Vince, the White Rhino Killed, Shot Three Times in the Head But Only One Horn Removed: Full Story

For sheer greed of poachers to get horns for good money, rhinoceros have been killed and now their species have become extinct. Vince, a white rhino, became the first rhino killed by poachers not in the forest but inside a zoo in Paris last week. He was shot three times in the head and only one of his horns was removed probably by a chainsaw. The other horn was partially cut as the killers were probably disturbed and panicky as they might have heard somebody was coming while making their heist.

Vince was killed in his cage inside Thoiry Zoological Park Tuesday last week. The white rhino arrived in March 2015 from a zoo in Netherlands where he was born. "It's certainly the first time it happened in Europe," said Crawford Allan, senior director of TRAFFIC North America, a regional office of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The zoo management said that the rhino killers forced open an outer gate leading to the cage of Vincent. Two other white rhinos in other lodges survived.

The news of the killing of the white rhino inside the Paris zoo has provoked outrage again from conservationists. There has been an international ban running since 1977 but still killings of rhino go on unabated due to high price of rhino horn. A report said that the 2014 price of rhino horn was commonly pegged at around $60,000 per kilogram, with some reports saying as high as $100,000 per kilogram.

Most of the rhinos live in South Africa, which imposed a moratorium in 2009 to meet high demand for rhino horns. The demand has been accelerating in some parts of Asia especially Vietnam. The rhino horn, in powder form, is believed to be a cure for many illnesses although there is no valid medical finding on this claim.

In Africa poachers killed1,054 rhinos in 2016, a 10-percent decrease from 2015. However, drought is also a cause of rhino deaths. By some estimates, South Africa has nearly 20,000 rhinos at present. Asia has several rhino species. But what often provokes rhino conservationists is the is slaughter news by man like what had happened to the white rhino in Paris.