http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...rica-year.html

The South African government has announced plans to deploy armed troops into its wildlife parks in a bid to protect the country’s rhinoceroses from poachers targeting the animals’ famous horns.

The plans - which could see helicopter gunships patrol game parks’ skies and soldiers wearing night vision goggles on the ground - were announced as new figures show that more rhinos have been killed in South Africa this year than at any time since the colonial period.

So far this year, a total of 588 of the magnificent beasts have been killed in South Africa by poachers working for Far Eastern crime syndicates which sell the animals’ horns for use in traditional medicine.

Most of the horns end up in being used in traditional medicine in China or Vietnam, where it is believed they are good for curing many types of ailments from cancer to impotency.

The 558 rhino killed so far this year is far more than the 448 killed in South Africa throughout the whole of 2011 and almost 4,500 per cent more than the 13 rhino killed in South Africa just five years ago.

Wildlife experts say that the poaching explosion has become so serious in South Africa - which has around 22,000 rhino and is home to 80 per cent of the world’s rhino population - that the white and black rhino species are in risk of become severely endangered.

They warn that a tipping point has been reached as more rhinos are now dying than are being born.