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Shebbkark, E. O. (1953). “Status of the Three Asiatic Rhinoceros,” Oryx, Vol. II, No. 3.

Smythies, E. A. (1942). Big Game Shooting in Nepal.

Smythies, Olive (1953). Tiger Lady.

Stracey, P. D. (1957). “The Status of the Great Indian Rhinoceros (R. unicornis) in Nepal.” Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, August, 1957.

After a brief halt in Calcutta to discuss with Dr. Roonwal {Director of the Zoological Survey of India and Secretary-General of the Indian Board for Wild Life) ways of assisting Nepal to stop any possible traffic of rhinoceros produce through India, I arrived at Katmandu by air on 15th March. There I spent six days before going into camp in the rhinoceros areas, which are a day's journey by road. This period was very usefully employed in making contact with officials and non-officials, and in obtaining information of every description. These contacts included : General Kiran, S.J.B.R. (Shumshere Jung Bahadur Rana), who is the present authoritative and acknowledged leader in all matters pertaining to sport and wild life in Nepal; Field Marshal Kaiser, S.J.B.R., who, though he has not visited the rhinoceros area since 1933, has a vast store of knowledge of shikar and natural history; Mr. Balarama Paul Baidya, Chief Forest Officer; Major Lok Bikram, in charge of elephants (Government and others); Captain Tej Jung Thapa, Circle Conservator; Colonel and Mrs. Proud of the British Embassy; Mr. N. Pal, Adviser on Forests, India Aid Mission ; and Mr. Boris Lissanevitch, of the Hotel Royal, who knows the rhinoceros area.

Chitawan and neighbouring areas of Nepal have long been famous for their abundance of big game, including the Great Indian One-horned Rhinoceros, Rhinoceros unicornis, which is now one of the vanishing species of the world. For many years this part of southern central Nepal was the strictly guarded shooting preserve of the rulers of that country ; but with the advent of democracy and unsettled political conditions in 1951, the exact status of the area and of the rhinoceros in it has not been clear to the outside world. Reports were in circulation of alarming slaughter by poachers in recent years, especially in the year 1958–59 ; but lack of authentic information prompted the Survival Service Commission of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature to ask me to investigate the distribtion and status of the Rhinoceros in Nepal, and to suggest measures for the preservation of this species in Nepal.

The rhinoceros area in Nepal covers approximately 1,250 square miles, comprising the valleys of the Rivers Narayani, Rapti, and Reu. Although it is dun country, it contains most of the sub-tropical vegetation usually associated with terai country, and can roughly be divided into (1) riverain, (2) grassland above flood level, and (3) sal forest. The hills are almost entirely under sal (Shorea robusta), a valuable hardwood.

The present rhinoceros areas of Nepal, in fact the whole of that country, have been up till recent times a closed book to foreigners. Visits by outsiders were discouraged, even forbidden. Perhaps the first foreigner to tour in the Nawalpur, Chita wan, and Reu Valley areas was Mr. E. A. Smythies, who during World War II, was Forest Adviser to the Nepal Government. In the course of his duties Smythies visited almost all the submontane tracts along the 500 mile sal belts of the Nepal terai.

The Atlantic Grey Seal, Halichoerus grypus, is one of the world's rarer mammals. In 1954 R. M. Lockley estimated its total population as 33,500 and there is no reason to suppose there has since been an increase. About 20,000 of these seals live in colonies around the coasts of the British Isles, all on the north and west, except for one colony which inhabits the Fame Islands, a National Trust nature reserve off the Northumberland coast.

In August, 1949, the International Union for the Protection of Nature held a conference at Lake Success, U.S.A., under the good offices of UNESCO. The conference was attended by representatives from thirty-two countries and from all the continents. The first subject to be studied was education in nature protection. The second was ecology and this was divided into sections of which Section f, under the chairmanship of Mr. Harold J. Coolidge, was devoted to “Emergency Action for preserving vanishing species of flora and fauna”. The deliberations of this section resulted in Resolution No. 15 of the main conference which reads: “That the International Union for the Protection of Nature should establish a ‘Survival Service’ for the assembling, evaluation, and dissemination of information on and the study of, all species of fauna and flora that appear to be threatened with extinction, in order to assist governments and appropriate agencies in assuring their survival.”

This is an old topic and a battle in which our Society has been fighting for the past thirty-five years on behalf of wild life. Here is some new scientific light upon it.