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Snaring Moonshot: SA’s soaring poaching scourge — and the ambitious ideas to cripple it

Snaring Moonshot: SA’s soaring poaching scourge — and the ambitious ideas to cripple it
Adine Roode and Khanyisa, a snared elephant calf rescued through intensive rehabilitation. (Photo: Tiara Walters)
Tiara Walters
By Tiara Walters
20 Jun 2024
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Affordable, ‘cleared’ game meat for communities, sustained funding for fences and novel tech could help ‘change the economics of snaring’. Experts say a growing bushmeat trade is also behind this subsistence-driven problem, which may even be a primary driver of large mammal decline in the country.

Snares — deadly wire or cord traps set by poachers — have taken an exacting toll on wildlife in and around Kruger National Park and other parts of the country. Among other species, at least 135 of the park’s buffaloes and six elephants fell victim to these traps between January and October 2023 alone. 

Experts seem to agree — the problem is at a peak, particularly in parts of Kruger and other state-run reserves, and the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has driven surrounding impoverished communities to illegal snaring.

“Covid hit the country hard, and it left people desperate. We saw an increase in snaring and meat poaching in the areas around the reserve because people weren’t earning money; they had to eat,” according to Kim Lester, the internal investigator and control room manager at Sabi Sand Nature Reserve, which abuts Kruger’s western edge. 

Yet, various managers and employees at Sabi Sand — South Africa’s oldest and most well-known enclave of luxury private nature reserves — have told us their recently  upgraded state-of-the-art control room, fence and integrated security system have largely kept snarers at bay. 

Even if illegal international horn demand has claimed 10,000 rhinos in greater Kruger since about 2007, there is no doubt that dehorning, initiated at Sabi Sand in May 2022, has also borne fruit. Sabi Sand and its two immediate neighbours, Sabie and MalaMala game reserves, have lost just three rhinos to poachers since dehorning began.

By contrast, as uncovered by Daily Maverick in October, snares were flourishing within Kruger’s border areas like deadly weeds. Despite far-reaching, ongoing efforts to hunt down and destroy these traps, the park’s staff and their volunteer rangers counted a 200% increase in found snares between 2020 and 2022. 

The 6km mark to Kruger National Park’s Numbi gate, which leads to the park's southwestern section. A sprawling network of informal settlements, plagued by crime, poor service delivery and poverty, hugs the park. (Photo: Tiara Walters)


Snared wild dogs — the sweeping difference of swift action


A snare does not care for the size of its victim — or even if it is critically endangered. 

Some animals may break free from the anchor plant, but the noose stays on the wounded body, cutting ever deeper into its flesh as it covers vast distances. 

In northwestern Sabi Sand, a wild dog snare-removal operation witnessed by Daily Maverick exposed the indiscriminate nature of this form of poaching. 

The procedure involved tracking a pack of three wild dogs already equipped with GPS collars. Initially, bait was tethered to an anchor point, accompanied by a duiker distress call to attract the dogs, who were about 50m to 100m off the road.

Dr Ben Muller, of WildScapes veterinary conservation services in Hoedspruit,  administered an immobilisation dart, allowing for the safe assessment and treatment of the ensnared animal. 

Wildscapes’ Dr Ben Muller and Contemplate Wild’s Grant Beverley tracking a snared wild dog at Sabi Sand. The procedure involved humanely culling an impala as lure bait. (Photo: Tiara Walters)



This time the snare had not inflicted severe wounds — a cautionary tale of the importance of effectively managed reserves and swift veterinary action. In this wild dog’s case, the intervention was especially poignant, because these “painted dogs” are South Africa’s most endangered carnivore species — and the continent’s most threatened after the Ethiopian wolf. 

Grant Beverley, speaking for the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s Carnivore Conservation Programme, worked with Muller and the Sabi Sand conservation team to rescue, treat and free the animal. 

Without intervention, Beverley feared the viability of dog populations within protected areas could be jeopardised. There were 550 individuals in South Africa.

“Even in an area as large as Kruger National Park — over 2 million hectares — snaring is having an effect on the population,” said Beverley, manager of species and fundraising at Contemplate Wild, which converts real-time tracking and sensor data into information for conservation managers.

Beverley has monitored wild dogs for 15 years. He said this effect was not “dramatic or drastic”, yet snaring was the “most frequent and consistent” human-induced threat facing the species in the region. 

Manyeleti — a ‘snaring hotspot’? 


Manyeleti Game Reserve, Sabi Sand’s northern neighbour run by the Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency (MTPA), was plagued by limited funding and porous fences, Beverley and other specialists told us. The net result forced experts like them to rescue and treat cases trickling in from Manyeleti. 

“Our teams conduct continual snare sweeps, monitor their areas well and very few snares have been found within our protected area,” said Lester, the Sabi Sand internal investigator and control room manager. 

