TRANSCRIPT
DUMI ZWANE: Poaching has always been around, but it was very seldom.
All of a sudden, people were losing rhinos left, right, center.
The carcasses that we were coming across, the numbers were not lying.
Dehorning just became the thing to do to protect the animals.
So for most of us at Game Capture Unit, we knew what was expected of us, but we've never done it in such a big scale.
[music playing] For me, what has always been distinct with a rhino, apart from the fact that it's big, it can hurt you.
It's the smell.
Just knowing this is how the rhino smells.
Just got stuck on my head.
SPEAKER: Dumi Zwane has a close connection with one of the largest land animals on Earth, the Southern White Rhino.
It's a bond he formed at an early age.
DUMI ZWANE: I must have been seven or eight, and I saw a picture in a calendar with a rhino.
They looked so prehistoric, and it was something that I'd never seen before.
I was used to cattle, goats, sheep.
I'd never heard of a game reserve where wild animals are kept.
From that day on, I was captivated.
SPEAKER: That single photo on a calendar triggered a lifelong passion and steered Dumi to a career in wildlife management.
DUMI ZWANE: Everything was so big and so beautiful and special.
I felt blessed that I was actually following up my dreams, what I've always wanted to do.
SPEAKER: A highlight for Dumi was getting to work hands-on with rhinos as part of an elite Game Capture Unit.
His job was to help capture large animals for treatment, monitoring, or relocation.
And he got to do it in one of Africa's most historic parks.
DUMI ZWANE: iMfolozi Game Reserve is known to be the oldest park in Africa.
SPEAKER: The reserve, now known as Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park, or HiP, was founded because of the rhinos.
Uncontrolled hunting in the early colonial era took a huge toll on the species.
By the end of the 19th century, Southern White Rhinos had vanished from their range all across Southern Africa.
DUMI ZWANE: It was thought that the Southern White Rhinos were all extinct.
And then in the late 1890s, it was discovered that there was still White Rhino in this area, and it was the last existing population of White Rhino.
SPEAKER: There were fewer than 100 of them left.
Their discovery in 1895 prompted the colonial government to immediately set aside land to protect the rhinos and create the first nature reserve on the African continent.
DUMI ZWANE: From then, conservation was born and the different conservation techniques, skills, and people becoming aware of conservation.
SPEAKER: It was a turning point in the region's relationship with nature, and because of it, the rhino population began to recover.
By 1960, HiP's rhino population had boomed, and Dumi's predecessor, a famed figure in South African conservation, saw an opportunity not just to save the species but to restore it.
DUMI ZWANE: The late Dr.
Ian Player started looking at means and ways of introducing these rhinos back to their former range.
Then that's when the Operation Rhino was born.
SPEAKER: The ambitious project began pioneering methods to safely capture and transport these sensitive Giants.
DUMI ZWANE: There was a lot of trial and error.
They found what drugs they needed and how potent they were to the animal.
They found the best way to transport the animals and designed the crates and everything.
They were the pioneers.
SPEAKER: Over the course of five years, Operation Rhino moved almost 500 rhinos from HiP to reserves across Southern Africa.
These efforts continued, and as more land became available for conservation, rhinos were flourishing.
By 2007, the total population of white rhinos had grown to over 17,000 animals, and all of them had their origins in HiP.
But then, disaster.
DUMI ZWANE: Around 2008, it's where I really first experienced it.
And it was-- I was just blown away with the amount of poaching that just started.
And before we knew it, it was already in HiP.
And before we knew it, it was everywhere.
SPEAKER: Rhino poaching was suddenly soaring.
The horns had become highly sought after in some Asian countries, where they were believed to have medicinal properties or used for ornamental carvings.
The rising demand made poaching more profitable for criminal syndicates.
DUMI ZWANE: It's a waste.
I mean, you're killing almost a two ton animal for its horn.
SPEAKER: As a countermeasure, many parks across Africa began dehorning their rhinos, making their rhinos less valuable to the poachers.
But HiP resisted this measure to try and preserve the rhino's unique silhouette, an important draw for tourists.
Instead, they emphasized high security to protect their animals.
For a while, it worked.
DUMI ZWANE: In Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park, we were one of the very last big populations who still had horned rhinos, while everybody around us had dehorned.
So we just became the prime target.
I mean, the amount of incursions that was happening in the reserve just proved that we were the prime target.
SPEAKER: In 2023, the park lost over 300 White Rhinos to poaching, a number higher than their birth rate.
If this continued, the population would collapse.
DUMI ZWANE: It's the worst, worst feeling when you're seeing a poached rhino and the brutality of it as well.
I mean, I've seen situations where an orphan lying there next to their mother because they are so lost.
There's a feeling of you've failed the animal.
SPEAKER: HiP was left with little choice but to dehorn.
DUMI ZWANE: I mean, we were not really sure whether we are doing the right thing or not.
SPEAKER: Although most studies have shown no negative impact on the rhino's behavior, some scientists suggest that dehorned rhinos may actually command smaller territories, which can cause them to reproduce less.
But dehorning is the only method with hard data that shows it actually reduces poaching.
So dehorning it was.
DUMI ZWANE: As long as you rather see a live rhino without a horn than seeing a dead rhino, then you've got to make a decision.
And that decision was taken.
CEDRIC COETZEE: This park had managed to hold out for as long as we can.
The poaching pressure is 10%, 12% of total population now, so our strategy says we've got to go there.
So we're here for a very important reason.
SPEAKER: The park holds roughly 2,000 rhinos, and the immediate goal is to dehorn at least half of them over the coming months.
It's an incredibly ambitious goal, and Dumi is at the helm.
