On March 7th 2017, Europe had one of its first reported poaching incidents. A four-year old Rhino named Vince was Killed and stripped of one of its horns by mad poachers at The Thoiry Zoo, right outside of Paris. It is believed that they used a chainsaw which also caused his death.
Vince was not the only one in the enclosure when this incident occurred. The poachers spared the 37-year-old Rhino named Gracie and the 5-year-old named Rhino Bruno.
As of now these White Rhinos are not considered endangered but may be coming very close in the near future. The World Wildlife Fund, an organization that classifies and protects endangered species, deemed them as “near threatened.” They have been working very hard to protect these White Rhinos but poaching may be able to reverse all of their efforts and is one of the biggest factors in wild life extinction.
After rebounding from being almost fully extinct, there are currently near 20,000 of them and most are in wild life conservations.
The footage of the attack was handed over to investigators by the Thoiry Zoo officials. Nothing else has been reported on the incident yet.