GUNFIRE shattered the silence as the rifle-toting poachers stormed the wildlife reserve, shot dead six rhinos and brutally hacked off their horns with axes.

They then vanished under the cloak of darkness, planning to sell the bloodied horns for up to £12,000 a kilogram to 'cure' the rich of common colds and to help them get erections.

20 Butchered rhino Thandi is treated by vet William Fowlds after she was brutally dehorned by poachers Credit: Roger Paul Mills

20 An axe used to hack off a rhino's horn in South Africa lies beside a poacher's abandoned clothes Credit: https://www.saps.gov.za/newsroom/msspeechdetail.php?nid=11764

By the time park rangers descended on the nightmarish scene, the vultures were already feasting. The rhinos lay in crimson pools of congealing blood, their once-magnificent faces mutilated.

The massacre, in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, was truly horrific - yet it's just one of countless crimes against the world's most endangered creatures in the £164 billion poaching trade.

Bloodthirsty Brits paying thousands to kill wildlife

While poachers are savagely dehorning rhinos for cash, trophy hunters from Britain and elsewhere are paying thousands to gun down animals so they can pose for disgusting selfies.

Just last week, Love Island contestant Ollie Williams was outed as a big game hunter by The Sun, with pictures showing him smiling with the corpses of animals he'd killed in Africa.

It's since emerged he has stepped down from the show.

And helpless animals aren't the only victims. More than 1,000 rangers have given their lives on the front line in Africa while trying to protect endangered wildlife from humans.

20 Love Island contestant Ollie Williams sparked outrage after posing with dead animals in Africa

20 The 23-year-old reality TV star was outed as a big game hunter by The Sun last week

20 A source close to Ollie claimed the young millionaire was carrying out conservation work Credit: PA:Press Association

Shot antelope 'cried like a human baby'

I'm a frontline conservationist, but growing up in the outback in South Africa, hunting was wired into my DNA. However, my love for animals soon killed my love of hunting stone dead.

When I was in my mid-teens, I shot and wounded an antelope. It was bleating like a child, so I rushed up to it, planning to put it quickly out of its misery with my pocket knife.

I thought one stab would end it all - but I was horribly wrong. As I hacked away at the artery behind its horns, which pumped blood to its brain, it cried like a human baby.

After that, I knew without doubt that I wanted to conserve nature rather than destroy it.

I never hunted again.

20 The carcass of a lion, mutilated by poachers, lies on the ground in South Africa's Limpopo province Credit: Central European News

20 A black dehorned rhino walks through the Bona Bona Game Reserve, southeast of Johannesburg Credit: AFP

20 Grant, pictured with baby chimp orphan Monica, is a frontline conservationist Credit: James Wambay

In the late 1990s, myself, my dad Bill and my brother William, a vet, transformed our 2,200-hectare family farm into a wildlife reserve, which would eventually be visited by Prince Harry.

Our first animals were a couple of giraffes, 12 zebras and a herd of antelope.

Then in 2003, after our neighbours came onboard and joined their properties with ours to make Amakhala Game Reserve, we got our first elephants from a reserve in KwaZulu-Natal.

Elephants' beautiful graveside tribute

The herd behaved beautifully and were content under our protection. And later, when an elephant who had arrived from elsewhere sadly died, we witnessed something amazing.

The herd dug the carcass up, carrying off the bones. From then on, every time they passed the gravesite, they paid their respects, sniffing the bones, and sometimes moving them again.

Even though they were from a herd almost a thousand miles away, the elephants considered themselves family. I wonder how many humans would honour a stranger's skeleton.

20 Prince Harry lies against a sedated female elephant during a trip to South Africa Credit: PA:Press Association

20 The prince looks at the carcass of a rhino cruelly killed by poachers in Kruger National Park Credit: PA:Press Association

'Can you find me a wife?' How Prince Harry joked about love life at South African game reserve PRINCE Harry secretly visited Grant's family's game reserve in Eastern Cape, South Africa, a few years ago, before he met now-wife Meghan Markle. In his new book, Saving the Last Rhinos, Grant reveals how the prince was moved at the sight of a dehorned rhino, joked "can you find me a wife?" and broke down in tears over his mum, Princess Diana, during the trip. He also says the visit was so secretive that all phones were confiscated so Harry didn't "end up on Instagram or WhatsApp". "[My dad] Bill asked Harry why he wasn’t married. He supposedly had every girl in the world after him," Grant writes in his book. "This was before Harry had met Meghan Markle, so he hit the ball squarely back into Bill’s court. 'Good question. Can you find me a wife?' "Bill mulled this over for a moment, then replied that the task would be infinitely easier if Harry was better-looking. "Once again, the Fowlds family members held their breath – mortified. Once again, the loudest hoot of laughter came from Harry." Grant adds that, after dinner, his father gave an impromptu speech about Harry being the first British royal to visit Amakhala, and what an honour it was. "He said he was like his mother Princess Diana with his tireless work for good causes," Grant writes. "She really cared for people, as demonstrated with her charities ranging from clearing landmines in warzones to AIDS and leprosy. "Harry put up his hand and asked Dad to stop. Tears were rolling down his face. This got my dad going as well. There they were, a prince and a weather-beaten old man of the bush, weeping together."

Immobilised and dehorned in 20 minutes

Later that year, we got our first white rhino - the first of many.

But in late 2010, poachers invaded Amakhala at night and butchered two white rhinos.

