Police are visiting zoos and wildlife centres across the country yo heighten security after poachers killed a rhino in France and hacked off its horns.

Poachers shot dead Vince, a four-year-old white rhino, after breaking into a zoo near Paris hacking off its keratin horn with a chainsaw in the first such case in Europe.

He was shot three times in the head on Monday night at the rhinoceros enclosure at Thoiry zoo, situated at the back of the compound's African Animal Park Reserve.

Now the head of Britain’s National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) said every place housing rhinos in the UK would be visited to assess and improve security measures in the wake of the attack.