A dead rhinoceros has floated down the Dudhkumar river into Kurigram from India. Local people said it was carried along by several days of heavy rain and the upstream flood.

On Wednesday, 8 October, forest department range officer Sadikur Rahman and Jewel Rana, curator of the Jamuna Bridge Regional Museum, came to see the animal where it lay stranded on a river char at Dakshinchhat Gopalpur in Tilai union of Bhurungamari.

Jewel Rana said the carcass had been covered with polythene. Once it has decomposed, in two months, the bones will be collected and preserved in the museum for use in education and research.

The animal was carried downstream by the current on the evening of Monday, 6 October, and became stuck on the char at Dakshinchhat Gopalpur.

Local resident Monjurul Islam said thousands of tree trunks and pieces of timber had come down the Kaljani and Dudhkumar rivers with the upstream flood, and the dead rhino came with them.

Tilai union parishad chairman Md Kamruzzaman said the dead rhino had been carried down by the flood and stranded on the Dudhkumar char. He informed the forest department on Tuesday after hearing about it from local people.

Kurigram forest department range officer Sadikur Rahman said: "The rhino is so big and heavy that it could not be moved. So we have asked for it to be buried in a pit on the spot. The museum people will collect its bones."

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.