A Conservationists Journey: Laevelder

Showing posts with label Laevelder. Show all posts

Friday, 20 April 2018

Conservationista - Article 1 for The WOMA scholarship

Bianca Botha with the girls from a small village during an outreach

Conservationîsta

She wakes up an hour before sunrise, straps on her boots and a warm jacket to shield her from the icy winter wind of these early mornings. She loads the cruiser and trailer with bails of blue buffalo grass and sleeves of lusern. She’s off to feed the buffalo, sable, kudu, giraffe and all the other species on the ranch. After feeding as the sun begins to rise she drives patrol around the farm to check the water points and for signs of poachers. Not a week ago two more rhino were slaughtered on her ranch and in the fight she had wounded one of the culprits with a perfect shot to the right leg. He was captured but his accomplices managed to escape and will no doubt return for the last few rhino remaining. She will not let them get her rhinos, which are akin to her own children on this ranch where she faces the elements and dangers of rural living daily, alone.

When a ranch, game farm, conservationist or ranger is mentioned in conversation, the first image in the mind is a strong burly man in Khaki wrestling a lion or driving his land cruiser or walking around with his big gun on a hike or hunting safari. This view has made it very difficult for women to break through in the industry, even though they have always been there. There has recently been a rise in the amount of women taking on careers on ranches and game reserves. Not as the general admin or hospitality positions as is often thought, but as Ranch and Reserve managers. They work down in the dirt with the rest of their crew. Darting and catching game, wrestling them to the ground to ensure safe capture and that they do not injure themselves. They ensure game populations do not exceed the carrying capacity of available land by taking hunters out on hunting safaris. They are mechanics, builders, game wardens, anti poaching team members, skilled in archery and shooting with rifles, they are professional hunters and outfitters, they are the women in conservation, they are Conservationistas.

Elmarie and Ansomie Minnaar of Hunters-Rock Safaris and outfitters,

a mother and daughter dream team

Conservation is a career path that fills every niche. There are admin workers, farmers, hunters, vets, ecologists, biologists and the list goes on. Women fit into this career like a cold hand into a glove. They have compassion, caring, stamina, strong wills and work just as hard as any man. Most importantly women can multitask, making caring for clients and all other hospitality duties a breeze to fit into the odd hours of taking clients out for a hunt and entertaining them between shifts.

Many of these women may not even consider themselves to be conservationists but their jobs play a vital role in the conservation of African wildlife and the environment as a whole.

An African rock python removed from one of the Lodge venues

A struggle to get the python out of the pipe
in which in sought to escape capture

Working in the bush of Africa is no joke and you are always faced with challenges. When clients arrive there may be a snake in the room and you will need to remove it, using the opportunity to educate your guests about venomous snakes etc, or you may have poachers; which are always heavily armed, usually with AK47s used to kill rhino and elephant, at which your workplace becomes a warzone and you and your team the meagre defending force facing life or death. The women on the ranches in Africa fill these positions gladly and love every minute of what they do.

An important part of conservation is working with the community around you. Many ranches employ the rural people on their farms in a way to discourage poaching and educate them on the importance of protecting the wildlife in the area.

A hunted wildebeest is recovered after tracking in the dark

Other ranches will do outreach, providing the rural homesteads and villages with meat from hunts or basics such as milliemeal and toiletries bought with profits from hunts. This encourages the villagers to report persons they suspect of poaching or any news of planned farm attacks.

The female ranch managers have great success in these projects because they are viewed as caretakers by the villagers. This does however pose some problems as well. When wanting to distribute meat or supplies to the villagers one must often first talk to the chief, who due to their cultural beliefs, do not talk to women. You also need to be careful when entering their villages, as looking a man in the eye, wearing pants, or not having your head covered may be a great disrespect depending on their culture.

Being a woman in this industry is not easy. You are often looked down upon, denied a promotion or raise or even laughed off at a job interview as you are not taken seriously, regardless of your qualifications or experience. There are a few of us however, who are just as stubborn as any man and stick it through, fight the fight and earn the respect we deserve. We excel and show the world that a game ranch is just as much a woman’s place as a mans.

Bianca supports the head of an impala ewe
which has been darted for translocation,
Butch (Jack Russel) keeping an eye on her vitals.

