With their infallible flair they have already led to the capture of many poachers. At the Kruger National Park in South Africa the fight against rhino poaching is done with hound dogs brought from Texas and the idea seems to be a winning one to date.
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves himWith their infallible flair they have already led to the capture of many poachers. To the Kruger National Park in South Africa the fight against rhino poaching is done with hound dogs brought from Texas and the idea seems to be a winning one to date.
Hunting dogs were initially used, but the effect was not hoped for, so we thought about the sniffing of hound dogs capable of running fast and getting straight to the poachers who are exterminating the rhinos of South Africa.
There are 8 thousand rhinos killed from 2008 to 2018 both for their horn used in traditional Chinese medicine and as a hunting trophy. It seems in particular that the rhino horn in China and Vietnam has become a status symbol for those belonging to the emerging social classes. So while animals like the black rhino have fully entered the list of those on the verge of extinction, serious measures are beginning to be taken to put an end to this havoc. According to estimates, there are about 20 white rhinos and just over 5 black rhinos. South Africa hosts around 80% of the last remaining in the world.
Hounds dogs
Collaboration with the Texas Hounds began in 2017 when Theresa Sowry, CEO of Southern African Wildlife College, a wildlife management and training facility based near Kruger, met Joe Braman, a businessman who runs a ranger and who often witnessed scenes where his dogs had helped catch poachers.
Together they created an anti-poaching team and tested the hunting dogs first and then the hounds. The idea turned out to be successful because during the training, the latter never failed. On Braman's ranch, hounds live in the wild and when they are not hunting for poachers, they train. The jokes are not every day to give the animals proper rest, but when they are 'on duty', the hounds run fast to prevent the killing of the rhinos. After trying the way of coloring the horns of rhinos to make them less palatable, this one of the hounds seems a virtuous path, even if the path is long and uphill.
“If a dog starts attacking you, the first thing you will do is throw the gun and climb a tree, which allows us to be captured,” explains Braman. "In the field, dogs learn to follow a single trace of human scent and ultimately allow us to stem this sad phenomenon."
Read also:
- Poaching: mother roe deer and her 4-month-old puppy killed
- Akashinga: the brave women fighting poaching in Africa
Dominella Trunfio
Source and photos
