There were two rhinos nosing at the door: the beautiful boiler-plated rhinos of India, the ones with the elegantly pleated Dürer skin. These two were knee-high, a few months old, and filled with an almost ludicrous excess of charm. They were orphans, and as orphans they would normally be dead. But these two had been rescued and were living with a couple of vets in the middle of the jungle, being prepared for the day when they would return to the wild.

I was in Assam, in the far northeastern corner of India, hard by the Panbari Forest Reserve and a few miles from Kaziranga National Park. Kaziranga is one of the great wonders of the world, a place where rhinos can be seen in numbers, at their ease. This is the one-horned rhino, Rhinoceros unicornis: in Kaziranga, unicorns are commonplace.

The two baby unicorns were doing well: fat as butter, with that light in the eye that is always so reassuring to people who look after animals. These rhinos were going to be all right. There was a great air of quiet confidence about this place, a feeling of people who know exactly what they are doing, and why.

The centre is run by a bullet-scarred vet, Dr Prasanta Boro, and his wife, another vet, Phulmoni Gogoi. They live in the jungle; they spend their time taking in sick and injured wild animals and making them better. There is an enviable simplicity about it. It is impossible to spend time there without wishing that you, too, were a jungle vet, making animals better, sharing your life with a lovely fellow vet and every now and then seeing one of your charges return to the wild: the ultimate piece of job satisfaction. This is the Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation, and it is run by the Wildlife Trust of India, a deeply impressive organisation. This was my second trip this year to visit the trust and its various and wide-ranging projects.

Here, the centre has rescued more than 1,000 animals since it was founded in 2002, including 40 species of mammal. These include tigers, leopards, elephants and Asiatic black bears, as well as many other creatures of less obvious charm. A recent success involved the re-release of three vultures that fell ill after feeding on a deliberately poisoned carcass.

A walk round the centre fills you with wonder and sadness. There was an orphaned hoolock gibbon, swinging mournfully by himself; but when he grows older he will be released back into the wild and, with luck, lead a full gibbon’s life. A hog deer, hit by a car, was limping around an adjacent enclosure, and mending. Don’t go too close: you don’t want these candidates for re-introduction to get too blasé about human beings.

There were a couple of huge and impressive buffalo to admire. There was a tiger and a leopard, both orphans: alas, there is no chance of getting these back to the wild, because hunting is a skill that needs to be learnt. But they have a future in captivity, enlarging the gene-pool of the world’s captive populations.

And, best of all, there was a small group of elephants: half a dozen tearaways, the biggest at best half-grown, establishing their own eccentric herd dynamic, a group of orphans. They look like a mad bunch, still with the head-fuzz of very young elephants, their quick movements lacking the dignity that all grown elephants possess.

This is an area dominated by the Brahmaputra River, and by the rhythms of its annual flood. When the waters come, there are always deaths and many young animals are orphaned. There are also clashes between animals and people: the national highway cuts straight through the forested areas and the tea-gardens around become used as panic refuges.

And so the centre was founded to meet a need, and Boro and Gogoi are there at the sharp end. They recently dealt with a forestry department elephant that had been savaged by a pair of young tigers: the elephant — Barakha — suffered a puncture wound on the right ear and the right side of the neck, and more wounds to a foot. Barakha went to the veterinary centre for treatment and was allowed to bring her plus-one, an elephant named Kazi, in order to cut down the trauma and allow her to be rehabilitated as fast as possible.

All these tales told were in the most matter-of-fact way possible: these exotic tales are merely the stuff of daily life out there. Boro had to be teased by a colleague to tell his bullet-wound story. It happened when he was out on the road with the centre’s mobile veterinary service, seeking to dart and relocate a tiger that had been clashing with the human population. The tiger made a threatening move, and one of the policeman accompanying them lost his head and went for his gun, and hit the vet rather than the tiger. The wound — Boro was prevailed on to show this scar of honour — around the right shoulder is spectacular, but Boro is still doing his stuff unhindered.

It is, perhaps, relevant to ask why wild animals need a vet. There is a simple answer: wild animals also get sick. There is also a more complex answer: many, if not most, of the sick, injured and orphaned animals find their trouble from conflict with human beings. Sometimes this is inadvertent, as with car-strikes on the highway; at other times it is deliberate. Boro showed me some slides of spear-wounded elephants. When humans create trouble, it is relevant for humans to try to mend matters.

But this work is not conservation. The centre’s work has a relevance to conservation, because information about the animals is carefully logged and will be helpful in many different projects, particularly relocations and reintroductions. But welfare is not the same thing as conservation.

This is a concept that needs grasping. In this country the RSPB is concerned with conservation. It looks after wild places, it lobbies, campaigns, educates, all with the aim of keeping the world healthy and wild. But if you find an injured bird, it can’t help. It doesn’t have the facilities or the funds. You must take your injured bird to the RSPCA. This is a welfare organisation. It does nothing to protect the habitats of birds, but will help you to get your injured bird fixed up. Different organisations, different aims.

There can be a clash here. I have attended fierce debates in which the relevance of looking after baby orang-utans was measured against the importance of saving vast tracts of their rainforest homeland. It is far more relevant in the long term to save forest, but a picture of a baby orang-utan in a nappy is far more likely to get people reaching for their wallets.

Welfare, however, also matters. Not at the expense of conservation, but certainly as a wonderful and relevant bonus. We are human beings: we don’t care only on the species level. It is in our nature to want to care for individuals as well. This is what I saw in the jungles of Assam: fine people doing fine work. Meanwhile, it was time to feed the rhinos. Again.

The Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation via wti.org.in/donate/

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