‘They come right past the house’: learning to live with rhinos as numbers soar in Nepal

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The tourists lining the steep embankment buzzed with excitement, phones out, snapping away in the twilight as a wild Indian rhinoceros grazed below the Nepali village of Sauraha. Climbing to the main street, the rhino ambled down the middle of the road.

Local people warned tourists to give it plenty of space. All manner of wheeled vehicles slowed, then passed. The rhino turned its horn at a cyclist passing too close, triggering gasps from the assembled crowd.

Night had fallen by the time it reached the local hotel. The rhino, illuminated by headlights, turned to enter the grounds. The hotel manager stationed himself in the parking lot and shone a strobe torch in the rhino’s eyes.

A man holding a torch guides a rhinoceros through a hotel garden at night

Pausing momentarily, it turned, as the manager had hoped, on to the footpath through the garden, disappearing into the darkness behind the hotel.

The close encounter ended without incident, but as Nepal navigates more and more incidents of human-wildlife conflict, it is learning how to educate those most at risk.

In February, Doma Paudel, Nepal’s first female trail guide and founder of the Wildlife Victim Fund, held a seven-day immersive workshop, bringing together 21 emerging environmentalists to help them develop strategies to teach community members how to coexist more safely with megafauna.

A woman in khaki clothing and a camouflage hat with a long stick smiles at the camera in a green outdoors setting

A woman and a man walk down the street towards us. Other people walk behind them

A woman holds up a plant for three people around her to see in a green landscape

A woman talks as a group of people listen. They are outside and a body of water can be seen behind them

Rear view of a woman walking in the forest

“Wildlife populations are increasing and the number of [human-wildlife conflict] incidents is also rising,” she says. “This leads to growing anger, fear and concerns about livelihoods.”

Paudel knows first-hand how important it is to promote better human-wildlife coexistence. She grew up in a small village close to forests and fields. “Our farming was most affected by wild animals. To protect our crops, we built a watchtower in the field.”

When necessary, they would spend the night in the tower, attempting to drive off wildlife that came from the adjacent complex of protected forests, with Chitwan national park at its core.

A man wearing a makeshift mask crouches next to a small tree. Another man has climbed halfway up the tree

A large group of children sit on the floor of a large building

A group of Nepali village women sit on the floor to listen to a talk

A woman in a makeshift tiger mask pretends to be a tiger. Another woman in a camouflage outfit stands next to her

“Sometimes elephants even entered our home and ate all the stored food. In the beginning, my parents would have me climb trees to observe animals such as rhinoceroses, tigers and bears. Once, while cutting grass in a community forest, a leopard suddenly jumped right above my head.”

In 2004, while gathering firewood in the forest, Paudel’s mother was killed by a rhino.

Women are most vulnerable to potentially fatal encounters with wildlife because, in traditional Nepali society, they do the bulk of gathering of firewood, wild herbs and animal fodder in the forests. Paudel’s initiative has also included visiting villages to speak to mostly women and also schools, to start preparing children for potential encounters.

A makeshift shelter on stilts in a field

A woman sitting facing away from us in front of a field of plants holds a bunch of plants aloft

A woman with a large bundle of wood on her back smiles in a forest setting

Eleven people lost their lives in megafauna encounters in 2024, eight due to rhinoceros attacks.

In a sense, the country has become a victim of its own conservation success. By the early 1970s, only an estimated 100 rhinos remained in the country, mostly in Chitwan national park. But, with effective anti-poaching measures and community support, that number has risen more than sevenfold, with almost 700 of them living in and around the park.

“Tigers, rhinoceroses and gharials, which were once close to extinction, are now increasing thanks to joint efforts by communities and the national parks,” says Paudel.

As the number of rhinos has increased, so too has the number of people, including an influx of tourists.

People sit in chairs with an umbrella next to them. Other people stand around them. A body of water can be seen behind them.

A few people sit at tables and chairs next to a body of water in low light. Others stand around. Trees can be seen on the other side of the water

An elephant with a man riding on it among traffic

“In this past year or so, rhinoceroses more frequently come to our fields,” says Balkrishna Bhattarai, a farmer from Shikharpur in the Madi valley, on the other side of Chitwan national park from Sauraha. “Sometimes they come right past the front of the house.”

A woman sits indoors holding a photo of a man

The Madi valley is surrounded by forest, with the park to the north and west, and a buffer forest to the south. An unpaved road, crossing the park, connects to the rest of Nepal.

Three weeks earlier, Bhattarai’s son, Ashok, 22, had returned home for a visit from India, where he worked as a hotel restaurant cook. “There was a rhinoceros in our field, eating the crops,” Bhattarai said. Their field of mustard seed was almost ready to harvest. “He rushed to the field and tried to chase away the rhino but the rhino charged, killing him.”

Water buffalo and two children can be seen in a forested landscape next to a body of water

Large grassy structures either side of a path in a rural setting

A woman shows a large wound on her forearm

A short distance away, in Pandavnagar village, Juna Bote describes the last time she saw her husband, Bhanu, 34. “We had a good conversation over breakfast before he went fishing,” says Bote.

There were, she says, five or six people in the fishing party. From the riverbank, they saw a tiger in the distance. Usually, there was relative safety in numbers. This time, though, the tiger approached, grabbing Bote and dragging him into the jungle.

A woman and a child hold a plate between them on the step of a dwelling

When Juna returned from collecting firewood in the forest at about 3pm, her brother-in-law told her about the incident. All the search party could find was his clothing, including a blood-stained cap. No body was ever discovered.

After 13 years of marriage, Juna was left to raise five children. “I do whatever I can to survive. I’m afraid now to enter the forest [to collect firewood to sell], but what choice do I have?” she says.

“Space is to share with other animals. If we love nature, nature will love us back.”

A woman in a bright pink outfit steps out in front of a wild Indian rhinoceros on a street

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