South Africa’s all-female “Black Mambas” anti-poaching team had never lost a rhinoceros since they were formed in 2013, but the killing of two animals earlier this month shattered their proud record.
The two rhinos, one of which was pregnant, were shot dead and their horns hacked off by poachers on a full-moon night.
The group is made up of 36 female rangers, aged from 19 to 33, based at the Balule Game Reserve in Limpopo Province on the edge of Kruger National Park.
Photo: AFP
They have been feted as a mould-breaking experiment that has successfully helped to tackle poaching through foot patrols, intelligence gathering and community awareness work.
However, the insatiable appetite for rhino horn in Vietnam and China has fueled record killings in Africa, and the Black Mambas are struggling under growing pressure.
“It was so horrible. It feels like our fault,” Collet Ngobeni, 32, who has been with the team since they were founded, told reporters.
“We need to be more prepared. Three rhinos [including the fetus] means a lot,” she said.
“There are greedy people about who don’t think of the future,” Ngobeni added.
The recent deaths in Balule were in a remote area where rhinos rarely roam and had never been targeted by poachers before, so it was not covered by a regular patrol.
The Black Mambas — named after a venomous snake — won the UN Champions of the Earth award last year, which Ngobeni traveled to New York to collect in a blaze of publicity.
And they have been singled out for praise at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) conference under way in Johannesburg.
However, Ngobeni said she is frustrated by a lack of resources.
“All the attention has not been translated into help,” she said. “If we step back, the poachers come again. Our vehicles are often broken down and we don’t have enough equipment. To go forward, we need more training, more money and more people.”
Rhino horn is trafficked to east Asia where it is deemed to be a cure for everything from cancer to lack of virility — and demand is soaring.
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