Simon Nare
At first glance, it has all the hallmarks of cruelty to animals.
The intensive search that perhaps traumatises the rhino just like the poachers the park rangers are saving it from. From being shot with morphine injection a thousand times more than that can be used on a human.
And while the majestic beefy animals lie unconscious, the rangers would sever its symbolic horns that distinguishes them from other animals.
This is the only way the Kruger National Park can save these animals from evil poachers who have been running amok in one of the world’s revered parks poaching the rhino for its horns to sell on the illicit markets.
The Kruger Park authorities are of the view that this measure, together with other innovative ways which have attracted poachers like bees to honey, may have turned the tide against poachers. But they keep coming.
Renowned worldwide because of its mouthwatering wildlife, illegal poachers have in the recent past turned the Kruger Park into their haven mainly in search of the lucrative rhino horns – a crime that has threatened to wipe out the animal’s population.
At its highest, the rhino population was at 12000 back in 2008 but after many years of being hunted and killed, the number of rhinos at the Kruger Park are currently at their lowest at 2500 largely due to poaching.
The park has had to opt to dehorn the animals as the last resort to deter the poachers.
In an ongoing exercise to dehorn the animals, park rangers on Wednesday in an exhibition to visitors and media contingent went on a search for a rhino to dehorn.
The search is said to have started early in a chilly morning with a helicopter
After what looked like an eternity, the chopper tracked the rhinos in the park until it was cornered and finally dehorned it.
However, Rhino horns grow back and every 18 months the animal has to be dehorned again.
And now the park has found another innovative method that makes it easy to track the animal as well as monitor how they are using the habitat by making use of park rangers on foot patrol with dogs to track the poachers called the TK9 Unit.
The TK9 Unit manager Samuel Madelane speaking to Inside Travel during the tour, said the dog unit has been a game changer in the fight against poachers.
Madelane said dogs that are specially trained for the task were able to pick up a scent from a footprint of a poacher and follow it till they catch up with the rustler.
There is even more good news for the rhinos and bad news for the poachers. On Thursday Madelane will be receiving another special breed that would pick up a scent on its own without picking it up from a footprint.
If this breed proves a success, it will save more time as the current system and dogs have to wait for a footprint to be identified by the patrol rangers.
“If it is successful, it will save us more kilometers and more time because what we are doing currently is that we have detection zones that need to be cleaned everyday either by pulling tree branches or by pulling tyres every afternoon for each shift.
“But once this dog is in place, we can invest in more dogs and worry less about racking the road,” Madelane said, adding that they would save money by also not paying overtime for the guards and the guards in turn would have more time to spend with their families.
Madelane said if successful, more dogs would be bought and deployed in all 23 sections in the park.
Chief ranger Cathy Dreyer said the dehorning in the park was started in phases in bordering arrears on male animals because the poachers targeted them and not females.
“On its own dehorning is not going to counter poachers but it is part of other measures that we are implementing which includes technology, upscaling the rangers, improving our techniques and cameras.
“So, because of all of these things together we have seen reduction of poaching. So, we are happy but we are not where we want to be. We still lost 66 rhinos last year which is not what we want,” she said.
Dreyer said because the poaching has drastically decreased, the park now has time on its hand to focus on other things.
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