Snare Scare

Poverty in South Africa has reached an all time high, with over 50% of the population living in poverty and well below the breadline. The large majority of these people live in rural areas, are unemployed and are not offered much, if any, assistance from the government. These people need to eat, so they will find ways and means to do so.

One of the most common ways is to snare. A snare is a wire or nylon, or similar, type line or cord which is tied with a slip knot in a noose type fashion. These snares are placed in high traffic areas, over game paths or in high activity fields etc, where an animal would have their head or limbs caught in the line. As the animal moves or struggles the noose tightens, with the other end securely fastened to a tree or some permanent feature the animal will be caught and most certainly die if not discovered in time. The snares are not always fastened well enough to the tree or branch resulting in the possibility of larger animals being caught in the snare noose, but managing to break free, leaving the wire around their head, neck or limbs. This often results in the animal suffering from gaping wounds that are unable to heal due to the constant friction from the still attached snare. These animals will suffer for long periods of time until they succumb from infection or even blood from the open wounds.

The KaiNav Conservation Foundation removes a snare from a zebra after the zebra was seen walking with the wire and gaping wound on its neck.

Snaring has become one of the most popular ways to generate an income or simply put food on the table. With the weakening economy it has also become the only way to do so for many South Africans. Snares are used to capture animals for meat and for resale of meat or Bushmeat products.


Rural communities in South Africa are full with traditional beliefs and therefore the need for traditional healers and their "muti" is high. "Muti" is any form of traditional medicine or tonic used for a specific purpose. There are muti's for the common cold, erectile dysfunction, liars, a cheating spouse, financial problems and the list goes on. These muti's are made with naturally occurring plants and animals or animal parts, thereby creating the demand and snaring becomes the means.

A snare is a non-selective means of capturing an animal, the poacher who places the snare has no means of deciding which animal or type of animal will get caught. Most often, if the animal caught is one of which they do not want or can not use the meat or other parts the carcass will simply be discarded. However, there are those who take advantage of any animal caught and supply what they can to the traditional healers.

 Snares can be found throughout South Africa, with the majority being in or around domestic farms or Private game ranches. Private landowners have a great problem with snaring. They are usually game breeders or have some sort of rare game on the ranch. The snares often capture or injure their expensive breeding stock so as a preventative measure many ranch owners hire private security to patrol and remove any snares found. They are not always successful but it does form a deterrent from their land. Other landowners or domestic farmers are turning to dogs to patrol at night to catch and prevent anyone putting up snares.

Very little official research has been done on snare hot spots, type of snares being used etc making it difficult to proactively work against snaring.

 The KaiNav Conservation foundation has been running the S.N.A.R.E program for some time. With a group of volunteers they visit areas and reserves with known snaring problems. They spend the day or weekend walking through thick brush to find and remove snares as well as record data about these snares. From this research they hope to find ways to proactively fight the snaring problem this country and its natural environment faces.

The foundation is hoping to spread the work they do further throughout the country and to do this they require funding. The ever elusive factor in conservation. Funding has and always will be a problem for conservationists as people simply do not understand the importance of the work being done. There will always be something more important, like sport and conservationists will need to continue finding creative ways to raise the funds needed.



 The KaiNav foundation, however, have found their own way to raise much needed funds. By using the very snares which cause so much devastation and harm to the environment and turning them into beautiful works of art that will fund the great work they do, as well as creating income for the poverty stricken people of this beautiful country.

The wires removed during the S.N.A.R.E expeditions are given to local rural artists who transform the snares into beautiful African animals and other works. These are then tagged with a Snare Art tag and sold to raise much needed funds. Snare Art has proven to be a huge success and some works have even gone to their new homes in Dubai and the USA!

For more information on the KaiNav conservation foundation, The S.N.A.R.E initiative and other projects please visit the website https://www.kainavconservation.org/ or follow them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/kainavconservation/

You can also donate to the foundation via the following link https://www.kainavconservation.org/donate

The work they are doing is vitally important in collecting enough data to be able to find and implement proactive and effective snare management protocol for South African Farmers and breeders. Any and all support is greatly appreciated and needed!

 The S.N.A.R.E initiative, by the KaiNav Conservation foundation.

