“This is the first time we’ve heard of it,” said Crawford Allen, senior director of TRAFFIC North America, a regional office of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). One of the animal’s horns was removed, probably with a chain saw, the zoo said. Depending on the species and the market, experts said, rhino horns are worth more than their weight in gold. Global trade in rhino horn is banned by a U.N. convention, and its sale is illegal in France, according to Reuters, but as little as a kilo of rhino horn was worth about $54,000 on the black market in 2015. The warning signs, they said, came in the form of a spate of rhino horn thefts from private collections and exhibitions.

Source: National Post March 07, 2017 22:12 UTC