My Emotional Introduction to Anti-Poaching

I was asked to write an article for ‘Fayre Game Pursuits’. Below, is what I wrote.

It might seem strange to some that a ‘conservationist’ had been asked to write an article for ‘Fayre Game Pursuits’ https://fayregamepursuits.com/. It’s not though. There are so many shared beliefs between a conservationist and someone who hunts game for food.

What is a conservationist anyway? I’ve been given this label, so I thought I had better understand what it means.

There are many different interpretations of what a conservationist is, but most seem to agree that a conservationist is someone 'who cares greatly about the conservation of the environment and who works to protect it.' I imagine then, and hope, that almost every sensible adult in this great nation of ours would say that they are a conservationist, at least in spirit. You perhaps don’t work directly in conservation but I’m reasonably confident that the vast majority of people who subscribe to Fayre Game Pursuits, believe in the preservation of the natural order of things and are against the waste of life.?This includes animals. To look at it another way, I am labelled as a conservationist and I follow Fayre Game Pursuits. I enjoy reading about the art of hunting and the techniques employed by hunters to catch and cook their quarry. Hunting is a fascinating subject and its been a way of life since the dawn of time. It has been practiced by every carnivore on earth. For most of our history ‘survival of the fittest’ came down to who was the best hunter. Then…something went wrong. Supposedly, we became intelligent! We learned how to farm.?

I was given the label of a conservationist because of some of the work I do. Having served in the military as an Army Helicopter Pilot, I have taken the skills I learned and applied them to supporting aviation in anti-poaching operations, mostly in Africa. I suppose that could qualify me as a conservationist; though I don’t feel like one. All I have done is apply a skillset I have learned whilst serving and, in my opinion, put it to good use by helping those who use aviation to help protect endangered species. My company is called, SKYHUNTER.

I work in a sphere where we are trying to prevent the local population from hunting their native animals. Its not an easy task. We are not in a position to lecture but we are in a position to help and educate. We come from, arguably, one of the most developed countries on earth. We have levels of science that literally would be seen as ‘magic’ to a huge portion of the world’s population.?However, with that knowledge comes responsibility. In my opinion, we need to help steer others, perhaps less developed nations, away from making the same mistakes that we have made.

I confess I am emotionally invested in this. The first time I saw an Elephant killed, I cried. 26 years of service in the British Army but looking at that dead animal brought tears to my eyes. It had been hunted down on the savannahs of the Congo chased by what was very likely to have been South Sudanese poachers. They had used a bow and arrow to catch their quarry. ?This sounds very traditional and very tribal, but if you are picturing tribesmen in loincloths stalking a majestic elephant, let me stop you right there. ?They use a bow and arrow because they know we have ‘Listening Posts’ dotted around the area. These posts are used to pick up the sound of gunfire and alert rangers that the poachers are in the area.?The arrow is laced with a poison that merely paralyzes the Elephant. Soon after the arrow has been embedded in the elephants rear hindquarters, it had collapsed. It was no longer able to coordinate its legs, its breathing became erratic, and its eyesight blurred. Despite this, the elephant would have seen the four or five poachers encircle him and close in on him. They would have prodded the huge beast to make sure the poison had worked properly. Then, the elephant would have watched as the men started their petrol driven chainsaw, and closed in on his head. You can fill in the next bit. ?Suffice to say, the Elephant was still able to feel but not able to do anything about it and would have died from shock and blood loss. When we arrived the tusks were gone, and so were the Poachers.

A few years later, in the Serengeti this time, I witnessed a small rhino calf being looked after by a local conservationist. This little, but incredibly solid and powerful baby could not bear to be left alone. 24 hours a day, someone had to be close by to comfort it. At night, someone had to sleep next to the baby rhino, his arm carefully placed through the metal bars that protect this unarguably dedicated volunteer in case the baby has more nightmares and lashes out. The little rhino needs that comfort, that reassurance it is safe and not alone. It had witnessed the chainsaw action on its mother. I spoke with one of the world’s most prominent experts in this field and she told me that the rhino calf had PTSD and all that goes with it. When it is fully grown, a black rhino with PTSD will be a very dangerous animal indeed!?

Then there are the Snares. Normally made from wire, to snag a passing Antelope perhaps, but I also saw them in the Rain Forests of the Congo, set purely to catch Gorillas.

Apart from the horrific way in which some of the worlds most endangered species are being killed, just looking at the sheer numbers tells you that we can’t let this keep happening. A Born Free Foundation statistic states that on average 55 elephants are killed every day in Africa. That’s roughly one every 26 mins. Sadly, they don’t produce young at a rate of one every 26 mins. Nobody really knows what the real knock-on effects of there being no wild elephants in Africa are likely to be. I’m reminded of the case in Yellowstone National Park where they reintroduced Wolves and the eco system flourished in ways we didn’t realise it could. The reverse will surely be true when all the elephants are gone.

At the moment, we are fighting a losing battle. At best, we are delaying the inevitable. It is complex though. It’s not just the security of a single herd, the Human/Wildlife conflict needs to be carefully managed and the local people helped. While pressing issues such as sanitation, medical facilities, an education system of any kind, the threat of diseases like Ebola and in many cases the provision of electricity are all battling for attention, the conservationists continue to shout, “don’t kill the animals - although they have just eaten your crops”. Not an easy task. Meanwhile, orders from the far east for horn and tusk keep coming. The promise of 6 months of income for a farmer, for a pair of tusks, is what the conservationist is fighting against.

To have the luxury of a buoyant herd of animals that require selective culling for the welfare of the animal and the good and benefit of the herd, is but a dream. When poachers seek tusk, they do not study the herd and look for the old elephant that isn’t going to survive the next dry season. They kill the one they think they can get away with. What they don’t realise, or care about, is that it may well be the matriarch of a herd; a herd that could be several years away from producing a viable successor. The loss of a matriarch could mean the loss of the herd. ?One elephant killed, can mean a whole herd is lost.

We cannot let this horrific situation continue. SKYHUNTER's mission is to provide specially equipped and affordable aircraft platforms, trained and conservation-aware pilots, to work with the Park’s of Africa to identify, locate and prevent illegal poaching.

If this article has made as much of an emotional impression on you as my visits to Africa have made on me, then I would ask you to tell your friends and ask them to follow our journey.

I want to raise awareness of the tragic situation that is unfolding before us and do something about it.?Please spread the word. You can help!

I know there are a million important causes to support, I know, I can't justify one over another. I'm just telling you about a cause that touched my life. And, if we don’t at least reduce its effects on the wildlife of Africa, as Sir David Attenborough said, it will definitely touch your life too.

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B Jones

SKYHUNTER Global Ltd