Profile of a poacher

| Friday August 24, 2012 00:00

 

The word poacher derives from the French pocher, which means to bag or put in a bag. In Botswana, and Africa in general, poaching is as old as the continent itself.

'In the past, it was commonplace for the rich, royals and men in villages to poach, but in most cases it was just for meat and animal skins, which they used to supplement their diet at home. But now poaching has become big business in that trans-national syndicates are running big poaching missions in Botswana, Kenya and other areas teeming with wildlife,' says a wildlife expert who prefers anonymity.

Anti-Poaching Unit Commander, retired colonel Petrus Manyemba reiterates this, adding that there are now two types of poachers: 'There is the subsistence poacher and then there is the commercial poacher, but what we have realised of late is that even the subsistence poacher - who used to just hunt small game like antelope for food - has gone commercial; now they don't just kill for the pot.  They kill and sell the biltong of kudus, elands and others. Their biltong as you might be aware, is in high demand,' he says.

To understand the mind of the poacher, one needs to take a cursory look at the weaponry, the tactics and the determination of the poachers, most of whom rarely surrender even when surrounded by armed anti-poaching Botswana patrols.

In an interview with this reporter, Minister of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism, Kitso Mokaila says that they are deeply worried by the situation of poaching in South Africa where, 'they are highly skilled and  armed to the teeth. They are more vigilant and even have capabilities of carrying out their crimes from the air with helicopters. It is becoming so rampant in South Africa and it can spill over to Botswana,' he says. Picture this: a helicopter flying at high speed, deep in the forest, stalking a large herd of elephants, then suddenly, pop!

An elephant, a large body mass goes down and poachers, clad in military fatigues or dark clothes to blend in with the foliage, slide down from the helicopter and go on to de-horn the dead elephant, leaving the large carcass to rot or to be gorged by predators in the deep thick forest.

Of course this is happening and the minister has reason to be concerned. This is a war and the tide is against the government, which needs resources to be able to bring down poaching. However, resources aside, there are more serious challenges in that poachers, especially those who operate in the Chobe region, use devious yet simple means to carry out cross-border poaching activities into the country. Most of them appear to have special operations military training, where they use tactics that bear the trademark of high-risk takers who have embarked on life-threatening military missions in their lives.

Colonel Manyemba says their analysis shows that the poachers use tactics that are identifiable only with the military. They lay ambushes with precision and this clearly shows they have a deep military know-how. Besides this, it has also come to the attention of anti-poaching patrols that these criminals have good intelligence, which means they either carry out recon missions first to establish where the anti-poaching patrols are and how to evade them, or they have some informers, say among community members who help them by giving away the positions of the patrols, thus giving them an idea of where to go and where not to go to avoid capture.

In some cases, as Chobe MP, Gibson Nshimwe points out, there are cases where some residents have been accused of collaborating with the poachers, giving them both material support and what in military parlance is called raw intelligence.

They also know that as much as blending with the environment is important to avoid detection, it is also strategic to strike under the dark blanket of the night, caused by tree shadows. To make it much harder to be detected, they employed the old tactics, where instead of a high-powered engine speed boat, which would undoubtedly make noise, chose a wooden canoe, which they knew would just slither through the big Chobe River like a serpent, transporting their catch and taking it to Namibia where they would go and sell the ivory in the lucrative international black market.

The case in point is the recent foiled poaching mission by two suspected Namibian poachers who were caught after de-horning an elephant: 'On the night of July 17, 2012, a Botswana Defence Force (BDF) patrol section, while on routine patrols came upon the two men, who were later found to be Namibian nationals.

The two were spotted crossing into Botswana by a wooden canoe at 19: 00hrs around the Ihaha area along the Chobe River. Upon reaching the river banks on the Botswana side, the two men abandoned the canoe, and swiftly disappeared into the Chobe National Park. The BDF patrol team suspected that they could be poachers; hence laid an ambush in the area where the two had left the canoe. At around 23:15hrs, the two men returned from the forest each carrying an elephant tusk and a rifle heading towards the canoe,' reads a press statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in Gaborone.

In its vigilance, the Botswana Defence Force patrol used its tactics and intelligence network, to follow and then later lay an ambush for the unsuspecting criminals. The ministry says that when asked to surrender, the two men whose behaviour is well captured by the Setswana phrase, 'loso-lo-dirwang' decided to defy the hand of fate and fired at the BDF patrol who had surrounded them.

The stand-off turned into a fire fight that saw one of the poachers dying on the spot while the other one was badly injured, but nonetheless made an effort to swim back to his country only to be found dead three days later on the Namibian side of the river.

The two suspected poachers' names have been revealed and are said to be Richard Siyaoa Mguni, a 36-year-old man of Kavala settlement. The other man, whose body was found floating by villagers on the Namibian riverbank has been identified as 31-year-old Nyambe Nyambe of Ngwezi settlement.

The corpses of the two men were released to the Namibian government and already a joint investigation between Botswana and Namibian Police organisations has started to find out what happened.

Hot spots of poachingNshimwe says that there is need for Botswana and her neighbors, especially those in the KAZA region - the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier- which is the world's largest conservation area straddling Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe to create a platform where they can come together and discuss wildlife and conserve issues; 'just as they do with these joint permanent commissions on defence and security,' he says.

On this platform, the politician envisages a situation where officials from the countries sit down and find ways to control poaching.

As far as he is concerned, the hot spots for poaching in Botswana are the Chobe region, which is at the top of the list for the simple reason that it is the meeting point of five countries in the KAZA region, it attracts a large number of wildlife species especially rhinos and elephants, which are the poacher's most sought after animals.

The Ngamiland district which is home to the world famous Okavango Delta is also another hotspot, together with some villages in Northeast, especially those along or near the Maitengwe border with Zimbabwe. In most cases, elephants, which have created a route across borders, after destroying the border fences with Zimbabwe, cross into the country and the poachers in turn come on their trail where they will then shoot and kill them in Botswana.

'You will realise that some elephants come from as far away as Hwaange National Park in Zimbabwe starting from Pandamatenga up to Nata, places like Manxotai, all the way to Maitengwe border. The poachers follow these animals into the country,' he says.

In the Chobe District, the MP says, they have had cases where poachers followed elephants deep into the forest, away from the curious eyes of the public and killed and dehorned them:

'The last poacher caught in the Chobe National Park was caught in Nogatshaa, 58 kilometers from Kasane. It shows they follow them deep inland, avoiding the riverfront where there is a lot of human movement and anti-poaching patrols. In 2011 alone, they killed five elephants in Nogatshaa, which is quite a large number,' he says.

What is in the poche of the poacher?While hunters in the past used traditional methods of hunting like a bow and a quiver full of arrows, the modern poacher does not only use advanced military tactics but also carries sophisticated weapons to execute their missions.

While Colonel Manyemba says that in most cases a poacher carries a small bag of maize meal and an AK47 rifle with ammunition and one blanket, there are cases where some carry in their arsenal a variety of weapons to carry out their task with ease and precision:

'They normally bring this maize meal to cook and will often kill an antelope which they use for relish,' he says.However, it has come to the fore that the two Namibian poachers who were found in possession of two elephant tusks, also had in their arsenal, a loaded 12 Gauge Shot Gun (serial No. 108466) made in Russia, and a loaded, 22 calibre rifle with a telescopic sight (serial No. B195401) and a knife.

It is also revealed that also recovered from the scene was a black high intensity torch, the wooden canoe, jacket and a yellow woolen headgear, Mmegi is informed.