You remember Kale? The baby rhino, Bhunte met on 2nd April, 2017? If you do not, then read this. Today again, Bhunte met Kale and in a very hilarious place. He was behind the piles of dungs and sniffing them. “Oye Kale, how have you been?” Bhunte trumpeted. “Oh Goodness gracious! Bhunte? I am so happy to see you.” Kale bleated and came running towards Bhunte. “By the way, what are those heaps?” Bhunte sniffed. “You know Bhunte, we defecate in the same place. It’s a kind of community-based latrine, if I can say that, humans call them the ‘dung midden’ and also territory marking areas for us. My uncles who are dominant, tends to defecate at the center and while we defecate at the periphery of these hills. And even our aunts and uncles use this as a source of the information, to know who is how old? What is their gender? Who is sexually matured? Who is ready for mating? Who is pregnant and all. This is their ‘twitter’ where they ‘post’ about their reproductive and physiological states” Kale laughed and explained Bhunte. Bhunte was surprised about this “Gobar ko thupro” (in Nepali language, it means piles of dung). And he was also astonished by the fact that Kale knows many things and he behaves like a learned geek (While I run around my forest, following some butterflies and skidding in the mud). Bhunte felt whether he should have become like Kale. But, “who cares!” Bhunte rumbled. “Excuse me?” Kale humbly bleated. “Nothing, Kale, I was just trying to contact my mom, and you know what, we defecate wherever we want” Bhunte took pride and trumpeted. And he defecated right in front of Kale. “Gross!” Kale bleated and went off. “By the way, there is a funny story. One of our uncles, Mailo baaje, went off the forest, many of the forest workers started looking for him. He was not to be found a whole day. They thought that Mailo baaje was killed by poachers. Next day morning, he was there in our dung midden, happily defecating. Wherever we go, we come back to defecate at one place. It keeps our forest more cleaner! Huh, unlike you!” Kale turned around and walked away arrogantly. Bhunte, for the first time, felt challenged. Could be his rising testosterone? He kept wondering…

Sanjeeta Sharma Pokharel (SSP)

To know more about such behaviours in Rhino, read this.