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Bored Panda reports:

Kaziranga National Park is a story of success when it comes to conservation of rhinos – but what they’ve done to achieve it is allowing its workers to shoot and even kill potential poachers. So far, the park has killed 50 people.

I find this hard to believe, but I only got two hits in a web search, and both are click bait, and one is a cut/paste from the other. I'll try a few other search strings, but if someone actually knows whether it's true.....

Oddthinking
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WGroleau
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    What specifically is the claim you want verified? For example, Wikipedia links [a report](https://www.telegraphindia.com/1070425/asp/northeast/story_7692141.asp) on one incident where the park claims they returned fire when the poachers attacked the guards, which would indicate they will shoot poachers, at least if they shoot first. – Batman Feb 14 '17 at 21:00
  • The part that was hard to believe hangs on the word "potential." But as you can see in the answer attributed to me, it's even worse than Bored Panda states. ("attributed" because it has been edited beyond recognition. Would have been better to write your own answer if you thought mine was that bad.) – WGroleau Feb 16 '17 at 14:18

2 Answers2

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As far as we can tell, yes. Rangers in Kaziranga park have killed 72 suspected poachers between 2007 and February 10th, 2017

Here is a report from the BBC from February 10th regarding the park and its policy.

Its rangers have been given the kind of powers to shoot and kill normally only conferred on armed forces policing civil unrest.

They have a chart approximately halfway down the page that indicates that 72 poachers have been killed in the past decade, the majority of which were killed during 2014 and 2015:

Graph of Poachers killed by year

There are actually some parts of your linked story that may have been lifted directly from the BBC article.

BBC - At one stage the park rangers were killing an average of two people every month - more than 20 people a year. Indeed, in 2015 more people were shot dead by park guards than rhinos were killed by poachers.

BoredPanda - However, more people were shot dead by park guards then the number of rhinos killed by poachers.

Another article was published by theconversation.com a day after the BBC article.

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DenisS
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-1

It's actually true.

SaveTheRhino reproduce a 2012 article about the the issue:

Very occasionally, shoot-to-kill is not only tolerated but encouraged, as a way of sending a very clear signal to poaching gangs, and rewarding the bravery of the rhinos’ protectors. In Kaziranga National Park, India, forest guards receive a cash bonus to their salary if they successfully wound and kill a poacher. This stance has affected funding; indeed this policy caused the BBC Wildlife Fund to pull out of planned funding for the programme a couple of years ago.

Oddthinking
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WGroleau
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  • 1. Please keep commentary out of the answer. 2. You may also want to quote out of the article and make factual statements regarding the rules. – Larian LeQuella Feb 15 '17 at 03:22
  • The "commentary" deleted WAS a factual statement, unless the article is false. – WGroleau Feb 15 '17 at 20:39
  • Not quite. You were making a value judgement without supporting it when you said "unfortunately". And when you painted the scenario, that was just stating an outlook. If you have supporting evidence to back up those statements (or if they are in the article), then please provide that. – Larian LeQuella Feb 15 '17 at 20:45
  • Read it yourself. On with the down Votes! – WGroleau Feb 15 '17 at 20:48
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    To point 2 in my initial post. Link only answers is what gets the down votes. Put some effort into constructing a good answer, and hopefully those down votes will get reversed. – Larian LeQuella Feb 15 '17 at 20:50