TUSK AWARD FOR CONSERVATION IN AFRICA

CATHY DREYER

Cathy Dreyer, winner of the Tusk Award for Conservation in Africa, was a carpenter’s daughter born in Cape Town. She did not see a rhino until she was a 19-yearold student working with famed veterinarian Peter Morkel. He employed her in the SANParks game capture team.

For the next 13 years she specialised in the capture and relocation of rhinos to establish new populations elsewhere. She helped to reintroduce black rhinos to reserves in Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Botswana and South Africa’s northern provinces where they had been poached or hunted to extinction. Her particular skill is taming rhinos in bomas (enclosures) over several days so they can be crated for their journeys. She soothes, feeds, strokes and talks to them like a horse whisperer. “It’s just patience,” she says. “After a while they get used to you and accept their fate.”

In 2012 Dreyer became conservation manager of a reserve in the Eastern Cape that she does not want named, to protect its black rhinos from poachers. Of more than a hundred she has lost seven this year, but has notched, named and taken the DNA of almost every survivor so they can be monitored by 26 full-time rangers and two tracker dogs. She flies over the reserve at dawn most days, searching for poachers. Last year she briefed Prince Harry, but is so determined to protect her rhinos that she refused to let him visit the reserve for fear of the publicity. The prince took it well. “She’s very impressive, hugely passionate, and just a damn nice woman,” he wrote afterwards.

The Ultimate Travel Company (020 3051 8098; theultimatetravelcompany. co.uk) can tailor-make a six-night Cape Town and conservation experience from £2,440 per person, including three nights in Shamwari Game Reserve, with international and internal flights, transfers, meals and activities.