Prince Harry’s rhino slaughter shock

Rebecca English

Prince Harry was left shocked and speechless after being shown the body of a mother rhino slaughtered alongside her two-year-old calf in Kruger National Park on Wednesday.

The royal, 31, could only declare that the poachers who attacked the animal with machetes would “be caught”, as he gestured to the carcass and said: “This belongs to South Africa and it's been stolen by other people.”

The gruesome discovery is all the more upsetting for Harry, who has also released snaps from his personal photo collection revealing intensely personal moments during a trip to southern Africa earlier this year when he worked closely with vets to dehorn rhinos and help protect elephants.

In one picture, posted on Kensington Palace’s Instagram feed, he is seen embracing an African elephant lying sedated out in the savannah, while in an another he is so close to a rhino he appears to be looking in the majestic beast’s eye – but one of the most surprising shows how he assisted experts in dehorning the black rhinos in a desperate attempt to deter poachers who are feeding an insatiable international market.

“And the body’s left here, wasted, just for…” The prince’s voice trailed off in despair.

He later said in a determined tone to the park rangers accompanying him: “But these people will be caught.”

The prince visited the crime scene where environmental investigations rangers were gathering evidence in the hope of eventually catching the poachers.

Harry was shown around by Major-General Johan Jooste, who is in charge of Kruger’s anti-poaching team, and senior environmental investigator Frik Rossouw, who has been a ranger for 27 years.

The carcasses were found on Monday and are thought to have been there for two to three days before they were discovered.

Jooste explained: “The carcass was a white rhino, a mother and calf, killed four days ago and found yesterday.

“We find this often. The mother was probably killed first. The baby will always come back to the mother so when it came close it would have been killed also.

“When it’s a small calf, they often hack it to death with pangas (machetes) to avoid making a noise by shooting, but this calf was shot too.

“The prince was upset. He spoke to the guys and said several times how futile he felt it all was. There’s good evidence there though; we have a water bottle and cartridges so we’re confident we will catch them.”

Harry was shown the bullets that were found lying on the ground as well as some cigarette butts that the poachers had left behind, which will likely contain their DNA.

Then he was taken to the carcass of the white mother rhino, which had been severely scavenged by vultures and hyenas, where he spoke about the DNA sampling taking place.

The prince showed his knowledge as he said: “You have to try to get to the carcass a quickly as possible to suck up all the evidence before he wilds of Africa take it. It’s always a race against time.”

While looking at the cigarette butts and surveying the scene Harry observed: “These guys seem a bit sloppy compared to the other guys.”

Rossouw agreed and explained that some amateur poachers don’t know how to cut off the horn and just hack away at the head of the carcass.

The gruesome discovery follows Prince Harry’s release of a selection of his own personal photographs and videos that were taken during his summer visit to southern Africa, where he worked on the frontline conservation projects.

He has shared his experiences during his time in Tanzania, South Africa, Botswana and Namibia to highlight the “urgent challenges faced by people on the ground working to protect Africa’s most endangered animals.”

During his summer visit, Harry worked alongside rangers who are the first to respond to poaching attacks on elephants and rhinos. He also spent time working alongside some of the world’s leading veterinarians who act to save animals who have survived barbaric attacks, including the removal of their tusks and horns.

To explain a picture in which he lies draped over the body of a sedated elephant, Harry wrote: “After a very long day in Kruger National Park, with five rhinos sent to new homes and three elephants freed from their collars – like this sedated female – I decided to take a moment.

“I know how lucky I am to have these experiences, but hearing stories from people on the ground about how bad the situation really is, upset and frustrated me.

“How can it be that 30 000 elephants were slaughtered last year alone? None of them had names, so do we not care? And for what? Their tusks? Seeing huge carcasses of rhinos and elephants scattered across Africa, with their horns and tusks missing is a pointless waste of beauty.”

On another shot in which he appears dangerously close to a rhino, Harry explained that rather than approaching her out in the bush, he was enjoying a reunion with an old friend.

He wrote on the Instagram snap: “This was the second time Zawadi, a female black rhino, met someone from my family. My brother William fed her three years ago in Kent just before she left under a translocation project to Tanzania where she now lives in a sanctuary.

“Thanks to the passion and stubbornness of Tony Fitzjohn OBE and his amazing rangers, she and many others are living it up in the bush and their numbers are growing. She goes nuts for carrots and I loved being able to send William this photo.”

Many will be surprised to see evidence of the royal participating in surgery on rhinos to save them after attacks and also to dehorn them in a desperate attempt to deter poaches. – Daily Mail

AFRICA’S POACHING EPIDEMIC

* Endangered animals are killed so that single body parts such as tusks, pelts or bones can be sold illegally – usually for large sums of money.

* Elephants and lions are classed as vulnerable, Grévy’s zebra is endangered, while rhinos and mountain gorillas are critically endangered.

* Zebras are generally hunted for their skin and occasionally for meat or medicine.

* Mountain gorillas are poached for their pelts, while there’s been an increase in trafficking of babies, which sell for up to $40 000.

* South Africa has the largest population of rhinos in the world, but poaching has escalated dramatically in recent years, driven by growing demand for rhino horn, mainly in Vietnam and China.

* Only 13 rhinos were killed in South Africa in 2007, compared with 1 215 last year, which amounts to one every eight hours. As of August 2015, 749 had been killed.

At the current rate of poaching rhino deaths could overtake births by 2018, meaning they could be extinct in the near future.

Although rhino horn has no scientific medical benefits, it’s believed by some to cure everything from cancer to hangovers. At $65 000 per kilo, it’s more valuable than gold.

* Elephants are also poached for their ivory tusks and in central Africa, the regional population has declined by 64 percent in a decade, thought to be due to the increased price for local black market ivory and demand from China.

* The WWF predicts that at current poaching rates elephants in Central Africa could be extinct in our lifetime.

* High levels of poaching often take place in conflict zones where criminals take advantage of the lack of protection for wildlife and use the profits to fund armed conflict. Since 1970, 91 percent of elephants have been killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

* The value of the illegal wildlife trade, excluding timber and fisheries, is estimated at $7.8 to $10 billion per year.