It takes a gang a mere 20 minutes to immobilise a rhino, dehorn it and melt into the wild. Often the only sign that a massacre has unfolded is vultures circling in the thermals high above.

These killers were certainly no backwoods amateurs: they arrived with dart guns and chemicals, hacked off the horns with machetes – known as pangas - then fled in the darkness.

We found the rhinos badly mutilated, their faces crumpled in obscene grimaces.

20 Grant poses in front of Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park, the scene of several brutal rhino slaughters Credit: Twitter / Grant Fowlds

20 This high-calibre hunting rifle was found at the scene of a rhino massacre Credit: https://www.saps.gov.za/newsroom/msspeechdetail.php?nid=11764

20 Ammunition matching the rifle was also discovered Credit: https://www.saps.gov.za/newsroom/msspeechdetail.php?nid=11764

Prince Harry 'visibly moved'

Then in March 2012, poachers darted three rhinos and cruelly dehorned them at the well-known Kariega reserve, somehow evading around-the-clock security and armed patrols.

Incredibly, my brother managed to save one of the trio, called Thandi, despite the raw flesh that was hanging off her face in loose, bloody chunks of meat like a Halloween mask.

Prince Harry met Thandi during a trip to South Africa a few years ago. Although she had no horn, I've been told he was amazed and visibly moved by how healthy she looked.

Her recovery also made Harry rethink his earlier remarks about another dehorned rhino named Hope, where he'd suggested: "Isn’t it better just to take a gun and shoot her?"

Now, he admitted: "It’s incredible.... I see what you have achieved."

20 'Miracle' rhino Thandi is pictured without her horn - but alive - after ground-breaking surgery Credit: Roger Paul Mills

20 Harry helps with an operation on 'Hope', a young female black rhino who was also wounded by poachers Credit: PA:Press Association

Poaching now as rampant as US gang murders

But other rhinos haven't been as fortunate as Thandi and Hope.

In recent years, poaching in South Africa has become as rampant as gang murders in south Chicago. The only difference is that gangsters are many, and rhinos are few.

Following the massacre that killed six rhinos on September 22, 2016 - ironically, World Rhino Day - poachers slaughtered and dehorned a female rhino mum at another reserve.

They even killed her baby, hacking out the tiny stub of her immature protuberance.

Another particularly brutal incident happened at Kragga Kamma Game Park, where William had surgically dehorned a rhino cow five days earlier to deter poachers.

The operation didn't work - the killers shot and hacked her to death anyway.

20 The prince is pictured assisting with the de-horning of another rhino shortly before Christmas 2015 Credit: Handout - Getty

20 The body of a lion killed by poachers is loaded onto the back of a truck Credit: Central European News

Poachers' sick tactics

This begs the question: Are these men so evil that they will callously kill a rhino that is of little use to them? Just for the hell of it?

The answer is probably that poachers hunt at night, so are unable to see if a rhino has a horn unless it is directly silhouetted.

But some conservationists believe that the poachers kill a dehorned rhino for a supremely callous reason: To prevent wasting time tracking it again.

This is the sick reality we're up against.

To save wildlife from poachers' bloody hands, game reserves have started deploying spotter planes, armed units and tracker dogs - while conservationists like myself have set up grassroots education programmes.

But we're fighting a losing battle.

20 A darted elephant is loaded onto a truck to be transported to safety at a new reserve in the Eastern Cape Credit: Grant Fowlds.

Rhino horns sold 'to help men get erections'

Today, there are fewer than 18,000 white rhinos, and only 5,000 black rhinos, left alive in the wild. Each year, more than 1,000 of the creatures are killed in South Africa alone.

Rhinos' horns are often sold in shavings as a snake-oil 'cure' for colds or impotence - yet the truth is they're simply keratin, the same material as our fingernails, with no magical properties.

A full horn can sell for more than a top-carat diamond.

But the poachers caught hunting down animals or selling horns pay a small price for their evil crimes - all they have to do is hand over a meagre fine and they can walk free.

There are even reports of some poachers buying properties on the borders of reserves to have ringside seats, so to speak. It’s difficult to get more brazen than that.

Others have been known to storm rhino orphanages to steal babies' tiny horns.

20 There are fewer than 18,000 white rhinos - including the calf, above - left alive in the wild Credit: James Glancy of Veterans for Wildlife

20 Ollie's carcass pictures first came to light on social media last week

In today's era of social media, poachers don't have to look far for their victims.

Simply posting a video of an animal on YouTube and stating the location is the equivalent of placing a full-page newspaper advertisement that it is on your land.

Equally, the Internet has given trophy hunters a platform to boast about their pleasure killings.

It's where millionaire Ollie's carcass pictures first came to light.

Amid the controversy over the images, a source close to the 23-year-old - who apparently left Love Island because he still loves his ex - claimed he was "culling sick animals".

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While it's true that most conservation was born out of hunting and it still has its place, particularly with regard to animal population management, the system is grossly abused by many.

Until the rotten eggs like pleasure-seeking trophy hunters are eliminated, the reputation of the hunting industry will continue to be negative.

In the meantime, with poaching also on the rise in many parts of Africa, I fear that the God-given right to see majestic animals in the wild will one day only be bestowed on the affluent few.

Or even worse, entire species will be wiped out.

Adapted from Saving the Last Rhinos: The Life of a Frontline Conservationist by conservationist Grant Fowlds with co-author Graham Spence, which is published by Little Brown and out now