Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
INTRUDERS AT A French zoo have shot dead a white rhino and hacked off its horns in a grisly overnight poaching incident.
The perpetrators forced the main gate to Thoiry zoo near Paris and broke through at least two other security barriers on Monday night, without disturbing five people who live on the grounds.
The animal, a four-year-old “critically endangered” southern white male named Vince, was attacked inside an area where at least two other rhinos are kept.
“Staff left the rhino enclosure on Monday. When they returned on Tuesday, an animal had been killed and its two horns had been sawn off,” a police spokeswoman told AFP.
Chainsaw
She added that the horns were “probably cut off with a chainsaw”.
The rhino had been shot three times in the head.
“Only the main horn was stolen,” the spokeswoman said.
Investigators estimate the horn is worth €30,000-€40,000.
Black market rhino horn sells for up to €55,000 per kilo, more than gold or cocaine, with demand principally coming from China and Vietnam where it is coveted as a traditional medicine and aphrodisiac.
In the last eight years alone, roughly a quarter of the world’s rhino population has been killed in South Africa, home to 80% of the remaining animals.
According to the zoo, this would be the first time a zoo was the target of an “attack” of this nature leading to the death of a rhino.
Thoiry is equipped with video surveillance, but cameras are not installed in the area where the rhinos live.
“This was carried out despite the presence of five members of staff who live on the site and (despite) security cameras,” the zoo said.
The two other rhinos in the enclosure with Vince which were unharmed were a 37-year-old female, Gracie, and a five-year-old male, Bruno.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
I see quite a lot of bumblebees on my tomatoes. No drop in activity or numbers.
@Pat Patovic: nothing more scientifically sound than antidotal evidence.
@DaisyMay: it was the antidotal that saved her.
@Pat Patovic: agree I never had as many in my garden
@DaisyMay: Yeah right. Everything Journal ever published or everything you read on the internet is the holy grail of truth.
I just offered my own experience and you can hardly dispute it as I do not recall seeing you in my garden ever.
It’s really strange because I thought it was a bumper year for bees, have seen loads of them this year, a real improvement on the last few summers.
@edelno5 .: Dead right, It’s years since I’ve seen so many!
@edelno5 .: Maybe we see them more as they are busy in a struggle to survive. I’ve seen lots more than normal too. I was watching a really tiny bumble bee the other day. I’ve never seen one that small.
So they will be fine if we don’t get the same weather next year. Well, I guess that would fall under the whole climate change thing. Green Ireland now!
The theory of “Redundancy Hypothesis could relate to our politicians too. A diversity of species can help it become more resilient, because it isn’t overly reliant on a single species. A change is as good as a rest. The bees, TDs and Michael D take note.
This reads like a prediction rather than the result of any formal survey which isn’t cited. I have seen a multitude of both bumblebees and solitary bees this summer throughout the country. It’s their natural habitat which is under threat especially with the greater destruction of hedgerows allowed under FG Heritage Bill.
Bees > Humans
We are f/(ked
Well done Irish Water, your hose pip ban causing the death of the bumble bee which is vital for food production. Fix the leaks build reservoirs, we need to water the flowers, someone think of the bees.
If the bee’s go we go, which isn’t a bad thing when you think of all the journal commentators gone forever. Paradise :)
Yer wreckin me buzz.
What about the bankers and irish water…
@Anto Whelan: if there any good at the auld pollen I say let them roam wild and free.
have your say