Would you Risk your Life for Biodiversity Conservation?
Dive into the Life of a Conservation Ranger in South Africa
Meet Carl, joining me for a call from Cape Point, the southwestern tip of the African Continent. Carl is a dedicated park ranger stationed in the Cape of Good Hope nature reserve, which has transformed into an integral part of the expansive Table Mountain National Park. His daily mission involves combatting poaching activities and safeguarding South Africa’s rich biodiversity.
Read the full interview to gain insights into Carl’s impactful work as an anti-poaching park ranger, the importance of canine units, and the personal sacrifices he makes in pursuit of his mission. Come along as we explore the realities of wildlife conservation and the battle against wildlife crime in the field, and experience it firsthand through Carl’s perspective.
Featured image: Game Rangers Association of Africa
What did your journey unfold in becoming a park ranger in conservation?
I’ve been in the conservation industry for 34 years now. Before I got into conservation, I worked in the South African police force. I find joy in serving not just the country but also our communities, giving back, and lending a helping hand whenever possible. After doing general police work for six years, I became the first-ever appointed conservation law enforcement officer in 1989.
Getting into conservation was rather unplanned for me. My mother once gave me an advert looking for people to work at Cape Point Nature Reserve as law enforcement. But I said to her, it’s pretty much what I’m doing at the police force, so I might as well stay at the police force. I kept the advert but it didn’t grab me at the beginning. That was until I started chatting to a ranger who had told me that the job position wasn't taken yet. Ultimately, I applied for the job and got it. I never regretted resigning from the police and it was the most amazing career change. I enjoy every moment of it.
What gets me most excited is making a small difference in conservation and I’ll be honest, I just love catching the bad guys. I love catching people harming our environment. It’s not easy either, I’ve had some incredibly close calls with people trying to assassinate me. I have a family to protect with two young daughters. I can’t save the world but I can make that small difference. And I love being outdoors, I mean, what else could anybody want? I’m doing what I love doing out in the field all day. I love fishing, cycling, and surfing, and even my children love conservation.
What is it like to work as a park ranger in conservation?
Back then, there were few local authorities and the nature reserve was very small compared to today. My job was to ensure that people were compliant with not picking up plants and stealing or poaching our animals to protect the delicate ecosystem and our wildlife on land and from the oceans. Up until 1998, I had no support, so I had a very different social life than most other young people. I worked every single weekend, public holidays and night shifts. It was a very demanding job but I had lots of fun. What came with the job too, was that I had a few people who tried to eliminate, drown and kill me because of the work that I was doing. But it was exciting.
How has your job impacted the people around you?
For the positive, I can say that I am working from my heart and always will. My kids see this and my whole family has such a strong bond to Cape Point. My youngest daughter has come to many anti-poaching operations with me from the age of 10. Of course, I’ve never put her in any immediate danger but she already loves it. She’s got the drive to look after animals and she said the year that I am going to retire she’s going to take over from me once she finished high school. She says “I’m going to catch poachers and look after the animals.” She talks about it with her friend and they all want to come as well but I say “Slow down, I can't have all the kids running around me”. My oldest daughter wanted to become a vet at first. But after listening to a talk that I did at the Wildlife Forensic Academy about crime investigation and talking to forensic investigators from around the world, she really wanted to become part of it. I said, well go for it. I believe she can play a vital role in the field by putting perpetrators to court by collecting their DNA, for example.
For me, I also worry about my family because the poachers are ruthless. They might not come for me now because I can stand my ground and they know that, but the family is always vulnerable. We’ve taken as many relevant steps as possible to safeguard them with security. I made them streetwise too, I teach them what to look out for and we try not to have a routine. But I don't want them to be scared but be able to be free and enjoy nature. I’ve also got my dogs around the property, making it more difficult to get to my family. One time they tried to assassinate me. At the entrance to my house in the park, they dropped a hitman off and he hid in the bush, as I was getting out with my kids to take them to school.
You briefly mentioned your dogs. Could you tell me about their role in your work?
Having a dog certainly makes a huge difference because poachers are often scared of them and know that we work with them. I did my canine handling course in 2016, and since then I’ve worked longest with my canine Casey. When I got her she was only partially trained so I spent many days with her at our military canine training unit and I basically trained her from the very beginning until she became one of the top-class dogs in our country. She was brilliant and we’ve done over 360 arrests and took on huge groups of poachers of around 75 people.
Casey would purely track poachers down, find them and apprehend them. She wasn't a species dog, meaning that she wasn't trying to sniff out any marine products or fish. There are also “dual purpose dogs” that are trained in such a way that they can track and apprehend suspects, but also help me sniff out the hidden products because poachers often hide equipment in the mountains to go find hidden abalone or rock lobsters.
Unfortunately, one day Casey was diagnosed with an eye disease called Pannus and eventually went blind. Now they know that I don’t have a dog which actually has a huge negative impact on all my work. Although she’s unable to join me at my work because she’s blind as a bat, she’s living with me now as a pet. We’ve got such a strong bond and Casey has never lost the instinct.
She’s such a cuddly pet and you would never say she’s a killer dog. I still keep her stimulated by taking out old wetsuits and I will tease her with them and she will get aggressive and take them on as if it's a real poacher. She loves it and it's just sad that she went blind. She was a top dog and I don’t think there is any other dog in South African national parks or even in the police force that has made as many arrests as she has.
