Rhinoceros resting in the Kruger National Park near Nelspruit, South Africa.
There's a poaching epidemic in South Africa. Few things make the horror of the slaughter as vivid as this video.
Visitors to South Africa's Kruger National Park came across this gruesomely injured young rhino last week. He was wandering, clearly disoriented and suffering. A poachers bullet had entered through his eye and lodged in his brain. Poachers had hacked off his horn and took much of his face off as well. He wandered for several days until park rangers found him and euthanized him.
Kruger National Park is popular with tourists and poachers alike. A record 1,004 rhinos were killed in 2013, 606 of them in the park, which is a protected area. Poachers kill to satisfy demand in Vietnam and China, where the horns are ground and ingested as "medicine."
More than 146 rhinos have died so far this year.
Read more of GlobalPost's coverage of poaching here, here, and here.
(Warning: Graphic)
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