Simultaneously, BTR and other organisations have convinced more than 400 poachers to become protectors of the forest by offering monthly stipends. Maheshwar Basumatary, affectionately called Ontai (rock, in the local language), is one of them. Now an award-winning animal keeper in Manas, he too had turned to poaching in the 1980s as it offered easy money when few opportunities existed. Basumatary surrendered his weapons to the local administrative authority BTR in 2005 and assisted in the pioneering rehabilitation of two orphaned clouded leopard cubs as part of the Greater Manas Conservation Project. Since then, he has helped catch poachers, seize illegal products, conduct wildlife surveys and hand-rear orphan rhino calves in Manas.