News, views and top stories in your inbox. Don't miss our must-read newsletter Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

It looks like a scene from a horror movie – but this is the reality of the illegal trade in rhino-horn today.

The huge animal lies helpless and in agony, left to bleed to death by poachers who used machetes and saws to hack off its horn to satisfy the growing demand for what Chinese medicine wrongly insists is its healing powers.

By luck, vets reached this rhino in time to save it.

But most are not as lucky as Thandi and suffer excruciating deaths as gangs of poachers – in a new twist – paralyse them with dart guns before mutilating their faces.

Vet Will Fowlds, who found Thandi after she had been targeted on a game reserve in South Africa, said: “Poachers have started to use drugs and dart the animals because it’s quiet and they don’t get caught.

“It immobilises the animal but does not stop the pain of the machetes and saws used to remove the horn.

“Sometimes it’s chainsaws but that’s usually too noisy. In Thandi’s case they cut right into her skull to get out every bit of horn because it’s worth so much.

“Then they disappear, without ­ giving the animal the antidote which would enable them to stand up.”

Thandi was poached in the Kariega game reserve in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa with two males in March last year. One of the bulls had already bled to death by the time Will and his team from the Investec Rhino Lifeline reached the scene of carnage.

The other died 24 days later ­after a desperate battle to save him. But despite her appalling injury, Thandi survived – and has become a global inspiration in a renewed war on the sickening trade in rhino-horn.

Will said: “Every time we treat her it is quite invasive.

“We have to dart her again and I’m conscious of the fact she associates man with the terrible trauma of what happened to her. In all we’ve probably done it a dozen times. But it’s very expensive and it’s not sustainable to patch up every rhino in this way.”

Rhino-poaching has exploded in recent years. In 2007 only 13 were illegally killed in South Africa, home to 75 per cent of the world’s population. But this year it’s likely to be nearly 1,000 – three a day.

Prince William, patron of the Tusk Trust conservation charity, last week branded the slaughter “extremely ­ignorant, selfish and utterly wrong” and urged the world to take notice.

An average 4kg rhino-horn is now worth around £200,000 – which makes it more valuable than gold. And most of the profit goes to ­organised crime.

Demand peaked after a rumour began in Vietnam it cures cancer.

But in fact it’s made of keratin like human fingernails – and is utterly ­useless. At the current rate, South Africa’s 20,000 rhino population will soon go into reverse and face ­extinction. Vet Will said: “The tipping point could be any time in the next five years.

“And when the rhinos go, other ­animals will go with them and the African bush will change for ever.

“But seeing the way people react to Thandi gives me hope that if we can turn this one rhino around, we can do the same for the whole species."

Donate now to Save the Wild Rhino -cheques/P/O made payable to Born Free Save Wild Rhino Appeal Freepost RCC1862 Horsham RH13 5BR or visit www.bornfree.org.uk – or phone 01403 240170