Watch A Man Walk His Pet Rhino Down The Street Like It’s A Well-Trained Dog

A viral video uploaded by YouTuber, Sidd k, shows two men walking a rhino down a busy city street in Nepal. Despite the hubbub of the city around it, the animal is surprisingly calm. Furthermore, the people on the street seem casual about the sighting, without anyone showing much interest in the massive lumbering beast.

Is it common to see rhinos walking around in villages in Nepal? Are these men keeping the rhino as a pet? Could it be a wild animal that they are guiding out of the city? To find out what’s going on in this video, we decided to take a closer look.

What Kind of Rhinos Live in Nepal?

There are around 4,000 greater one-horned rhinos, also known as Indian rhinos, living in northeastern India and Nepal. Although we don’t have confirmation, the rhino on the video appears to be a greater one-horned rhino. This rhino species was nearly driven to extinction with only 200 individuals remaining at the beginning of the 20th century.

However, thanks to conservation efforts, its population has successfully rebounded over the past 25 years. The rhino’s horns sell for exorbitant amounts on the black market, making them vulnerable to poachers. But today, the Nepalese government carefully protects the rhinos from poachers within protected areas of wildlife refuges. This has helped the greater one-horned rhino improve from endangered to vulnerable.

This Rhino May Have Wandered Into the City Looking For Food

The rhino we see in the video is likely not anyone’s pet but might be a resident of Chitwan National Park. This wildlife refuge is a UNESCO World Heritage Center. It is a protected home to rhinos, elephants, tigers, and other mammals. It’s possible this rhino wandered into the city from the park looking for food.

In Nepal, the grasslands where rhinos roam have become grazing lands for cows. Because human and rhino habitats overlap, rhinos are likely to show up in highly populated areas. Although rhinos are usually peaceful, they can get aggressive when threatened. Because of their immense size (up to 6,600 pounds) and sharp horns, they can be very dangerous. There are several deaths per year in Nepal and India from human-rhino encounters.

Greater One-Horned Rhino Sightings Are Common in Nepal

As one travel writer describes, it’s not an unusual sight to see a rhino casually walking down a busy street in a village in Nepal (near the national parks). The traveler was told by villagers that every other day a rhino made the journey from its home in Chitwan National Park into the village. The rhino walked through the streets on its way to the rice fields on the other side of the village where it would have a feast. Once it was done eating rice, it would walk back through the bustling crowds to its home in the park. The traveler was lucky enough to see the rhino make its journey through the center of the town with tourists excitedly snapping pictures and getting videos, seemingly unconcerned that a potentially dangerous animal was nearby.

Is the Rhino in the Video Healthy?

There were commenters on the video concerned the rhino looked too skinny because you could see its ribs. However, when you take a look at images of the greater one-horned rhinos, they have obvious skin folds that are similar to the rhino in the video. Without more information, this rhino appears to be in good shape.

Has Anyone Tried to Domesticate a Rhino?

Unlike domesticated animals, such as cows, rhinos are wild without any history of human domestication. Domestication changes an animal through generations of breeding programs. Taming, on the other hand, doesn’t change an animal’s genes, but only changes the behavior of one animal.

Rhinos, and other wild animals, may be tamed, but they are still unpredictable and dangerous to keep. You can get an animal used to being around humans, but unlike our pets and agricultural animals, it will always be a wild animal. This is why there are so many sad instances of humans with exotic pets such as monkeys or tigers getting injured or killed by an animal they thought was tame.

Though there have been myths of war rhinos that were trained to fight alongside ancient warriors, there is no evidence war rhinos ever existed.

So What is Going on in the Video?

Although we can’t know for sure what’s happening in the video, it’s possible this rhino wandered in the village looking for food. We can guess the men are guiding it out of the city back to its home in the wild. This would be the best scenario because rhinos are wild creatures and wouldn’t be happy as someone’s pet.