PMCI - January 2018

pmcimagazine.com
6FEATURE: ANTI-POACHING
out on the ground and training/working with the Scouts. Until
now training has been not to the same degree as is necessary. I
tell you this because a normal day now is not how it should be
and how it will be in 2018 when we enter into the second phase.
But for the scouts, who are based at one of 12 permanent
camps across the 350,000 acre Reserve a normal day will
start before sunrise and they will conduct a patrol of up to ten
kilometers on foot. This will be a general patrol where they
will look for poacher tracks from the previous night; they will
also look for snares that have been laid by poachers. They will
conduct a second patrol in the afternoon of a similar distance, or
if they think that the tracks or snares that they have found are
fresh enough, they may lay an ambush at night and wait for the
poachers to either check the snares or return with their quarry.
THESE ARE OUR STANDARD SCOUTS.
We have also tried to be more maneuverist in our approach here
to keep the poachers guessing, so we have a number of mobile
patrol units, who are deployed by vehicle at night through use
of NVGs They will be based out of a trailer that is equipped with
solar charging and enough water to sustain them for up to two
weeks. I have the ability to move these units daily or keep them
at a point for a longer period of time. During critical times of the
year such as the Great Wildebeest Migration, we have the ability
to sustainably track the migration and stick with it in order to
prevent the wildebeest being poached.
The third group of Scouts is our Special Operations Group
(SOG), which are a small team of highly motivated scouts,
who have been through a selection process. We invest a lot in
equipping this team and keeping them at the top of their game.
Their primary role is to react to the information that we get from
our HUMINT sources.