Project Rhino K9 Unit: Defending African Wildlife

Dear Friends and Supporters

With the world being upside down for the last year and a half with the dreaded Covid-19 virus and the detrimental impact it has had on tourism, conservation, job losses and the increase in wildlife poaching due to desperation, we decided to participate in something healthy and positive, to make a difference!

The Project Rhino K9 team is proud to announce our support of over 80 conservation areas, 45 iconic species and 5,000 Wildlife Rangers by participating in the 2021 #WildlifeRangerChallenge, an initiative to support the men and women across Africa’s protected areas who continue to see drastic cuts in resources and an increase in poaching due to the devastating economic impact of Covid-19. To date, the team has participated in the push-up challenge, managing to do 204 push-ups in 2 minutes, a quiz challenge and finally a sit-up challenge, where they did 155 sit-ups in 2 minutes. On the 18th of September they will participate in the final event, which is a 21km run, in full uniform, with a 22kg backpack and their weapons.

We have sadly had to retire our bloodhound K9 Gunner. Gunner was one of the founding Project Rhino K9 members; a bloodhound with a reputation that preceded him. In Gunner’s working life as an anti-poaching K9, he tracked hundreds of kilometres of suspicious spoor over tough terrains and successfully apprehended a significant number of poachers. He was a brave service dog, who has made a significant difference in the Project Rhino K9 team. We are delighted that we have found a loving home and family for Gunner, ensuring that he will be looked after and loved. A massive thank you to the K9 handlers for looking after Gunner, and WESSA Lowveld for the ongoing support during Gunner’s years in service.

We are grateful that we have managed to keep our teams operational and supported to date. In the last year, our K9 team had to absorb two additional handlers that were deployed to and paid by the Rhino Orphanage, but were given 24 hours’ notice due to the Covid-19 outbreak. The additional two members to the team - although all team members were on salary cuts - gave us the opportunity to have a far more impactful reach and presence in the Zululand landscape. We could also assist and support the reserves better and not only respond to emergencies, but actually play an integrated role in their daily patrols and training regimes. Having the K9 team operational has led to major successes of not only wildlife crime busts, but the capture of counterfeit goods syndicates, wildlife crime and trade syndicates, farm and lodge robbers, hijackers and general criminals that were a threat to our reserves, wildlife and surrounding communities. It made everyone in the Zululand area aware of our presence, while giving the conservation, farming and rural communities more security and trust in Project Rhino’s ability to keep them safe and crime free.

We have also managed to keep up with the continuous training of our teams, which is an enormous morale booster. We actively do operations simulator training with our member reserves which focuses on what to expect in real life situations in order to respond to any challenges and shortcomings. This also ensures concrete trust relationships are built between the Project Rhino K9 and aerial response teams and the reserve APU teams, so that they know the other team will absolutely support them in a crisis situation.

We would like to extend a sincere thank you and appreciation to all our donors and supporters that help us keep our teams on the ground, it would never be possible without your ongoing motivation and support. Happy Rhino Month!

Dear friends and supporters

In case you haven’t met the K9-team yet, they are: Gunner, Bonnie Shikar, Spook (Ghost), Mali, Vega, Vodka and Bailey, and of course, their dedicated handlers. The team consists of both tracking and detection dogs and two of the dogs are even trained to fly in a helicopter. The K9-Unit really is one of the fittest and hardest working teams in Zululand. On call 24-hours a day, they work alongside local law enforcement, land-owners, ecotourism businesses and community based institutions to keep our wildlife safe.

As usual, it has been a busy few months for the team who were called to assist in a variety of incidents including; locating a missing child, a motor vehicle accident, theft/burglary, hi-jacking, a farm attack and numerous reserve incursions. On any days that they are not called to a reaction, the team continues with their training and foot patrols, checking fence lines, removing snares and being alert to any suspicious activity.

Recently, the team was instrumental in the apprehension of three suspects involved in antelope poaching. In the first incident, the K9 was used to follow a scent from the reserve fence, right to the suspects’ door. The two suspects were found in possession of a red duiker which they had killed and skinned. The second incident involved a small gang which entered a reserve at approximately 22H00. The K9-team worked closely with a local security team and were able to apprehend one suspect after chasing him toward a stopper group. The remaining suspects fled and the poached animals were left at the scene.

A huge thank you to all our GlobalGiving friends and partners for your generous contributions to the project! Thanks to your support, in the last eight or so months the team has:

• Responded to 46 emergency reactions, including 18 poaching incidents
• Assisted in the apprehension of 21 suspects
• Recovered 7 firearms
• Removed 230+ snares
• And conducted hundreds of kilometres of patrol

We are also incredibly grateful to Rhino Recovery Fund (administered by the Wildlife Conservation Network) and Tusk Trust who generously supported our K9, ZAP-Wing and coordination efforts these past months, as well as One Plan Insurance, Wessa Lowveld and Epol for their ongoing support. Thank you for making a difference.

Please follow the Project Rhino social media pages for further updates on this, and our other projects.