Since January 2023, the low number of “in-situ” snare traps flushed out within Sabi Sand contrasts directly with the 28 animals found carrying snares here. In other words, it seemed likely these victims were not snared within Sabi Sand, but had picked up snares somewhere else.

“I do believe the snared animals are coming into Sabi Sand from neighbouring reserves,” Lester explained. These incidents paled in comparison to Kruger’s current annual trends —  nevertheless, Lester said she thought they were significant “for our reserve”. 

“In our previous financial year, March 2022 to February 2023,” the investigator underscored, “we had 16 snare incidents, which accounted for nearly 40% of our wildlife interventions for the year.”

Answers to our detailed queries were not received from Manyeleti Game Reserve and the MTPA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFRCNTrFuvQ

WATCH: Contemplate Wild’s Grant Beverley explains how to safely treat a snared wild dog, and how these traps may affect the population at large. (Video: Tiara Walters)

‘Give communities legal, sustainable meat from protected areas’


MalaMala Game Reserve, Sabi Sand’s famous neighbour co-managed through a R1-billion restitution claim since 2016, says it has escaped the fall-out of snaring. 

Reserve director Wayne Boyd attributed this to the reserve’s location, sheltered on Sabi Sand’s eastern edge but sharing an open border with Kruger. 

Boyd also felt the animals found with snares at Sabi Sand had walked in from state-run areas with greater funding challenges than the private reserves.

Tackling a problem ostensibly originating in a beleaguered, state-run park was not as simple as erecting new fences around it, Boyd cautioned. Fences were a necessary evil for the health of vulnerable wildlife and vulnerable communities, but a fancy new perimeter around any park was meaningless without money to monitor and maintain it. 

Boyd noted that animals in neighbouring reserves were being snared for meat — not only for the pot, but a burgeoning commercial bushmeat market outside Kruger. 

Apart from reactive responses like sweeps, which MalaMala, Sabi Sand and other reserves were already conducting, was it possible to provide game meat from protected areas to local communities?

‘Healthy, sustainable food for the community — there’s huge value in that’ 


Though veterinary disease restrictions thwarted meat donations, Boyd said he was a “very big supporter of supplying meat from within the reserves to communities”. 

Boyd added: “There’s no question there’s huge value in that. I personally would love to see abattoirs developed on the boundaries of private reserves and national parks to allow for sustainable supply of game meat to local communities.”

Veterinary restrictions were not always enforced, but they were still critical, the seasoned conservationist stressed. For that reason, he said it was his personal opinion that abattoirs could be installed “on the boundary itself, so that they become the transition between the veterinary control area, and the meat is processed before it comes out the other side as healthy, sustainable food for the community. It has had all the checks and balances, has been screened for the diseases and fully cleared. I believe there’s a way of doing this.”

Boyd cautioned that, in such a hypothetical scenario, abattoir processing costs could result in meat sold at higher prices than the basic financial expense of snaring, or meat sold on the illegal market. This needed to be accounted for — or a project such as this would be self-defeating.

Dylan Sanders, a conservation officer at Sabi Sand, attempts to track down the snared wild dog in the reserve's northwestern section. (Photo: Tiara Walters)



Daily Maverick’s Julia Evans reports that South Africa’s new game meat strategy aims to boost meat production from 60,000 to 100,000 tons per year by 2030, so we asked the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) if restrictions could accommodate boundary abattoirs.

Peter Mbelengwa, the national department’s chief director of communication and advocacy, urged further research.

“These proposals are not included in the current game meat strategy,” Mbelengwa advised. “Any such proposals would need to be supported by extensive research before consideration.”

‘Primary cause of the decline’: lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas and wild dogs


Dr Dave Gaynor, a research fellow at Pretoria University’s Mammal Research Institute, told Daily Maverick he was co-pioneering a groundbreaking solution to counter snaring.

UCT PhD student Kevin Gema prepares the SAR airborne detection system for trial at !Kwha ttu Reserve, Western Cape coast. (Photo: Supplied)



Snaring, Gaynor said, was a primary cause of the decline in lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas and wild dogs, and current methods for snare detection were grossly inadequate, he argued. Only 1% to 5% of snares were found even in well-managed reserves, he said.

That is why Gaynor and colleagues are developing an airborne detection system using “synthetic aperture radar” (SAR) — a form of radar providing finer spatial resolution of landscapes than conventional beam-scanning radars. 

This system would have the capability to scan a 1km-wide swathe of land from an altitude of 120m and a speed of 135km/h — covering 135km² per hour with an accuracy of 5m, regardless of the terrain, Gaynor said.  

The instrument has been developed by Emeritus Professor Mike Inggs, who is affiliated with DroneSAR and the University of Cape Town (UCT), while Gaynor is leading the research on snare detection. 

A Google Earth depiction of the proposed coverage provided by the airborne detection system. The system envisages the ability to scan, among others, the entire Serengeti National Park for snares in just 23 days. (Image: Supplied)


Novel tech to reduce ‘punitive’ policing, snaring economics


“SAR is the only technology that has the potential to detect wire snares from a distance and cover large areas. Flying at 120m above ground level,” Gaynor added, “it is able to cover areas that are really difficult and time-consuming to cover on the ground, such as swamps and broken terrain with no roads, tracks or paths.” 

