India's Realm of Big Animals

Overview

Kaziranga National Park in Assam, a UNESCO site, shelters royal tigers, Asian elephants and the world’s largest wild water‑buffalo population. Human settlements, a busy southern highway, rice fields and tea plantations fragment habitat; blocked elephant routes cause raids on crops and villages. Poaching endangers the Indian one‑horned rhino. Protector Raju Kutum cares for orphaned elephant calves at a rescue center and educates locals. The Brahmaputra forms Kaziranga’s north; sandbar cattle farmers rely on valuable offspring sired by swimming water buffalo, yet tigers that cross the river often kill their livestock.