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The Thula Thula rhino orphanage should have been a safe haven for animals that had seen their mothers cruelly butchered for their horns.

Instead it became a slaughterhouse as armed poachers stormed the compound in South Africa. The gang of eight men brutally beat staff and took them hostage before hacking the tiny horns off two 18-month-old rhino calves, killing them both.

The sickening attack took place last month, two weeks before a white rhino was killed at Thiory Zoo in Paris . Poachers shot five-year-old Vince and cut off his horn with a chainsaw. His bloody remains were found by zookeepers on Tuesday morning.

Animal conservation charities fear the attacks are part of a new age of extreme poaching. Gangs now target animals in captivity, steal ivory from museums and use heavy artillery to hunt elephants and rhinos in the wild. They even bribe vets to “lure them to the dark side”.

(Image: EPA)

Azzedine Downes, chief executive of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, says: “This is poaching on a whole new level.

“Wild rhinos have been in the sights of poachers for many years. It’s horrifying to imagine a captive rhino falling prey to poachers’ bullets.”

Experts believe zoos and safari parks in the UK will be targeted by criminal gangs who can sell rhino horns for up to £50,000 per kilo, making them 50% more valuable than gold.

And that could pose a threat to the future of the species if animals in vital breeding programmes in Europe are targeted.

Charles Mayhew, chief executive of anti-poaching charity Tusk, says: “I hope this attack in Paris is an isolated incident, but I fear it’s not.

“What we have seen over the last three years is that poachers are seeking out low hanging fruit.

(Image: Getty)

“Zoos and wildlife parks are relatively easy targets. Poachers are not going to come up against the highly-trained teams of armed rangers guarding these animals in Africa.

“I had a meeting at Longleat Safari Park this morning. They have quite good security, but as you can imagine, they are very concerned by what happened in Paris.

“These poachers are utterly ruthless and they are armed, unlike our security staff. That is the big problem that zoos and safari parks in the UK are going to have to deal with.”

Zoe Williamson, spokeswoman for the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums, said: “There are security measures in place at zoos across the country. I am sure that all those that hold rhinos will be looking again and speaking to their local police force to see if there is anything additional that they are able to do.”

(Image: Getty)

Millions of pounds have been spent training and arming teams of rangers to protect rhinos and elephants in the wild from poachers.

Last year Prince Harry spent his summer holiday in Malawi helping to move 500 elephants to a sanctuary 200 miles away to protect them from poachers.

But poaching remains a rapidly growing problem. In South Africa alone the number of rhinos poached has risen 9,000% in the last 10 years. On average three are killed every day.

With just 5,000 black rhinos and 20,000 white rhinos left in the region, it means a species that has walked the planet for 40million years is now on the brink of extinction.

The crisis is fuelled by demand for rhino horn in Asian countries such as Vietnam, where prices have hit a record high because buyers believe it has healing powers.

That means poachers are now locked in a deadly arms race with wildlife rangers as they try to stay one step ahead of the teams protecting the animals in the wild.

(Image: Reuters)

Mr Mayhew said: “We have seen poachers using drones to find elephants and rhinos and using helicopters to hunt them. You can see on the bodies that they have been shot from the air.”

More alarming still is the fact poachers have begun bribing the vets who should be helping to protect these majestic animals.

The vets supply the gangs with a powerful animal tranquilliser called M99 to dip their darts in.

This means they can drug the rhinos silently without resorting to gunfire, which would alert rangers patrolling nearby. They can then hack off horns and faces.

Mr Mayhew said: “These drugs are tightly controlled and very hard to get because they are so powerful. If you dropped some into an open wound on a person, it would kill them.

“So the poachers are bribing vets to lure them to the dark side.

“Sometimes these animals die because they are so badly mutilated, sometimes they wake up in the most unimaginable agony when the drugs wear off.”

This is now so widespread that one veterinary surgeon, William Fowlds, has pioneered a form of facial reconstruction to help these rhinos in South Africa survive and recover.

Rogue vets are not the only traitors who are causing concern for conservationists.

(Image: Getty)

There are also fears that gangs have begun trying to infiltrate teams of rangers and wildlife sanctuaries.

Security expert and businessman Warren McCalister, who sponsored the CCTV cameras at the Thula Thula rhino orphanage, fears his security system was deliberately disabled.

Speaking on a South African radio show, he said: “I think it was an inside job. They knew exactly where the cameras were and they destroyed them. It was a planned attack.”

As well as attacking animals in captivity, gangs are raiding museums to steal ivory and rhino horn.

Thieves gassed the guards at the Museum of Hunting and Nature in Paris to steal a white rhino horn in 2011.

Months later three rhino horns worth tens of thousands of pounds were stolen from a storage area at Leicester’s New Walk Museum, where they had been kept for 50 years.

And in 2012 raiders stole £57million of artefacts including rhino horn and ancient Chinese artefacts from auction houses and museums across England.

That included breaking into Durham’s Oriental Museum through the wall in a brazen heist reminiscent of the Hatton Garden jewellery thefts.