What to do when there’s a rhino in your garden

Experience the wild side of Nepal in Chitwan National Park, where rhinos and elephants roam freely. Photo / 123rf
Elen Turner takes her first trip to Nepal with her daughter, where, unbeknown to some, there is a host of rhinos, crocodiles, tigers and elephants to discover
It’s probably not something you’ve contemplated while sitting in your Auckland garden, the only natural hazard being a territorial tūī. But while basking in the late-December sunshine at the River View Jungle Camp in Nepal’s Chitwan National Park, owner Krishna had my family contemplate what we would do if a rhino got into the garden.
“Does it happen often?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
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“Oh yes! Not here, but at the neighbours’,” Krishna-dai replied. He pointed to the metal barricade-like fence at the bottom of the garden. “That’s to keep the rhinos out.”
Nepal’s Chitwan National Park, a six-hour drive from both Kathmandu and Pokhara, has run a very successful one-horned rhinoceros conservation programme over the past couple of decades. Although its stretch of several “zero-poaching years” was broken by Covid, there are still hundreds of the armour-plated animals living in the national park — and beyond it, too.
Rhinos don’t understand where the park boundaries end, so they’re often seen foraging around Sauraha, Chitwan’s main tourism hub. The trick, of course, is to give them a wide berth—and because they’re protected, the villagers can’t do much to protect their crops. Rhinos are incredibly powerful but they’re not usually looking for trouble. The wild elephants are more concerning. Krishna-dai told us about when a male wild elephant had recently entered the garden. They could do nothing but hide inside and wait out the rampage.
This was my third visit to Chitwan, but my first with my half-Nepali, fully Nelson-raised 6-year-old daughter. On a previous visit, I’d seen nine rhinos on one safari trip. I’d led Rosa to believe this would be a defining experience in her trip to her fatherland. I’d promised her Everest and the Annapurnas, elephants and rhinos.
Our first foray into the park was an early-morning dugout canoe ride on the Rapti River. My partner, a former whitewater rafting guide on Nepal’s mountain rivers, thought it was all a bit tame, with no rapids in sight. Until, that is, our guide Lokendra pointed out little mud caves in the riverbanks: crocodile hideouts. You don’t see them on Himalayan rivers—or on Nelson’s Maitai. Nepal’s crocodiles are the thin-snouted gharials and the somewhat more fearsome mugger, or marsh, crocs. The muggers are responsible for some human deaths, we were told, but they don’t stalk their human prey the way Australia’s salties do, so we didn’t need to be too worried about the thin margin between our canoe and the water.
Next up was a forest walk. We strolled at a child’s pace through the grass and scrubland, checking out curiosities like the namaste plant, the leaves of which fold together like hands performing the Hindu greeting when you brush against them, and a tiger footprint in the dust. It was the closest we came to a big cat because Chitwan’s tigers know what’s best for them and generally hide.
A little further along, Lokendra got talking to some local men coming towards us. I caught the word “hathi” several times: elephant. A wild elephant had been spotted that morning, so Lokendra thought we’d better turn around, “because it would be difficult to run with a child.” He was calm (an admirable Nepali trait until you feel urgency may be warranted) and we ambled back, but I would have been happier at a brisk jog. I was confident Rosa’s dad would scoop her up and leg it if we were charged by an angry elephant, but I didn’t fancy my own chances.
We made it back to our Jeep in one piece for the next activity: a vehicle safari deep into the park. With the memory of my previous nine-rhino excursion, I had high expectations. But when it comes to wildlife spotting in Chitwan, season is everything. Animals tend to hide between April and October, when the scorching temperatures scare off visitors, too. Post-monsoon, metres-tall elephant grass grows in the park, further obscuring wildlife from sight. In late January, the indigenous Tharu people are permitted to cut the grass to thatch their roofs. This year, we’d come to Chitwan in mid-winter, which was great for escaping the heat, but the grass hadn’t yet been cut. There could have been dozens of rhinos and tigers watching us from the grass, but we couldn’t see them.
I tried not to be disappointed because I’d seen rhinos before, but I didn’t want Rosa to miss out. She seemed satisfied with the gharials we’d seen at the breeding centre and the tame domesticated elephants around town. That evening though, as we were sitting down to dinner, the neighbouring hotel alerted us to a rhino in their garden. Torches were pressed into our hands and we were ushered on to the rooftop terrace. As our eyes adjusted to the darkness and we settled into silence, we heard the rustling and scrabbling a few metres beneath us. Torchlight illuminated a gentle giant, munching quietly away, seemingly unaware that he was the centre of attention.
Rosa quite liked the story of the tiger who came to tea, but now she likes the one about the rhino who came to dinner even more.
GETTING THERE
Fly from Auckland to Kathmandu with one stopover with China Southern, Qatar Airways, Cathay Pacific and Emirates. Chitwan National Park is approx. five hours by car, west of Kathmandu.
DETAILS
ntb.gov.np