All video footage and images courtesy of The KaiNav Conservation Foundation

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

Project Clean Up part one

The three R's, one of the most important principles in today's commercialised and convenience driven life, Reduce, reuse and recycle!

In recent years the "Go Green" movement has taken the world by storm, celebrities everywhere are promoting green living, sustainable energy and everything that comes with it. All this via the glitz and glamour of the silver screen, social media and very publicised platforms. Its not often you'd catch one of the top speakers for this movement knee deep in in the very problem they are talking about, much less if there are no cameras involved.

They spew "facts" and data and scientific findings, all which are great and need to be shared, but have they ever been on the ground, seen with their own eyes and helped with their own hands to do anything about it. Yes the argument can be made that they have changed their lifestyles and influenced others to follow suite, that they have donated or raised large amounts of much needed funding towards these "save the world" causes, but it that enough?

At least they are talking about it, right?

Let's get into the nitty gritty of it, what things are really like in the depths of 3rd world Africa where the "Go Green" funding and silver tongues from foreign lands don't reach, of have very much effect.

First we need to understand where and why the problem comes from, the causes are many. Africa is a continent ripe with scars and history of colonisation by countries all over the world. Netherlands, England, Spain, France and many others all sent their ships over the years to claim and colonise land in Africa. This resulted in the rich and sometimes confused cultures which have developed over time. Cultures which to this day still believe in the traditions of old, which are as alive today as they were in the 1600's, and also flourish with new beliefs and traditions as influenced by the relative country of colonisation of a specific area. The people have merged, creating the need for a completely new method of communication to convey messages about global warming, recycling etc. In these cultures you find groups who do not believe in today's education, and refuse to educate their children in "Western" schools, believing in having many uneducated children, so if one or more were to die there would always be some left to care for them in their old age, rather than having one well educated child who would be able to care for them for a much longer period of time. Yet all these same people will have the latest smartphones, Dstv, laptops at their disposal. The difficulty in Africa, is the African mindset, the biggest communication barrier faced by educators and conservationists on a daily basis, making it extremely difficult to get the message across about why conservation, anti-poaching and RECYCLING are so vitally important.

The next most prominent cause is the poor developed social understanding or acceptance of the need to reduce, reuse and recycle. This world has become consumed in a lifestyle of ease and accessibility, cheap foods, cheap products all available as easily as possible and kept cheap with cheap packaging. Non recyclable, toxic and non biodegradable packaging. In a world filled with "want want want" and "need need need" no time is given for the consumer to contemplate the repercussions of this 1 second decision they have been so colourfully led to with song and dance on the silver screen.

Beautiful women caressing an ice-cream with their tongues and giving full visual explanation of what to do with said ice-cream yet it's never shown what is done with the wrapper. The human condition is bent and shaped by big companies who just want to sell sell sell and manipulate the people with their instinctive needs of sexual gratification, and need for food to create a super product that seemingly satisfies all needs and shows absolute disregard to the reality of the world we actually live in in which ice-creams do not come attached to a nearly naked woman but are in fact wrapped in a tiny piece of seemingly insignificant plastic which is flung out the car window as the consumer searches for his creamy lady on a stick. No lady to be found. The wrapper, however, is found. Countless animals not only dying due to the ingestion of plastic and non recyclables but suffering. Not only the animals but the earth as well. Rivers choking on waste dumped down their banks, oceans smothered in plastic, suffocating each and every living organism under the surface.

So it's clear to see how through media and commercialisation, partnered with the "Hollywood" idealisation and 3rd world uneducated reality creates quite a significant problem in the attempt to fight pollution and waste dumping in Africa. 

As conservationists we do what we can to curb this problem. To educate, to clean, to reduce, reuse and recycle what we can in and with our local communities. We try to show them that there is money to be made from recycling, often the best way to get them to start, but the effort in collecting becomes too much for some and they soon give up. Its a never ending cycle, educate the people, get then excited and incentivised to start, try keep them going, once they've given up, group the next lot and do it all again.

Two years ago, we started project clean up at Nimeng. This was a project where myself and the rangers divided the land up into a number of zones and over the next three months would move through these sections and remove any and all waste from the ranch.

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/bothab211/?hl=en

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