The helicopter's rotor blades cut through the air with heavy, monotonous bursts of noise. It's after 7:30 a.m. and the sun has already risen, but it's still not hot enough to be tiring. The landscape with the bushes that are dry due to winter makes the work of Marius, the helicopter pilot, easier. His eyes spotted a white rhinoceros in the middle of the savannah of South Africa's Kruger National Park. Notify the crew. One of the rangers (park guards) from the helicopter takes a rifle and shoots the animal. Reach your destination the first time. The rhino growls, but the sound is drowned out by the noise of the propellers. He takes a few uncoordinated steps through the bushes, as if he didn't understand what was happening. Suddenly he collapses. Marius begins his descent from the helicopter and lands gently on the ground, kicking up a wind full of sand and dry grass like straw. When the propeller stops rotating, a team of several rangers with rifles, two veterinarians and Marius himself climb out of the device. They quickly run towards the rhino. He's not dead. Sleeps. They didn't catch him. You save his life.
Helicopter pilot and ranger Marius next to the rhino, which will later be dehorned. Richard White (Hublot)
The ranger Marius cuts the rhino horn with a saw. Richard White (Hublot)
The team works quickly. They know they have little time and the work they have to do is expensive. First, they cover his eyes with a towel and tie ropes to immobilize him. They then measure the horn and use a device to look behind the ears and along the neck to see if it has a microchip. The rhino doesn't move, breathes heavily and growls every now and then. It is a young male specimen, which means its horn grows faster than other specimens. In pregnant females, the horn hardly grows because all of its energy is spent on pregnancy.
Suddenly the growling can no longer be heard. Marius holds a huge electric saw in his hands, which he uses to approach the animal's horn. He cuts it, sending hundreds of splinters flying to the ground. It smells like a burnt nail, it has the texture of a fingernail, and when you cut it it becomes the same as a fingernail: trash. Rhino horn has no miraculous or even beneficial properties, yet it is revered in Asian countries such as China and Vietnam. In these parts of the world, it has been believed for centuries that powdered horn cures everything from hangovers to cancer, and that having a whole horn from an adult specimen is also a sign of economic power. On the black market, the price for rhino horn is 60,000 euros per kilogram. More expensive than cocaine.
Chief Ranger of South Africa's Kruger Park, Cathy Dreyer. Richard White (Hublot)
“We have a huge border with Mozambique, which is largely open and through which poachers come. Mozambicans are paid per kilogram by criminal groups, so they tear off the horn, no matter how small. Most of these hunters are very poor people,” says Cathy Dreyer, the first female ranger chief of Kruger National Park since its founding. Dreyer has been committed to protecting rhinos for more than 21 years. Practically his entire professional life. He started in a similar team to the one accompanying Marius in the helicopter, but in Kimberley, in the center of South Africa. “I stayed there for 13 years, but I got really tired of living in a sleeping bag and a tent because we spent eight months on the road and four months at home.” So Dreyer joined the Kruger Park Rangers team six years ago and became its boss two years ago.
Most days, his day and that of the rest of the rangers consists of getting up at 4 a.m. and working until the sun goes down. At 19,000 square kilometers, Kruger Park is almost as big as Israel. A vast area of baobabs and bushes that is difficult to control. “It can take a whole day to drive from one end of the park to the other,” says Dreyer. The Kruger employs around 2,500 people. Of these, only 386 are rangers. Not enough to keep dozens of poachers at bay in such a huge area. In 2011, there were 10,621 white rhinos living in the Kruger National Park. In 2022 there were still 2,225. In the first six months of 2023 alone, 42 rhinos were killed by poachers in the national park.
“It's up to the field guards to track down the poachers' tracks and follow them, sometimes all day long,” explains Dreyer. “We have dogs that track down the trail, license plate recognition cameras hidden behind bushes, night vision goggles.” We train helicopters at night can fly. We have improved, but so have the poachers. “You are always one step ahead.” In many cases, this step forward can only be traced back to help, a hint from within. From the ranks of the rangers themselves. “Apparently 40% of the staff are involved in poaching,” admits Dreyer.
Kevin Pietersen from the SORAI Foundation.Richard White (Hublot)
When she took office, she fired more than 40 rangers herself. “A few years ago we had a regional ranger with us,” says Dreyer. He is referring to Rodney Landela. He worked as a park worker for 15 years and all of his colleagues saw him as the next boss before Dreyer took over. In 2016, it was his colleagues who trusted him who discovered him fleeing from the site of a dead rhinoceros. The bullet from his rifle had killed him, and his bloody shoes left no doubt. The torn horn was found a few meters from the site. “We have a very serious problem with corruption and are only now beginning to understand how Rangers end up in these mafia networks,” explains the Kruger boss.
In general, the system is almost always the same: a ranger is in debt and ends up borrowing money from a loan shark. Loan sharks in South Africa are often involved in poaching and when they find out where their customer works, they do not hesitate to blackmail him with the help of his family. For their part, the rangers know exactly where each animal is, how their companions are used, and have weapons and the ability to remove the horn once the animal is killed. “The rangers definitely don’t get paid enough in the park. A field ranger earns between R10,000 and R12,000 per month. [alrededor de 600 euros]“, admits Dreyer. But poaching can put good morsels in your pocket.
Conservationist Derek Macaskill feeds rescued rhinos at the Care for Wild sanctuary. Richard White (Hublot)
“The people who come here to kill are desperate. These are people who kill because they want to feed their children. “People who live here don’t understand why tourists come to photograph their food,” admits Kevin Pietersen, a former cricketer and founder of the organization SORAI, which provides financial support for conservation work in the Kruger National Park. His organization, which brands like Hublot work with and has already released three watches dedicated to rhino conservation, specializes in raising funds that are then distributed to schools to teach local children how to protect the animal and the animals financially to support ranger activities. Dehorning a rhinoceros like Marius did, which requires mobilizing a team of professionals and fuel for a helicopter, costs about 2,000 euros per animal. An amount of money that the park does not have. On a good day they can dehorn up to 20 rhinos. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a government in South Africa that wants to strictly ban hunting,” says Pietersen. In fact, rhino hunting is legal in the country if you have a permit from the government (about 1,000 licenses are currently issued). International horn trade is prohibited, but domestic trade is not.
After cutting off the rhino's horn, Marius lets his team work. One of the veterinarians collects a stool sample and five tubes of blood, which are later analyzed in the laboratory. The severed horn lies on the ground next to him. Its filed beak indicates that this specimen was dehorned several months ago. It is soft and heavy and shows a beige color in the freshly cut part with a dark gray center that draws the shape of a heart. When all measurements are complete, they release the rhino, which no longer grunts or kicks, but immediately stands up. It's all over. In 18 months, when the horn grows back, everything starts again. Provided the rhino does not suffer the same fate as the 42 individuals killed by poachers this year. “Many people tell me why we don’t shoot the poachers. “I wish we could,” says Dreyer, laughing; No, all joking aside, the last thing we want is for a Ranger to be accused of murder and end up in prison. If you must shoot, it will be to immobilize, not to kill.”
The rhinoceros after it was dehorned in an operation that costs 2,000 euros per specimen. Richard White (Hublot)
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