Friday 10 March 2017

Horn of Plenty?


Disturbing news that 'poachers' have killed a young male rhinoceros ('Vince') in a zoo at Thoiry, west of Paris and removed one of its horns with a chainsaw (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/07/rhino-shot-dead-by-poachers-at-french-zoo). It seems likely that the criminals involved (possibly disturbed or suffering an equipment fault before removing the second horn) were intent on selling the horn to the Chinese 'alternative medicine' fraternity where such rare items can generate very high prices (in spite of there being no evidence that the materials are curative). This is a very worrying development as one might have expected animals to be safe from poachers in such a location.

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