DUMI ZWANE: We have to split people into four teams, so you'll have a team leader.
You've got your animal attendants.
They are responsible for different parts of the work.
Everybody has got his equipment ready.
SPEAKER: Dehorning even a single rhino is a monumental task.
Rhinos are notoriously sensitive to anesthesia, so there's a real risk of killing the animals they're trying to save.
The team will need every bit of experience they have to pull off not just one, but over 1,000 safely.
DUMI ZWANE: You've got everything covered.
You've got a vet in the helicopter that is darting.
You've got a vet with the ground team.
So you wait for the helicopter to start giving you information about, OK, I've got five rhinos in this area.
Can the teams move to there?
SPEAKER: First, the aerial vet darts the animal with a tranquilizer.
Then one of the ground teams rushes in to intercept the darted rhino.
DUMI ZWANE: They tell the vets on the ground team that we've got a big female.
They give you all that information, and by the time you get to the animal, you know exactly.
The big female, she has been darted with this amount of drugs.
This is what you need to do to her and all that.
SPEAKER: The next challenge is to help her lie down safely.
DUMI ZWANE: It's a big animal.
With all that weight, if it's lying on the side, badly, upside down, he's compromised.
You make sure that that animal is lying correctly.
Just make it breathe better.
The health of the animal is paramount.
SPEAKER: Once the rhino is secured, they monitor her breathing to ensure there's no negative reaction to the sedative.
The team leader works quickly to carefully remove both horns.
Though the chainsaw seems ruthless, rhino horns are made of keratin, like our fingernails, so there is no pain.
The horn must be trimmed down as far as possible to eliminate all incentive for the poachers.
DUMI ZWANE: You know that it's a very beautiful part of the animal, but here you are taking it off.
You tell yourself that it's for the good of the animal.
SPEAKER: The operation isn't only about the horns.
It's an opportunity for critical research.
And Craig Mulqueeny, the scientific manager of the park, oversees that part of the work.
CRAIG MULQUEENY: The dehorning operation provided a unique opportunity for us.
We've collected tissue samples and blood samples, even fecal samples.
This is the first time we'll be able to actually get a quantitative indication of the diversity in the Hluhluwe population.
SPEAKER: As soon as the work is done, they mark the animal so it won't be targeted again, clear the area, then administer the antidote.
The drug begins to work within seconds.
DUMI ZWANE: It's a nice feeling, you know, knowing that we have saved him.
That's the main thing for the next generation of rhinos as well.
SPEAKER: But there's no time to stop and celebrate.
DUMI ZWANE: When the word gets out that we're actually dehorning, the poachers come in numbers because they want to try and take as much horn as they can before we dehorn all of them.
So it was a race against time.
HLENGIWE NZUZA: When the dehorning started, the more rhinos were just poached.
In my section, I lose, like, three rhinos on the same day.
SPEAKER: Hlengiwe Nzuza is in charge of security in a section of the park that is the most vulnerable.
HLENGIWE NZUZA: Most of the time.
It's not easy to catch the poachers because of the corridor road.
There is a public road inside the reserve, so the rhino poachers have easy access to just go in and go out.
DUMI ZWANE: We did have to change our tactics of operation.
When we dehorning now, even the females with the very tiny calves have to be darted.
You can't just say no, we're leaving this one.
We're not catching him.
Because we know by leaving him, you might be pushing him in the hands of the poachers.
SPEAKER: The team's commitment is total and the pace is relentless.
DUMI ZWANE: It's just a general feeling within the team that the more you take off those horns, the more you're actually keeping them safe.
That was just the motto.
That's how we operated.
That is why we were able to do 67 in one day.
Make no mistake, it's not a one man show.
It's a team effort.
Everybody has to pull his weight in for us to be successful as a unit.
We just started chasing those numbers.
By such and such a day, let's try and get to 750.
Got to 750.
By such and such a day, let's try and get to a thousand.
So it became a motivating factor for the team.
Let's go out there.
Let's make one more rhino safe.
SPEAKER: At the end of each day, the team ends up with a pile of horns worth millions on the black market.
Maximum security is essential and precautions are taken.
CRAIG MULQUEENY: There's always a risk of horn going missing, and hence the need to microchip them, to DNA-- take samples, because if those ones are stolen at any point in time and they're recovered, we can then see exactly where they've come from.
SPEAKER: Once processed, the horns are moved off site to an undisclosed location where they are tracked and guarded by national agencies.
In just four months, the team has managed to dehorn over 1,000 rhinos, a record rate for any dehorning operation.
And the results are measurable and impressive.
After the initial spike, poaching numbers have dropped 80% from what they were before the dehorning started.
CRAIG MULQUEENY: It's just a matter now of ensuring that we keep those poaching losses low enough to allow the population to grow.
SPEAKER: The battle will be ongoing.
Rhino horns grow back just like fingernails, so they'll have to be trimmed again about every two years.
CRAIG MULQUEENY: Dehorning is not a silver bullet.
It's one of the tools we have.
We have to continue with all of our law enforcement, our patrols, our boots on the ground, the technological equipment and so on that we're using.
SPEAKER: Every tool and every team must be brought into play to protect the rhinos where they are as governments and conservation organizations strive to stamp out the black market demand.
DUMI ZWANE: There is no place for complacency.
We know that they're still there and we just have to keep doing what we are doing.
If all that it could give us, the dehorning, is just a respite for a few months, those few months we should be restocking our reserves and making sure that everything is covered.
These beautiful lands wouldn't be the same without rhino.
When we protect animals, it's not for us.
It's for the pride of our country.
It's for our future generations that we can actually show them that these animals, they mean a lot to us.
Look after them.
[music playing]