The initial trials had yielded promising results and there had even been interest in funding the implementation of the final product. Yet, this technology’s technical development was considerable — creating headaches to fund the current phase. 

The “basics are operational”, stressed Gaynor, who said he was creating SnareFreeWorld.org as a crowd funding mechanism*.  

“I anticipate that this innovation will change the economics of snaring, leading to a substantial reduction,” he contended. “Wildlife conservation efforts will be significantly enhanced, while the need for punitive policing of communities in and around conservation areas will decrease.”

If there were already “an off-the-shelf solution that could be deployed effectively to detect snares at scale”, Gaynor noted, it would have been up and running by now. 

“There is not one because it needs a novel, cutting-edge technology to be developed for this specific use case,” he explained. 

Snared elephants: give them a reason to fight


Even elephants, known for their intelligence, strength and resilience, succumbed to snare-inflicted injuries. According to HERD Elephant Orphanage founder Adine Roode, these pachyderms endured profound physical and psychological suffering. 

Otherwise known as “Hoedspruit Elephant Rehabilitation and Development”, HERD is just west of central Kruger, and was established in 2019. Following a long journey in elephant rehabilitation stretching back to 1997, when “Jabulani” was rescued as the first orphan, HERD would also establish its trust in 2021. 

The Jabulani herd, sustained by funds from small donors and the local five-star lodge of the same name, today comprises 17 rescue elephants from South Africa and Zimbabwe. 

HERD’s rescue elephants are led to a reserve waterhole for bathing and drinking at the orphanage outside Hoedspruit, Limpopo. (Photo: Tiara Walters)



“You need to regain their trust and give them a reason why they should fight — a purpose to live again. If they have just lost their family, they’re in pain. So it involves a lot of work,” observed Roode, who noted an uptick in regional reports of snared elephants. 

Snare victim Fenya died from her wounds in March 2021 when she was just a calf. She was surrounded by blankets, milk formula, specialist carers and Roode herself, who sang continuously to the traumatised youngster.

Likely abandoned by her natal herd in January 2020, one-year-old Khanyisa’s right ear, neck and even mouth had been deeply lacerated by a snare, making feeding and rehabilitation incredibly challenging. 

Four years later, this unique albino calf is now healed and roams in 1,500 hectares of natural bush with the other HERD orphans, learning to do elephant things like browsing, drinking and swimming. 

At night, Khanyisa and the rest of the herd sleep in a homestead.

With bull ‘Fishan’ looking on, HERD founder Adine Roode demonstrates the pain inflicted by snares — even on animals as large as elephants. (Photo: Tiara Walters)



Adine Roode and Khanyisa, a snared elephant calf rescued through intensive rehabilitation. (Photo: Tiara Walters)


Roode: fighting for a future Earth


Roode said her ultimate goal was to release the herd — while acknowledging the potential pitfalls of rewilding human-habituated elephants, who would only be suited to areas “away from humans”. 

“People ask me, ‘Why don’t you release them?’ Certain individuals like this one here,” said Roode, pointing to a 35-year-old bull called Fishan behind her, “broke his leg. We’ll always have to look after him. And he has bonds with the others. He’s also a huge role player in accepting orphans from poaching situations. He helps us, you know, in that way. Each one has a role.”

She said it was better for the herd, which was on contraception, to split naturally. “Then you can perhaps say, ‘Okay, let’s take this group and reintroduce them to another area.’” 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-6-A2vyzf4

WATCH: HERD elephant expert and carer Owen Dube describes the importance of community interaction and his intimate observations of elephants’ complex intelligence. (Video: Tiara Walters)

Roode said the thing that compelled her to do this work boiled down to a simple, sobering equation. That equation weighted every elephant with equal value. 

Though state population numbers remain under wraps over poaching concerns, in conservation circles it is an open secret: Kruger is a pachyderm powder keg, bursting at the seams with thousands of tuskers.

Yet, Roode said she was taking cues from the poaching onslaught that had driven the Kruger rhino herd down to, officially at least, less than 2,000 individuals today.

She was fighting for a future Earth. 

“If we looked at the rhinos 40 years ago — if there was a snared rhino, or something happened to the rhino, the orphan was just left or killed. You know, shot or whatever. Nobody worried. There were enough rhinos. Now every rhino counts. In the future I think we will sit with the same situation with elephants.” DM

*For further details on the SAR airborne detection system, contact Dr Dave Gaynor of Pretoria University’s Mammal Research Institute at [email protected]

Tiara Walters is a full-time reporter for Daily Maverick’s Our Burning Planet unit. Walters’s two-day stay in Sabi Sand Nature Reserve was made possible by the reserve’s headquarters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REeWvTRUpMk

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