Rhinoceros shot, killed for horn at wildlife park
Poachers break in at night, shoot 4-year-old animal at zoo just outside Paris
PARIS— One or more poachers shot and killed a 4-year-old white rhinoceros in a wildlife park near Paris, sawed off one of its horns and then escaped, officials at the park said Tuesday.
Thierry Duguet, the head of the Parc Zoologique de Thoiry, told a local radio station that he and his staff were “extremely shocked.”
“There has never been a case like this in a zoo in Europe, an assault of such violence, evidently for this stupid trafficking of rhinoceros horns,” Duguet said.
The wildlife park, which is about 48 kilometres west of Paris, said in a statement on Facebook that the rhinoceros, a male named Vince, was found dead by one of his caretakers Tuesday morning with gunshot wounds to the head.
No one has been arrested in the incident.
The zoo said that a fence and several doors, including one made of metal, had been broken and that a chainsaw had “probably” been used to remove the horn.
“His second horn was only partially sawed, which suggests the criminals were interrupted or that their tools were faulty,” the park said.
“This odious act was perpetrated despite the presence of five members of the zoological staff who live on site and of surveillance cameras.”
Two other white rhinoceroses at the park, Gracie, 37, and Bruno, 5, were unharmed. Vince was born at a zoo in Arnhem in the Netherlands, and he was brought to the park in Thoiry in 2015.
Arepresentative of the French gendarmerie, the national police force that patrols small towns and rural areas, told Agence France-Presse that the estimated value of the stolen horn on the black market was between € 30,000 and 40,000, or about $42,500 to $56,700.
In many Asian countries, especially Vietnam and China, rhinoceros horns are highly valued on the black market and are believed to cure ailments such as headaches and hangovers.
The French environment minister, Ségolène Royal, said on Twitter the killing of the rhinoceros was a “criminal slaughter,” and she called upon countries to ban the ivory trade.
The rhinoceros’ death was announced the day after a 4-month-old polar bear cub died of liver inflammation in the Berlin Zoo.
The bear, Fritz, was born on Nov. 3, the first polar bear to be born at the Tierpark Berlin, one of the city’s two zoos, in 22 years. The animal’s keepers found him “lying listlessly in the den he shared with his mother, Tonja,” the Berlin Zoo said in a statement.
Veterinarians and other staff separated the cub from his mother, taking him to the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, where ultrasounds, CT scans and X-ray examinations were administered, along with a stool test. Although Fritz was treated with antibiotics and painkillers, his condition worsened.
His breathing became irregular and he died, Berlin zoo officials said. An autopsy was underway Tuesday.
“We can hardly believe it,” Andreas Knieriem, the Berlin zoo’s director, said in a statement.
“We are devastated.”