More Death and Disaster in Zimbabwe

Three adult black rhinos have been shot at the Imire Safari park in Zimbabwe, according to a BBC report. The park, 100km southeast of Harare, is home to one of the only breeding centers for the iconic animals.

For the past 20 years the Hamilton family has been rearing the animals and returning them to the wild, but last week, in the dead of night, armed men in camouflage gear burst onto the site and shot dead all three adult females. One of them was just days away from giving birth. Her unborn calf died as well.

"It is deeply tragic. We've been left with four little orphan rhinos, which won't be able to reproduce for about 20 years. The whole breeding program is now at a standstill. It's desperate."

There are only about 3,000 black rhinos left in the wild, and the species is listed as Critically Endangered by the World Conservation Union, which means they "face an extremely high risk of extinction". Last year, one of the four sub-species was declared as "already extinct".

Not surprisingly, the shootings have caused deep alarm among conservation groups, not least because there have been a number of similar attacks in Zimbabwe this year.

Black rhinos are sometimes shot by poachers, who sell their horns as dagger-handles or for use in Chinese medicine, but the Imire rhinos had recently been de-horned as a precaution, so they didn't have any value to hunters. This has led to fears that black rhinos are instead becoming a target in Zimbabwe's battles over land-ownership.