Poaching has become a serious threat to wildlife populations and as human numbers escalate,

the danger to wild animals will increase substantially.  At many private wildlife reserves,

poaching goes unchallenged, but SanWild has a dedicated group of anti-poaching rangers

that have been trained to keep the reserve free from snares and our animals safe from poachers.  

Our rangers have been chosen from the local communities and are trained with military precision in anti-poaching techniques that include tracking, animal identification, setting of ambushes, nighttime patrol and legal procedures after poachers are caught and arrested.

Limpopo Province in South Africa has a high rate of unemployment and although SanWild (as a non-profit organization) does not always have funds available for job-creation, we do have a ranger's training facility that we hope will expand to eventually allow us to train at least 25 rangers every year that could take up positions on private game farms and reserves. 

We hope that in the near future we will be able to secure corporate funding to expand our ranger training ability into a fully-fledged operation. To date unfortunately we have not been able to secure the required funding.

Poaching in our immediate area has changed from subsistence poaching to that of fully commercial operations. It is no longer a case of a “poor” poacher wanting to feed his family. Well-run bush meat butcheries supply a wide range of game meat and also wild animal parts to sangomas (tribal healers and witchdoctors).  Bush meat is in high demand and consumed widely by tribal people. Some animals like the highly endangered pangolin, is very much in demand and a single scale can sell for as much as ZAR 25.00 each.

When the SanWild Wildlife Sanctuary was first established in 1998, poaching was rife on the few wild animals that lived on the land.  Warthogs were predominantly targeted and many died a horrible death. 

Poachers are cruel individuals that treat all animals in the most appalling way, be it their prey or their own dogs. Poacher dogs are normally very emaciated and will only be fed once they had managed to successfully help the poachers’ track and kill their prey. 

In the event of a dog being separated from its owner or injured by a wild animal, they are simply left behind to fend for themselves or die.  Normally poachers dogs are destroyed by the SanWild rangers when found, but in one instance, we felt too sorry for a particular dog to have her destroyed and she now lives as a pet in the sanctuary and has adjusted well to wild animals.

On rare occasions some wild animals are found still alive and where possible they will be immobilized and treated for their injuries before they are returned to the wild. Sadly this is not often the case as injuries are normally of such a nature that the animals cannot be helped any more and need to be put down to prevent any further suffering. However there have been a number of occasions in which the unweaned young of injured or snared animals had been found unharmed and fortunately they could all be saved in time. 

On the Afritrust website www.afritrust.com you will find updates (as often as possible) on daily anti-poaching patrols. The rangers will become your eyes and ears and will tell you in their own words, what transpired during patrols.

We can guarantee you an action filled report, with interesting interactions between the rangers and the animals and also between the rangers and poachers.