Kaziranga’s heroic sniffer dog ‘K9 Karina’ passes away after decade of service

A specially trained sniffer dog named ‘K9 Karina’ of Kaziranga National Park, known for her role in anti-poaching and anti-crime activities, has died due to old-age health-related problems, a Park official said on Friday.

A female German Shepherd, she served for 10 years in Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve with her handlers Jitu Gogoi and Manas Bora.

Besides patrolling, the dog was equipped to track poachers, sniff out wildlife parts during wildlife crime investigations and had assisted in solving many cases of poaching, the official said.

K9 Karina was trained in the Dog Training School of Bhopal based 23rd Battalion of Special Armed Forces as a part of sniffer dog programme of Traffic-India (WWF).

Also Read: Rafales, S-400s built by taxpayers: Assam CM calls GST ‘God-Sent’, not ‘Gabbar Singh Tax’

Her major achievements include assisting the forest patrol team to seize a 0.303 rifle in Karbi Anglong in 2023, helping the forest patrol team to identify a shelter of rhino poachers at Burapahar Range in 2018 and nabbed a person involved in the murder of a human in 2016, among others.

K9 Karina had participated in a dog parade at Bagori Range with the other sniffer dogs of the Park on the occasion of Republic Day this year.

The dog had recovered from a major surgery in December last year and had recovered well.

She again fell ill a few days ago due to old age problems and died on Thursday night.

The dog’s last rites were done at the headquarters of the 2nd Battalion of the Assam Forest Protection Force (AFPF) with staff members of the Park paying their last respect to the canine.