Anti-poaching – a lifeline for wildlife

Anti-poaching units are the first line of defence and direct protectors of wildlife. Painted Dog Conservation anti-poaching scouts go out in the wild daily to remove wire snares set by poachers. During our third quarter, we recorded soaring poaching incidents. A total of 542 patrols resulted in the recovery of 1524 snares between July and September 2022. A steep upward trend compared to the same time in the previous years. Last year’s poor rainfall could have caused the surge in poaching.

We swiftly countered the soaring poaching by increasing the boots on the ground. When they go big, we go bigger, thanks to our collaboration with the Mabale Community Anti-Poaching Unit we swarmed the poaching hot spots.

The Gwayi Patrol

The Mpindothella pack moved 13  Km from a safe denning area into a poaching hot zone and one of the females (Thinnet) was missing. We needed to act quickly; our Anti-Poaching Unit is normally denied access to patrol these areas since they are hunting farms. However, with the pack denning there, we consulted with the farm owners and our scouts were allowed to go in, pausing hunting activities for a while. Enock Zulu, the Anti-poaching Unit Manager, deployed all his available manpower at camp. We already had 15 MCAPU scouts deployed and he enlisted the help of an additional 20, who were on standby. Together with our six regular PDC team scouts, Zulu had 41 scouts on the ground.

This effort resulted in 412 wire snares being removed within the proximity of the Mpindothela pack den.

Meanwhile, the research team, headed by Jealous, kept a daily watch on the pack’s movements. Eventually, the surviving three adults and five pups moved south to a relatively safer but certainly not safe area, and we continue to monitor them as we write. We have also extended the collaboration with the MCAPU for another month. This is the kind of life-saving work you support.