A dominant male rhino named Napoleon killed two calves, but the herd still grew

DTR Field Director H. Rajamohan said the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve recorded a net increase of five rhinos in the latest census, despite three recent deaths caused by territorial conflicts and predation.

The casualties included a four-year-old male calf named Himanshu and Kalpana’s eight-month-old female calf, both killed in attacks by an 18-year-old dominant male rhino named Napoleon, in August 2025 and January 2026 respectively. Another female rhino, Rajeshwari, was killed by two tigers in March this year.

Even with those losses, the rhino population in the reserve has increased to 53, according to the fourth rhino census conducted between June 25 and 27. The census recorded 17 adult males, 25 adult females and 11 calves older than one year, carried out by 20 teams of trained forest personnel and WWF-India staff surveying atop camp elephants.

The reserve’s rhino reintroduction programme began in 1984 with seven founder rhinos translocated from Assam and Nepal, and the population has since grown more than seven-fold, coexisting with tigers, elephants, leopards and sloth bears.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/by Ankit Srivastava