The Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC) in Kaziranga stepped into the 20th year of wildlife conservation service on Saturday.
CWRC is a jointly run wildlife care facility of Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) and Assam Forest Department (AFD), supported by international partner International Fund for Animal Welfare(IFAW).
The centre for wildlife rehabilitation and conservation was started at Panbari Reserve Forest of Kaziranga National Park & Tiger Reserve on August 28 in 2002.
Congratulating the team CWRC on the foundation day, P. Sivakumar, the Director of Kaziranga National Park & Tiger Reserve along with Ramesh Gogoi, DFO, and Eastern Assam Wildlife Division along with other senior forest officials suggested their valuable inputs for further strengthening the wildlife conservation service in Assam.
With the completion of 19 years of service since inception, CWRC and its satellite facilities have attended a total of 7,532 wildlife cases belonging to 258 species of mammals, birds and reptiles in Assam till July 2021.
Of these, 22% belonged to mammals, 36% birds and 42% reptiles. Overall, 63.73% of the animals attended by the team in Assam have been released back to the wild, said a WTI-CWRC statement.
The CWRC has attended 101 rhino cases in Assam.
Till date, 20 hand-raised rhinos were translocated from Kaziranga National Park to Manas National Park by CWRC team jointly with the Assam forest department.
The rehabilitated rhinos gave birth to 11 newborn rhino calves in Manas National Park.
CWRC released two rehabilitated rhinos in Kaziranga National Park as well.