Witnessed by Cat Tien National Park’s officials, WWF’s scientists pointed out traces of unnatural cuts on the rhino’s skull, where the horn was located. A large piece of the bone of the upper jaw was cut off, along with the horn, proving that the sections were taken away intentionally.

“This is not a case in which the horn was removed by people who saw the rhino by chance. The marks on the skull show that appropriate tools were prepared in advance to cut off the horn,” maintained Craig Bruce, WWF’s rhino expert.

Bruce added that the bullet embedded in the rhino’s leg bone and the removed horn prove the rhino was a victim of poachers.

He said it is highly possible that the bullet in the leg is among many bullets that killed the rhino. However, the body was so badly decomposed when it was discovered it is unable to ascertain how many shots brought it down.

The skull of the dead rhino in Cat Tien National Park.

On April 29, rangers discovered a strange skeleton in Cat Tien National Park. Cat Tien officials and WWF representatives traveled to the spot to examine.

At the site, they saw the skeleton of a big animal on the banks of a stream. The animal was partially buried in the mud and had disintegrated. There were some traces of digging and the footprints of animals, which were then defined as rhino footprints.

After two days of searching, they collected 52.5kg of this animal’s bones. Based on the remains and traces at the site, scientists confirmed that this was the skeleton of an extremely rare, one-horned rhino.

They originally suspected that the rhino had been shot dead and its horn had been removed by poachers, but their report concluded that this rhino died naturally around 3-5 months ago.

WWF sent samples from the animal’s carcass to Queen’s University in Canada for DNA analysis to see if it matched any of the rhinos’ dung samples taken from the population status surveys. That’s when the evidence supporting the unnatural death of the rhino was discovered.

Tran Van Thanh, director of Cat Tien National Park, still insisted with VNExpress newswire that the rhino died naturally. “The rhino is very big so one bullet couldn’t kill it. The bullet only touched the edge of leg bone.”

The leg bone with a big bullet.

Thanh said he didn’t know the type of bullet and Lam Dong province’s police are analyzing.

Rhino horns are very expensive on the black market. Rhino skin is also used in traditional medicine, even though there is no scientific proof of its effects. Rhinos are protected by Vietnamese law.

According to WWF, fewer than 60 of these rhinos are thought to survive in the wild, with no more than eight in Cat Tien National Park. The largest population of 40-60 exists in Ujung Kulon National Park in Indonesia.

One-horn rhino (rhinoceros sondaicus annamiticus or Java Vietnam rhino) was thought to be extinct in Southeast Asia until hunters killed one in 1988. According to experts, this species of rhino can live for 40-45 years in the nature. Where they have o natural predators, except for humans.

Source:Vietnamnet Bridge