The challenges of a ranger

 Rangers in the Kruger National Park are closely watched. Poaching syndicated know their names, and positions. They know their families and where they live. They know when they go on leave or are sick, and they send them messages that their families would get hurt, should they not look the other way.

Then there is the possibility of being shot at, at any given time while on duty. These are the some of the risks rangers in the Kruger National Park face on a daily basis.
“The ranger lives in the (same) communities (as informants) and they know how we operate and his family is exposed to immediate risks,” said Rodney Landela, section ranger of the Mahlangeni section in the KNP.

Landela himself came up through the ranks, starting as a field guide and working his way up to become section ranger. Working with 13 rangers, Landela covers an area of 10000 square kilometres, doing anti-poaching work, as well as the normal work game rangers are really there for - looking for animals in distress, fixing waterholes and fences and daily maintenance.

He leads his men on weekly “clandestine” anti-poaching patrols in the park for between seven and ten days at a time, where rangers go into the field, actively trying to trace poachers, living in the field only on dry rations.

“We get up to 15 incursions on a daily basis,” said Mbongeni Tukela, area integrity manager of KNP.
The park has a border of 1000km, of which 350km is a “hostile” border with Mozambique, where up to 90% of the poachers come from. They travel in groups of about three, hunting rhino.

“More and more it is militarised. More and more it’s not only the hunting rifle. The guy behind him will carry an assault rifle and even a third guy carrying a pistol,” said General Johan Jooste, head of all SANParks’ anti-poaching operations.
Flip Nel, section ranger of Tshokwane where two rhino have been killed in the past month, says it takes just seven minutes from when the animal has dropped, until he is dehorned.

Nel adds,“It takes them half an hour from when the animal is shot to when they cross the border”.