Asia is to increase conservation contribution, capacity and efficiency for wildlife conservation. We are holding our first fundraising event to launch this exciting new partnership on Sunday 18th March 2012 in Perth. Please visit our events page http://www.asianrhinos.org.au/index.php/events/to find out more details.

2 Pobitora rhinos to be translocated to Manas rhinos will be translocated from Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary to Manas National Park between January 8 and 9, asbpart of the Indian Rhino Vision (IRV) 2020 project. The chosen animals are likely to be young females, which will be moved by road transport supervised by forest department, an official stated. During the period of the operation the Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary will remain closed to visitors as it involves a degree of risk to people in the vicinity. The entire operation will be carried out under strict vigil and only authorized personnel will be present. 

11 January 2012. Camera traps have successfully taken photos of 35 Javan rhinos (Rhinoceros sondaicus) in Ujung Kulon National Park. The small population, with an estimated 45 or so individuals, is the species’last stand against extinction. Late last year, a subspecies of the Javan rhino, the Vietnamese rhino (Rhinoceros sondaicus annamiticus), was declared extinct. Read more at http://www.southeastasiacampaign.org/2012/01/11/five-rhino-calves-photograph

The number of Sumatran rhinoceroses in the peninsula has dwindled to a level where one rhino might never meet another of its kind in its entire lifetime. Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) conservation division senior assistant director Mohd Samsudin Mohd Suri said it had been more than 15 years since a Sumatran rhinoceros had been seen in the wild. Read more at http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Malaysia/Story/A1Story20111229-318854.html

There was a time when poachers would kill one-horned rhino in Chitwan National Park (CNP) every week but in the past one year not a single rhino has been killed in the whole country. The last time poachers had killed a male rhino was on January 3 in the Dhoba Post area of CNP. "We have decided to celebrate Zero Poaching Year on Januray 3, 2012," said Chief Conservation Officer at CNP Jhamak Bahadur Karki. Read more at http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=39893#

A Swiss museum has taken the drastic step of replacing the horns of its rhinos with fakes to deter thieves fuelling a lucrative global trade.

Read more at http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10774696