What does a regular day of APU (AntiPoaching Units) look like?
In this article we will learn how the fight for the commerce of wildlife is developing nowadays and we will disclose the operations of both parties: Poachers and Rangers.
First of all, it is essential to underline that the activities carried out by the APU are very varied, including prevention, deterrence, and operational intervention.
The initial employment of microchips pierced inside the horns of the rhinos are intended to monitor the specimens and to guarantee the possible capture of the poachers; further more, the preventive cutting of the horn without causing any damage to the animal are useful both to the research and either the removal of traps.
This technique, however, has been found ineffective since the poachers, after following the tracks of a specimen for ore, do not hesitate to knock it down in order not to recently run into horn.
Plus, deterrence tasks concern the perimeter surveillance of reserves and the setting up of checkpoints for the control of suspect vehicles.
The operational intervention involves the application of teams responsible for the intensive patrolling of large areas of forest or savannah in search of tracks of poachers: the activity is certainly the most dangerous, since the severe penalties imposed on the ‘facts’ caught on the left ones often motivate them to use their weapons even against rangers, with lethal results on both sides.
Let’s get more in details, reconstructing an hypothetical “day in the life of“.
Three AK47 armed men leave their homes before the sun rises, heading for a forest area they know very well.
After following the tracks for about an hour, they spot their target: about 100 meters away, a female rhino with her cub.
The favorable wind allows them to approach without being identified by the animal, whose visual ability happens to be very limited.
Once at a distance that allows them to take aim among the dense African vegetation, the poachers skirmish shooting at the pachyderm’s legs, making her impossible to escape. The baby, as often sadly happens, remains close to the injured mother trying to protect her and is mowed down by a volley of 7.62X39. The puppy has not yet developed the precious horn, but would hinder and slow down the work.
After that, the Poachers shortly approach the immobilized animal, which complains about the mangled legs. As the wounded prey tries to get up, they break the spine with a series of brutal axe hits.
While the dying animal foams in pain, the poachers remove the rhino horn with a saw. Often the front of the muzzle is amputated to make it faster.
This is a tragic but regular story for more over 1000 rhinoceroses who are massacred every year.
The most important thing to comprehend is the fact that a slightly decreasing trend does not represent a decrease in demand, but the scarcity of individuals remained in nature.
But what does lie behind the reasons of such a slaughter?
The most pushing requests comes from some medicine which does consider the rhino horn a portentous remedy for various diseases. However, multiple researches have repeatedly shown that this horn is nothing more than a keratinous tissue almost equal to that of human nails and therefore completely devoid of any medical function.
Actually, the demand for rhino horns has declined sharply since Yemen, where it was traditionally used to make ‘jambiya’ ceremonial knives.
Very efficient criminal organizations, with the connivance of local institutions, smuggle rare animals or parts of them: this is the fourth illegal traffic in the world in terms of turnover after drugs, weapons and prostitution.
The highest levels of the organizations are instead occupied by wealthy entrepreneurs or by unscrupulous politicians who, sniffing the possibility of an easy profit, hire professional mercenary hunters, also equipping them with boats and helicopters.
But how much is the life of a rhino worth?
Autochthonous poachers are sometimes satisfied with a few hundred dollars to kill a specimen, but, due to the strong Chinese and Vietnamese demand, a kilogram of rhino horn can cost up to $ 60,000 to the final consumer: or about $ 350,000 per a medium sized horn.
The rhinos have become the symbol of a macabre trade that also affects many other animal species. For example, elephants, whose ivory is still in great demand in China to manufacture molds and stamps; tigers, decimated as much for furs as for bowels and bones, endowed with healing powers according to traditional Chinese medicine.
Not even the noblest symbol of the African continent is immune to indiscriminate hunting, traps and deforestation: today CITES, the international body responsible for monitoring flora and fauna, has included the lion in the list of endangered animals.
Some African states, such as Kenya, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and with some limitations the Republic of South Africa, have taken concrete action to combat poaching, with the use of specialized personnel. The AntiPoaching Units, like those from Conservation Rangers Operations Worldwide, are teams of specialized rangers, sometimes made up of ex-military personnel. They are exceptional Trackers, and so they must be, since the fight is tremendous, and fought day by day, either in the Bush, either in the Jungle, as we will soon see in the next articles.
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