Peter Denton reports from the front line

When the end came, it came quickly. From his vantage point high on the back of an elephant, the marksman aimed… a crack rang out… and the rhino, prized and endangered because of its horn, stood no chance. Another day, another statistic.

Except that this was no ordinary day, no ordinary statistic. The location was the Royal Chitwan National Park, one of the jewels in Nepal's proud conservation record. The marksman was Dr Claude Martin, International Secretary General of WWF, and the rhino, once shot, collapsed gently into nothing more than a deep sleep.

Species conservation at its best
This was species conservation at its best. What we were witnessing was the painstakingly planned hunt, capture and translocation of the first of 10 greater one-horned rhinos as part of WWF's careful programme to save the species from extinction. The forces involved in this day-long operation were 24 elephants and their drivers (phanits), 15 field crew, four trucks, an earth digger and 15 labourers. Plus one honorary marksman.

Director in charge of the operation was Dr Shant Raj Jnawali. "The first thing" he told me, "is to respect the rhino. It's not small, it will probably weigh two tonnes or more, and it won't be pleased to see us. It can sometimes be quite tricky."

The first trick, after a pre-dawn journey by jeep over rough Chitwan terrain, was to learn to stand confidently on a seated elephant's leg in order to be hoisted atop this four metre-high beast. Minutes later, we began our hunt for the rhino, swathing our way through dense pampas-style grass that really was, to paraphrase Oscar Hammerstein, as high as an elephant's eye.

Then we saw it.

There, no more than a stone's throw away, was our quarry: one handsome, alert and very wary rhino. Our phanits started yelling instructions to each other; our elephants broke into a trot. The chase was on.

But nothing is simple. Was this the "right" rhino? Was it fully grown? A juvenile? A female? And if so, did she have a calf? (If the answer is "yes", she can't be touched.) Such are the instant judgements and decisions that have to be made on the trot. On this occasion, any debate was academic, anyway: the rhino neatly and swiftly vanished into the thick scrub. To be frank, we lost it completely.

But not the next. An hour or so later, admittedly, but endangered pachyderms don't come two a penny. There at last, not far from the river, was exactly the specimen we wanted.

With deft actions, our phanits manoeuvred the 24 elephants into a pincer movement to encourage the rhino away from the river (where it might panic and drown). So it headed for the tall grasses – but wherever it moved, it was inevitably confronted by a well-positioned elephant. This was clever, pre-planned stuff.

"We must waste no time" murmured Shant Raj Jnawali.
"We need to keep it in the open and within darting range. There's no time to lose."

Completely encircled
Less than 15 minutes later, the animal was completely encircled by elephants. It gradually slowed down… then came to a complete stop. It just stood there, gazing in some bewilderment at the Hannibal army that surrounded it. It was as though it knew the game was up.

Claude Martin, himself a former game warden, was handed a rifle and a dart containing a cocktail of etorphin hydrochloride and Acepromazine – M99 to you and me. Claude took aim… fired… and to the animal's displeasure he struck a bull's eye in its rear thigh.

A few minutes later, two tonnes of armoured flesh and blood drifted into the land of nod – then all around it, something approaching bedlam broke out. People were cascading from elephants, a tractor towing a sledge appeared from nowhere; so, too, did a vet with a stethoscope to check the animal's heartbeat and blood pressure, a technician with a radio collar to put round its neck, a man with a large cloth to cover its eyes, a labourer with a water supply to pour over the animal and keep it cool, and a man with a clipboard and a calliper to measure its most prized possession – the horn on the end of its nose.

"We have to move very fast indeed" Shant told me. "The tranquilliser will wear off after an hour and a half. We have to move it half a kilometre, cage it, and get it onto the back of a truck before it wakes up. Because believe me, when it wakes it's going to be pretty angry."

I believed him.

Before long, some 40 men roughly but carefully manoeuvred the deadweight rhino onto the sledge, and at that point Shant yelled for silence. "I name this rhino… Claude!" he announced to enthusiastic applause – and WWF's International Secretary General beamed with self-conscious pleasure.

Through the jungle we marched, with Claude carefully in tow. On to a large clearing, where a truck was waiting and where labourers had spent the day constructing a large and very sturdy cage.

And slowly, slowly, the sledge bearing the still sleeping beauty was carefully eased into the cage. With a resounding thwack the shutters at each end were dropped – and the capture was complete.

For all concerned – not least the rhino in question, it occurred to me – it was a day to remember. Better than a day in the office.

The following day, Claude was moved by road to the Royal Bardia National Park, some 600 kilometres (but 16 hours drive) away. There, he joined the community of 67 other rhinos and has settled in well. A further nine rhinos were captured that week in Chitwan, and were distributed to Bardia and the Royal Suklaphanta wildlife reserve in the far west of Nepal, where rhino numbers are dangerously low.

Translocating rhinos: why?
Given that the one-horned rhino is critically endangered around the world, why crate it up and move it from one location to another?

The answer is that although the species is indeed endangered, that's not the case in Nepal's Royal Chitwan National Park. Out of a world population of 2,100 presently surviving in the wild, some 550 are to be found at Chitwan. In the late 1960s, there were fewer than 80 there.

By any stretch of imagination, this is a conservation success story. But success brings its own problems. Like many animals, the rhino is a territorial beast, and many experts say that the rising numbers cannot be sustained in the limited area of the National Park. Indeed, some rhinos have been spotted fighting each other for space, and injuries can be fatal.

So, quite simply, there's not enough room at Chitwan – but elsewhere in Nepal, there's plenty. There are, for example, just 100 rhinos in the Royal Bardia National Park, and a mere handful at the Suklaphanta wildlife reserve in the far west of Nepal. Both places can comfortably accommodate more animals.

WWF's objectives in translocating rhinos are to protect them from any natural and other disaster. We achieve these goals by developing a second home for this endangered species and building further viable populations in other protected areas, where numbers are much lower.