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This Conservation Dog Took Down 3 Poachers In 1 Night
You're about to fall in love with a dog named Annie for her heroic actions.
Jessica Adler
07.19.18

Thinking of poaching a rhino or two on your trip to Africa? You better think again…

As a result of Rhinoceros conservation efforts in South Africa, the Endangered Wildlife Trust, funded by the International Rhinoceros Foundation, has initiated a program called Conservation K-9.

The dog’s aim is to track and obtain poachers, ammo, weapons, and contraband like Ivory or Rhino horns.

Poachers beware, these canines are skilled in their trade, too.

Stop Rhino Poaching
Source:
Stop Rhino Poaching

This is great news, considering that 4 out of the 5 Rhino species in South Africa are in serious danger of becoming totally extinct!

So when one conservation dog, Annie, picked up the track of these poachers, her eyes were fixed on bringing them down…literally.

Save The Rhino
Source:
Save The Rhino

Trained to track anything from poacher sightings, border breaches, or escape routes, there’s no stopping Annie when she’s onto someone, and she proved that a little over a week ago.

Her handler Colin wrote to the Endangered Wildlife Trust to acknowledge what a hero Annie had been in this story.

He wrote,

During the early hours of the morning I received a call from one of our neighbouring reserves. One of their night observation posts thought they had seen a poacher walk past. I was asked to go and assist in the follow up with Annie. The poachers had unfortunately walked in the same area as the field rangers making it difficult for me to indicate to Annie which tracks I wanted her to follow. We therefore followed the tracks visually until we found where the poachers had split away into the bush. The poachers were wearing socks over there shoes which made visual tracking very difficult. It became almost impossible once they had turned off into the bush but this is where Annie’s tracking skills came into play. For her, them wearing socks had no effect on her tracking ability.

I put her on the tracks and she immediately started to pull on the trail. Over time I have learnt to read Annie’s body language and I see she can read mine. It seems that we can both read when one of us are serious. In this case I could see that her full focus was on the tracks. This was a good sign.

Annie tracked through various terrains until I got a visual of the two poachers lying in long grass. They were arrested and a rifle with silencer, ammunition, axe and other poaching equipment were recovered. Undoubtedly the life of a rhino was saved today because of this team’s tracking skills and the many hours spent in observation posts and patrols by the field rangers employed by the reserve to protect their rhino.”

Endangered Wildlife Trust
Source:
Endangered Wildlife Trust

As if Annie’s feat thus far wasn’t already an AMAZING accomplishment, she continued to track and chase down the poacher’s accomplice as well, bringing their operation to a screeching halt!

Colin continued his detail of the event,

“Unbelievably the action was not over for the day! In a later follow up operation by the SAPS to arrest the poachers’ pick up team, one suspect was arrested by the SAPS and another fled the scene on foot into a neighbouring reserve. I was again asked to track the suspect with Annie. As there were numerous people at the scene contaminating the area, I placed Annie in the vehicle driven by the suspect and gave her the command to follow up. This enables her to know who we are looking for and when she exited the vehicle it did not take her long to get on track. We tracked for about 1 km through very thick bush, made contact and arrested a very tired and demoralised suspect who thought he had evaded the law. Overall a good day for Conservation Canine Annie and her team!”

Clearly, this happy ending is a remarkable example of why such conservation programs are instrumental in putting an end to poaching.

Annie, along with the other 10 agent-dogs in the field under the Conservation K9 program, is a true game-changer in the poaching trade.

Their highly skilled tracking abilities allow them to disrupt every level of poaching activity, from trap-and-kill to wheel-and-deal.

Endangered Wildlife Trust
Source:
Endangered Wildlife Trust

The dogs that comprise the Conservation K9 program are trained at Southern African Wildlife College.

The training is intense, and only 11 dogs in total have been deployed so far.

This makes the fact that the dogs have already spearheaded seven important arrests in the poaching industry, according to EWT, just this year, that much more remarkable!

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Chris Serfontein/International Rhino Foundation
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Chris Serfontein/International Rhino Foundation

This leaves all of us with high hopes for the future of South African Rhino’s, as well as the motivation to physically grow the reach of programs like Conservation K9, in the hopes of putting out poachers everywhere.

A HUGE thanks to Annie and every canine agent like her, as well as the rangers, handlers, and trainers who take true risks on behalf of the species who can’t save themselves.

If you would like to support the efforts of the Conservation K9 program, you can do so here.

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