South Africa now has its first all female Anti-poaching squad, the Black Mambas, whose exclusive duty is to patrol and protect the rhinos and elephants on specific reserves in the Limpopo province. From the establishment of this team the presence of snares and attempted poaching has decreased significantly more than any of the previous projects. These women are unarmed spending their time in the reserves alongside all the wild animals and taking their skills and experience to the schools and communities around them, fighting the war on poaching through monitoring, community building and education.

Women play a vital role in the preservation of the African environment. You need only look at the growth in awareness campaigns for STEM with the hash tag #womeninscience and the history of great female scientists, conservation biologists and film makers to see how important women are in conservation and how great the need is or their work to be recognised.

A young Vervet monkey rescued from being a pet
is cared for to regain strength before being taken
to the Vervet rehabilitation centre.

There are the greats; Joyce Poole, Terri Irwin, Rachel Carson and of course Jane Goodall who we all know so well and praise their work and books and films, however, we must not forget the work of the ladies on the ground in Africa. Their names are not known and their faces are not on newspapers or in scientific journals, but they put food in the mouths of hundreds of people in the villages around their farms, they employ and train thousands more to uplift the community and protect the environment, and they put themselves in the frontlines to save the animals they care for 24 hours a day 365 days a year.

Bianca and Jan, the rescued vervet monkey.

Women in conservation, the hunters and outfitters, the lodge managers, the farm labourers and so on may not be the first thing one thinks about when conservation is a topic of discussion, but they are the women from all cultures, ages and backgrounds, the mortar that holds the entire industry together and key element to successful conservation.

[ This is the full article of the article Published on 19 April 2018 by The WOMA. I would like to thank The WOMA and the wonderful women working there for the amazing opportunity they have given me as the scholarship recipient for 2017. Please visit and support this wonderful community of women here: The WOMA . See also the link to my article as published in the links below. ]

Please follow me on twitter and Instagram via the links below to see the world from my perspective, with a foot in the door.

https://twitter.com/BiancaBothab211

https://www.instagram.com/aconservationistsjourney/

Read my scholarship articles for The WOMA at the links below:

The WOMA Scholarship : Conservationista by Bianca Botha

To visit or donate to my crowdfunding page please follow the link below! Thank you for your support!

US, UK and South Africa:

Back-a-Buddy Conservation study fund

Friday, 6 October 2017

Snare Aware

Following on my previous post "Snare Scare" , I wanted to do a follow up on what more can and is being done with regards to the snaring problem beautiful South Africa and her wildlife are facing.

In my previous post I spoke about the S.N.A.R.E project run by the KaiNav Conservation Foundation and how they use the wires recovered from their expeditions to create Snare Art . Thereby creating income for rural communities as well as producing a profit which funds further expeditions and other conservation projects.

Conservation foundations are in abundance, each doing their part in attempts to preserve, conserve and protect our natural Fauna and Flora. However many foundations, associations etc there may be, they never seem to be enough. That is where the citizen conservationist comes in. Everyday average individuals doing their part in helping rangers, conservationists, parks, conservancies and all the rest to achieve their goals in the conservation of their area. Lize Bester is one of those people, and through the simple use of a little bit of Facebook savvy and a caring community she has recruited many more.

Two years ago today, 6 October 2015, Lize created the group Enough is enough describing it as a group of individuals who have had enough of seeing the wonderful wildlife of our country being senselessly slaughtered and butchered in the most painful and horrendous of manners, snaring. It is a group focused on a call to action against snaring, for each citizen to do their part to assist the rangers in the fight against poachers and the cruel systems they use.

The group currently has 794 members from around the globe and is administrated by 3 dedicated individuals who ensure that current updates are posted as soon as they come in and that no post is missed as animals lives are in danger and time is of essence!

Members of the group will post their own photos as they see animals entangled or caught in a snare and report the location and time of the sighting, this information is then passed on to the rangers and they fall into action to locate the animal and attempt to remove the snare.

Snares are indiscriminate and any animal could get caught in them. Some animals ,such as the wild dog post alongside, are collared animals and part of a research project. These projects aim to gain insight in the movements, behaviours, population sizes and many other factors in the lives of the selected members. This assists conservationists in making decisions and planning for the future of these animals and their species. When project animals are killed by snares the projects are retarded and set back a great deal with the incredible loss of data.

It is imperative to the research teams involved to try by all means to keep the members alive, this group is doing just that by responding and updating snared animal sightings constantly.

