Rhino Heads Stolen By Gang From Irish Museum

Four stuffed rhinoceros heads complete with horns have been stolen from a museum storeroom in Ireland.

The artefacts are about 100 years old, National Museum of Ireland officials said, and are worth about 500,000 euros (£428,000).

Three men raided a warehouse in Swords, north of Dublin, on Wednesday night and tied up the lone security guard.

The man, who was not injured, later freed himself and raised the alarm.

The heads had been removed from display last year and put into storage to safeguard them from thieves.

The storage facility of the National Museum of Ireland

"We've never had to deal with something like that in our history, as far as I'm aware," said Nigel Monaghan, a keeper in the natural history division of the museum.

The heads and horns were originally trophies dating back to the early 1900s and preserved and mounted by taxidermists.

They included three black rhinos and one white rhino, all from Africa.

Based on their weight and black-market prices, the horns could be worth a total of 500,000 euros, museum officials said.

In East Asia rhino horn is believed to have healing properties

A museum spokesman said the horns "have probably been taken to supply the illegal trade in powdered horn that is used in traditional medicines in the Far East".

Some species of rhino are being hunted to the verge of extinction because their horns, in  powdered form, command high prices for use in traditional Asian medicine.

The horns are regarded as being worth more than their weight in gold on the black market.

This month, Officials at South Africa's national parks told Sky News that they were "under siege" from rhino poachers and that the animal risks extinction within decades if the killings go on at the current rate.

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