Wild for Scotland
Ranger swaps hunting rhino poachers in Africa for saving our threatened birds:
conser vationist has left the frontline war against poachers in Africa to help save Scotland’s endangered birds. Jason Kipling was a head ranger working to protect rhinos and elephants from heavily armed poachers in the Kruger National Park, in South Africa.
However, the 30- year- old wildlife expert has moved to Scotland to work with the RSPB and says his work here is just as important.
There are 67 types of birds officially under threat in the UK, including iconic Scottish birds such as capercaillie and golden eagles.
As a membership development officer with the RSPB, Jason is now working to conserve Scotland’s disappearing birds.
He said: “Scotland has its own challenges conserving birds and other wildlife that is disappearing. The UK has a quarter of the global breeding population of curlews and half live in Scotland. “But numbers of the beautiful long- curvedbeaked bird have halved because their habitat has been lost.
“Predators a re killing the remaining ones.”
Jason has worked for the RSPB in Scotland since January and arrived here with his girlfriend, Lorna Bonnington, a teacher. Scot Lorna worked with Jason at Kruger but now lives in Bishopbriggs, East Dunbartonshire.
But, Jason admits, the windswept cliffs and dense forests of Scotland are a long way from the scorching African bush.
Kruger National Park covers an area 217 miles by 37 miles and its wildlife is prey to greedy, violent poachers, who will stop at nothing to slaughter rhinos for their horns. “The saddest moments were coming across rhinos lying shot and dead, some of them had been pregnant and their dead calves were lying dying beside them,” said Jason. “It was like losing a member of the family and heartbreaking. You would get to know many of the animals and follow their lives.”
The poachers shoot the
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The saddest moments were coming across rhinos lying shot and dead
One in three hen harriers fitted with satellite tags last summer as part of a project to monitor the protected birds has disappeared in suspicious circumstances, it has been revealed.
The RSPB fitted more than 30 hen harrier chicks with transmitters last summer as part of its Eu-funded Hen Harrier rhinos with high-calibre rifles before plundering them for their horn. Edinburgh Napier University ecologist Dr Jason Stirling predicts the current rate of poaching will make rhinos extinct in our lifetime. The horn commands £ 54,000 for just over two pounds in weight, far more expensive than gold.
“It is moving from traditional medicine to investment value as jewellery and other processed artefacts in the art and antiques market,” Dr Gilchrist warns. LIFE+ project. The majority of the chicks were tagged in Scotland, in an effort to learn more about where they are most at risk.
Only a few of the birds have survived their first year however. While up to half died from natural causes such as predation and disease, one in three either disappeared or was illegally killed. Among those that vanished was a young female named Marci, tagged at the National Trust for Scotland’s Mar Lodge estate. The raptor was last recorded on April 22 in the Cairngorms National Park. RSPB Scotland said the area near Strathdon, west Aberdeenshire, was “notorious” for bird of prey persecution. Jason Kipling always carried a gun for his own protection. A game ranger was murdered by poachers at Kruger National Park in South Africa in 2017.
Since 2009 almost 900 rangers and conservationists have died while protecting wildlife worldwide.
The International Ranger Federation (IRF) and the Thin Green Line Foundation, who support rangers, say half of all rangers are murdered by poachers.
“It is the most beautiful and, at times, the most dangerous job in the world,” he said.
“I always carried a rifle.
“The poachers usually operate at night and great efforts are being made to track them. “Drones are used during the day and thermal imaging at night.” His most dangerous moments working so close to the wildlife have included avoiding being killed by large bull elephants and leopards. “You have to know the park and the animals. They all have their own personalities and you have to respect that this is their territory.
“I was once charged by a huge elephant bull that stopped about a yard away.
“His huge tusks stretched to either side of me.”
Dr Cathleen Thomas, senior project manager for Hen Harrier LIFE+, said: “We’ve lost about a third of last year’s chicks in suspicious circumstances.
“What’s hardest for me is that we’re taking about humans purposefully killing these birds. It could be an easy fix if people just stopped killing hen harriers.”