The group also takes their work another step further by posting other relevant information that may curb negative stigma around the work rangers do, conservation efforts against poaching and the general state of our National parks. A short while ago a dead elephant was seen in the Kruger National park and it was noted that the tusks had been removed. The fast response of the team to report on the group that the elephant had in fact died of natural causes and that the tusks were removed by a section ranger may have spared the park and nation from horrible tourist reviews and rumours about poaching in the park.

The rangers greatly appreciate the work done by everyday citizens and visitors to the park. They are unable to be everywhere at once and there is always so much work to be done, with the extra million eyes in the park at any given time it makes the tedious task of locating captured animals in the vast area of the park so much easier and rangers response time so much faster.

In the past 5 years there have been over 1000 rhinos poached in South Africa annually, and over 30 elephants in the Kruger
National Park alone between January and June 2017.

The incredible amount of poaching in this country has even lead to theories about the ivory and rhino horn trade funding terrorism, a very scary thought.

However, there seems to be hope in the future as a result of UK officials making a great decision, as in a report by The Guardian, to stop their trade in ivory. The UK is the biggest exporter of legal ivory and believe that by shutting down their trade they may impact the illegal laundering of illegal ivory and assist in the fight against elephant poaching.

Enough is enough has had such a major impact that the group has even been featured in an article in the local newspaper Laevelder by environmental journalist Mariana Balt.

This helps further in the awareness roll of the group and any other group or person doing something similar. By making the public and visitors to national parks aware of the need for action, more and more people are likely to get involved, which will make it increasingly difficult for poachers to get what they want and be a huge discouragement to them to put up any more snares.

The group also shares happiness with its members and any person involved in the sighting, safe capture and snare removal of an affected animal. Recently a female lion was seen with a gaping wound and snare around her neck. The visitors to the park, Enough is Enough admins and park rangers sprang into action. With the constant sighting reports from the visitors and tourists the rangers were able to find the lioness, affectionately called Lucy, dart her and successfully remove the snare. After her procedure another member of the group sent in his image of her looking to have a new lease on life and to be fit and well on her way to recovery. She then become known as Lucky Lucy.

This is one of the wonderful posts shared by the group and members would comment and post recent sightings and how glad they were that she is going to be alright.

She is one of the lucky ones. Not all animals will be as lucky as she is.

For anyone wanting to join the group or take part in assisting in this battle please take note of the following information posted by Lize to have a better understanding of how it all works:

Information needed:

-Precise date and time of sighting -What type of animal was seen with snare? -Where on the animal is the snare situated: neck, left hind leg etc?-The road number you spotted the animal on, the distance from the closest or distance from the next turn-off (the road number of the turn-off)-Please take photos of the animal with snare. A photo must be available to be sent by message, take one with your cellphone as well.- A GPS reading of the latest location of the snared animal would be perfect!- It would be ideal if someone can keep the animal in sight and someone else can drive off to make the phone call or send a message with details.
The Park Officials are not always readily available and there are a few actions to be taken sometimes before the call goes to 'despatch'.

The process:

As per arrangement with the Park Officials, the message or phone call must be made to me. [number available on the group] (We also have a whatsapp group for those who want to become involved in the day to day of this group. It's a bit more personal).

I give the case and details personally through to the coordinator of all the services in the Park. She makes sure that it's been registered at the Joint Operational Centre in the Park. The message goes through to the Rangers, the SANDF, the SAPS and the Veterinary Services in the area where the animal with the snare was reported. We make sure everyone in the vicinity knows and keep an eye open for the ensnared animal. What we need to get everything going are all the relevant details and the photo. If someone can keep an eye on the animal with the snare, and someone else can call for help, the better and easier to find the animal. If the animal is moving, please take note of the place last seen and the direction the animal moved off.

The Enough is Enough-group keeps the statistics of all the animals reported and provide it to the Park officials. We also keep an eye on later sightings to confirm that the same animal is not reported as a new case, the duplication of reports frustrates the rangers a lot. This is the arrangement made between this group and the Park officials. We made sure it worked in a smaller group before we went public, it worked perfectly. We already made a difference in a few animal's lives.

Education is key. The more we can spread the word and educate people about this situation the more people will be able to stand up and do something about it, even if it is just a post on Facebook. A single post can save a life.