Teamwork turns the poaching war

SUCCESS: DEFENCE FORCE, RANGERS COOPERATING BETTER Tracked by rangers in exercise, pinned down by airwing and arrested by reaction unit.

The message was brief and tense: “Shots fired at Crocodile Bridge.” With that signal from Kruger National Parks’ Letaba section ranger Andrew Desmet, piloting a Cessna 206, a mock display of the tactics and strategy used by SANParks to arrest poachers came to an end.

It was a smooth exhibition of how poachers are tracked by field rangers, pinned down by the airwing and eventually arrested by a reaction unit comprising SANParks’ dog unit, field rangers and the SA army, in this case the 44 Parachute Regiment.

The display in the Kruger National Park showed the army and the rangers seemed to have finally sorted out their differences after clashes between the two made headlines regularly in the past.

SA National Defence Force Lieutenant-Colonel Elaine van Staden said the SANDF had been in the park since 2010 and relations had definitely improved while implementing Operation Corona.

She attributed the decrease in rhino poaching to the improved cooperation.

“The experience we gain here is very valuable,” said Van Staden. “We get into close contact with destabilisers and they work together with the dog unit, rangers, and police.”

Only specialist units were deployed in the park and they were on a six-month rotation, she added.

There was also a presentation about the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park and Conservation Area, which covers South African, Mozambican and Zimbabwean national parks.

Mozambique is also dealing with a rise in poaching which is laying waste to its mega herbivores. KNP mission area manager Mbongeni Tukela said 46 elephants had been poached so far this year in Parque Nacional do Limpopo (PNL). Combine that number with the 30 lost in South Africa, according to Minister of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa, and 76 elephants north of the Olifants River have officially been poached so far this year.

Last year, 30 elephants were poached in the whole of Kruger, while 617 rhinos were killed for their horns.

Tukela also noted that 60% of incursions into Kruger now originated in South Africa, with 11% through PNL and 29% through Mozambican conservancies. –