An incredible video of a one-day-old rhino taking its first steps in a national park in India is going viral online, and it’s making me question whether photography and writing are truly my callings, or if I should book a one-way flight to India to work with these adorable animals.
The video shows an adventurous one-day-old Indian greater one-horned rhino taking its first steps. And it was shared by Parveen Kaswan, who is the divisional forest officer of Jaldapara National Park (West Bengal), working for the Indian Forest Service (IFS)
If you have never seen how a one day old rhino baby looks like. In our national park every rhino is recorded and monitored. pic.twitter.com/U26W5J8OVCApril 15, 2026
While Kaswan didn’t state whether he personally captured the footage or when it was filmed, Indian travel magazine, Outlook Traveller, recirculated the video on Instagram, mentioning that it was recorded on New Year’s Day…of all dates!
The original footage is now nearing 100,000 views.
The greater one-horned rhino is the only rhino species that lives in India — although it can also be found in Nepal — and is the second largest, behind only the white rhino, which is an African species.
Also known as the Indian rhino, adults of this Asian species can weigh approximately 4,000–5,500lbs (1,800 to 2,500kg) and have a single thick black horn along with an armor-plated appearance thanks to rugged skin forming heavy folds.
Excessive sport hunting and agricultural expansion pushed the greater one-horned rhino to near extinction by the early 1900s, with numbers thought to have fallen as low as 200 individuals in the wild.
However, strict conservation efforts spanning decades have seen the species’ numbers rebound, with an increase of 71% in the last 12 years alone.
There are now over 4,000 greater one-horned rhinos in India, with the majority living in Kaziranga National Park (Assam region) and Jaldapara National Park — the latter seeing its rhino population grow to 332 the day our little friend was born.
What an amazing story of environmental custodianship, and thank goodness the ranger recorded the special moment of a newborn greater one-horned rhino taking its first exploratory steps in the wild.
On second thought, instead of quitting photography altogether, maybe I could become the official rhino photographer for Jaldapara National Park.
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