Game farmers and conservationists are using the kind of equipment usually found on battlefields – helicopters, thermal infrared detectors and GPS – to protect the endangered rhino in Eastern Cape game reserves.
Game farmers and conservationists are using the kind of equipment usually found on battlefields – helicopters, thermal infrared detectors and GPS – to protect the endangered rhino in Eastern Cape game reserves.
As of 11 August, rhino poachers are responsible for the deaths of 177 rhino in South Africa this year. This is a significant increase from the total of 122 poached last year.
The numbers suggest that poaching is no longer a matter of local people using basic tools and snares to carry out their work; poachers on the ground are now supported by wealthy international crime syndicates that have the money and the means to do serious damage.
Their motivation? A kilogram of rhino horn powder (ground rhino horn) can go for up to R100 000 on the black market. In Asian countries the powder is believed to have precious medicinal properties – everything from curing common flu and cancer to upping your sex-drive.
While only one known poaching incident has occurred in the Eastern Cape this year (which resulted in the indirect death of a rhino calf), local game reserves are taking every precaution.
Rhino ranger
Rangers like Jonathan Baker* have been employed with the express purpose of monitoring and protecting rhino.
In 2007 Baker came to HillsNek Game Farm, outside Grahamstown, to head their anti-poaching effort. Since then, his cellphone has been switched on 24 hours a day, just in case he gets a call warning of any suspicious behaviour.
At the moment, local reserves are on high alert. No rhinos have been poached at HillsNek, but that doesn’t help Baker sleep any better.
“We listen for helicopters, gunshots; look for stray vehicles, vehicles that stop off on the N2,” he said. It is exactly these precautions undertaken by private reserves that have guarded them so well.
In 2009, a reserve near Alexandria successfully apprehended three men attempting to poison a rhino with temik, a highly poisonous illegal substance locally known as two step.
Baker said that most poachings have taken place in national parks. He admits that this is partially due to the vastness of these areas, but he also believes national parks haven’t been proactive enough.
But with such a sophisticated international industry, it takes more than local efforts to compete against the problem at large.
Action plan
The Environmental Management Inspectorate, dubbed the Green Scorpions, is a government funded network of environmental officials who take on issues of environmental crimes.
Deputy director of the Green Scorpions in the Eastern Cape, Jaap Pienaar, described the measures of the group.
“We have a rhino action plan; we will react immediately with the help of the South African police service or whoever can help in combating this war.”
Pienaar explained that rangers in the Eastern Cape have been especially trained on how to deal with the threat of poachers.
“It’s a 24 hour operation,” he said. Despite the economic constraints, anti-poaching efforts are non-negotiable for local reserves.
Calculating costs
Apart from the monetary loss for a reserve (with rhinos selling at auctions for anywhere from R50 000 to nearly R800 000) the emotional loss is immeasurable – especially for conservationists like Baker who say that protecting rhinos has become his calling.
One day he’d like to combat the original source of the crime – the false belief that a rhino horn is a magical cure-all.
“What I’d like to see being done is to make people aware – it’s made of carotene, fingernails and hair – no medicinal properties.”
*His name has been changed to protect his identity
The video below gives insight into the problem of rhino poaching in South Africa and the measures that are taken to protect them.
