User:Nichalp/sandbox
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The setting up of Kaziranga as a protected area dates back to 1905, when Mary Victoria Leiter, the wife of the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, visited the Kaziranga area. After failing to spot a rhinoceros which the area was renowned for, she persuaded her husband to take urgent measures to protect the dwindling species. The next year, on June 1, 1905, the Kaziranga Proposed Reserve Forest was created with an area of 232 km² (57,328 acres). Over the next three years, the park area was extended by 152 km² (37,560 acres) up to the banks of the River Brahmaputra. In 1908, Kaziranga was upgraded to a Reserve forest. In 1916, it was converted to the a Game Sanctuary – The Kaziranga Game Sanctuary, and remained so till 1938, when hunting was abolished and visitors were permitted to enter the park.
In 1950, P D Stracey, the conservator of forests renamed the Kaziranga Game Sanctuary as the Kaziranga Wildlife Sanctuary to get rid of its hunting connotations. In 1954, the government of Assam passed the Assam (Rhinoceros) Bill which imposed heavy penalties for rhinoceros poaching.
