THE POACHER WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD
(& How He Helped Catch an Infamous Killer of Elephants)
Big Life Foundation
From Nick Brandt
...There had been zero reports of any elephants killed or injured in the past three months in areas now under the new protection of Big Life\'s anti-poaching teams and outposts. This is the first and longest instance of peace for the elephants in a very long time.
Unfortunately, this ended a few weeks ago. During this time, three more female elephants were killed by poachers.
However....
A month ago, Llewellyn Dyer, Big Life\'s Field Coordinator in Kenya, met with a prolific long-time giraffe poacher called Musambaa. Over the years, Musambaa had been notoriously difficult to catch. When asked why he poached, Musambaa said, \"I did not want to steal from other people, so I decided to steal from the government.\" Llewellyn asked Musambaa if he gave him a job protecting animals, would that stop him from killing them? He said YES.
Musambaa came to Big Life\'s ranger selection event the next weekend. One of the exercises was to track three scouts for 5km through the thickest bush possible. It was Musambaa who found the scouts first, tracking them right up to the rock where they were hiding. Llewellyn was impressed, but still very cautious: Musambaa was a longtime poacher, after all. So he placed him in the care of a trusted Sergeant to continue his integration.
A week later, Big Life received a report about one of the poached female elephants. The scouts found the carcass, covered by bushes. The elephant had been speared, its tusks cut out with an axe, its body skinned to expedite the scavenger clean-up process.
With the help of one of Big Life\'s informers, Llewellyn was able to find out that three infamous elephant poachers were responsible for the killing. The tusks had already been sold to a well-known ivory dealer in Tanzania, where the poachers were also suspected to be hiding out.
Finding out from the Kenya Wildlife Service that the worst of the three poachers had warrants for his arrest, Llewellyn dispatched Musambaa in civilian clothing to go track down the poacher.
The next afternoon, Musambaa called in. He had found the poacher and followed him to a village over the border in Tanzania, and was watching him. As the afternoon progressed, Musambaa ended up sitting and talking to the poacher to stall him. A few hours later, rangers from Big Life\'s Tanzanian team arrived on the scene and made the arrest. The poacher was then handed over to KWS Intelligence officers, and extradited back to Kenya that same evening.
The poacher has now been imprisoned, with length of sentence to be determined in the coming weeks, as further longstanding charges are brought against him by KWS.
As the Big Life teams continue to successfully and consistently capture poachers, those at large are seeing more clearly the huge risks of being arrested for their crimes.
But in the meantime, we continue to urgently need donations. Just last week we had a report that one of the last, big old bulls in the Amboseli ecosystem has been killed in one of the exact areas we know that we need to establish a camp and permanent patrol, but need more funds to do so.
As expected, the poachers are now moving into the areas with the least or no protection. We need to respond fast to fill these gaps. And once again, with your help, we can.
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Big Life Foundation Hi Janet, we only have enough money right now to concentrate on the Amboseli ecosystem, and we still need a lot of money to plug the many holes, and make the situation there stable and sustainable. The Sheldrick Trust have a very good program in Tsavo, but they too need more money for that. The areas of biggest concern right now are the Selous in Tanzania, and many areas where elephants are being machine-gunned down in Chad.
Hi Jan
thanks so much for the donation.
I wish we could go into Tsavo East and everywhere else that needs urgent attention. It grieves me that we can\'t. But we cannot be like so many other NGO\'s who try and do a lot of places with not enough money and in the process do a poor job in all of them by being spread too thin.
People just want/expect people like us to take up the slack where they don\'t do their jobs. We have had the success we have by not just having more vehicles and better trained rangers, but more than anything, the single best use of donor money, by having a very effective network of informers. The communities are too suspicious of helping KWS. We are actually just opening a camp with team of rangers in Rombo, which is on the border with Tsavo, but right now that is as far as we can go.
thanks
Nick
Posters note: As you can see, Big Life has had a very positive effect in the Amboseli area in cutting down on poaching and indeed catching poachers. I had written them in the hopes they might also be able to cover Tsavo, but due to lack of funds at this point they are unable to do it. The Big Life Foundation is making a difference. If you are able, please consider making a donation to this very worthy organization.