I love working with animals and the bond you form with them is so important but currently, I don't have a dog for my work.
Do the dogs also get at risk when they attack poachers?
They do but at the same time, I wouldn’t send my dogs into a very dangerous situation. Some are very fearless, and one other dog called Ceasar would jump into the ocean to follow poachers. But that becomes dangerous and we call him back if he does that because if he’s in the waters he has no advantage. If they drown him, he’s finished.
“As she was there to protect me, I was there to protect her.”
But there’s always a risk no matter what. there’s a risk for me and there's a risk for the dog. The biggest victory during my nighttime anti-poaching activities was making it back home safely, together with my dog, to my family. That’s my biggest success. Because there’s always that risk that you’re not going to make it because poachers are aggressive. They don’t hesitate to take you out. So since my night vision and hearing aren’t as good as an animal, I very much depend on Casey to alert me to any dangers because she can sense the poachers. She can hear them and alert me long before I even know they’re out. So not working with her anymore, it’s not the same for me.
Is there a specific story with her that you want to share?
With Casey, I have so many fun stories. One night my colleague, Casey and I, took on a group of 150 poachers in one night. These were different groups, one group consisted of 75 people and another group of 20. We were anticipating poachers to come into the park because of the weather, so we were inside the park waiting for them to come. Using our night vision equipment, we saw the group coming down because they entered the park illegally by climbing over the fence. They walk right into the park to get to the coastline to conduct the poaching activities.
They all came walking along the road as a big group. I decided to send the dog first. And they never know how many people I am working with at any given time. We only had one dog Casey, but she ran into the big group and grabbed the first person. I made so much noise together with my colleague so it sounded like we had an army with us. And the guys just ran and they scattered. Because they know if they split then the dog can’t catch everybody. Once that happened, I called Casey off for her protection and she came back to me.
Once the big group of poachers remastered into three smaller groups, we started chasing them out of the park and we managed to chase them for about 14 kilometres into the mountains. And once they know where we are, they don't come back because they dropped all their equipment and bags to make themselves lighter to get away as fast as possible. It’s just a matter of chasing one group down after another.
How well are your dogs trained?
Casey was always in the vehicle with me when she was working. She’s very relaxed and takes things easy until I have to pull over a car full of poachers that can be quite aggressive. Casey was always ready to jump and attack but I trained her to the point where I could say “Sit, stay and watch my suspects”. Dogs seem to exert some kind of power over the poachers, making them more cooperative; if they attempted to move in my direction, she would attack.
She gave me peace of mind. As an example, one night I was watching the ocean looking for clues when suddenly Casey’s body language changed and her ears went up. She looked in the opposite direction and she alerted me for a big group of poachers that were walking down the road towards me from behind. I never heard or saw them but she picked them up and I was able to ambush and chase them first.
What other resource do you believe upcoming generations of rangers will find helpful that they are now lacking?
I never ask for things that are nice to have, but rather essential that will help us in the job. When I started here, 34 years ago, we didn't know what night vision was, we used binoculars and the moonlight. Once we got night vision, the things we could see were amazing, which makes it one of the most valuable pieces of equipment I can think of first. I mean you have standard night vision gadgets but then there is also thermal imaging equipment that gives us the advantage of finding offenders at night. When it’s dark they hide and unless you got proper equipment, it becomes very complicated to find them.
Also, cameras are useful for long-distance daytime surveillance, and spotting scopes, where I can sit 14 kilometres away, and I can watch the guys poaching safely, and guide teams around.
You said you’ve arrested a lot of poachers, but what happens to them once they are arrested? Do they get prosecuted?
Once we have arrested people, they go to court. Unfortunately, the judicial system at this moment does not run very smoothly. But once we bring the perpetrators to court, what happens at court is way beyond our control. The problem is that a lot of suspects, once they get bail, are released and they just disappear. They go and cross borders into other countries. But we’ve also had some good convictions and I’ve got some guys sentenced to jail for two or five years.
So why do some get successfully convicted compared to others?
It’s all to do with the judiciary. Some magistrates don’t see our environmental cases as seriously as they should. They are used to dealing with higher-profile crimes like murder, rape and robberies. However, in some of the other courts, the guys involved in rhino poaching get hefty jail time of 10 to 25 years sentence and a murderer for example will get 10 to 15 years.
The thing is, if you present a very good case, then criminals usually get a good sentence. Sometimes they tend to be more lenient and say, “We’re going to give you a light sentence as a warning.”. But some offenders I’ve caught 5 or 6 times within a year but they can just carry on because they don’t see what would seem to be a fit for a sentence or punishment.
Forensics is a very important thing for objective proof. And I always said, if you had to put a murdered rhino in front of a judge with the horn cut off, it’s got a huge emotional impact on that individual. In my case, I would show you a sea snail (referring to Abalone) that has been killed. It could be seen like a garden snail that you could easily also squash.
My late father used to ask me “Why do you go through all this trouble when they just go to court and disappear for nobody to find them again?”
“I always said, what I do is not a job, it’s a passion. I do what I can to make this difference. ”
The day when I retire or the poachers kill me, society can never say “Carl failed us.” The judiciary system can fail, but not me. I’ve done what I had to do and although I may not see the small difference that I’ve made but did make a difference and I can proudly say that I’ve done everything in my power to make at least that small difference.
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