The latest weapon in the fight against poachers: Puppies
A new recruit receives training to take on rhino poachers.
MAGALIESBURG, South Africa — These puppies are the latest weapon in the war against rhino poaching. With a record number of South Africa's rhinos being slaughtered illegally for their horns, conservationists are trying every way possible to thwart the poachers.
At an anti-poaching dog training academy in the Magaliesberg hills northwest of Johannesburg, Belgian Malinois and German Shepherd puppies are trained into working dogs that will track and take poachers down.
The dogs are trained to sniff out rhino horn, and track poachers through dense bush — even abseiling with their handlers from helicopters deployed for a rapid response. Some of the dogs are being taught to detect elephant ivory and pangolin, other favorite targets of poachers.
The academy is run by Paramount Group, a South African defence and aerospace company. Game rangers have come here from national parks and wildlife reserves around South Africa and the continent. While here the rangers form a strong bond with a young dog that will return home with them once training is complete, after 6-10 weeks. Henry Holsthyzen, who runs the academy, said the dogs have proved very successful working in places like South Africa's Kruger National Park, the epicenter of the rhino poaching crisis, where drones and other surveillance technologies are also used.
"We work with the dog's natural instinct," Holsthyzen said. "The dogs are more useful and more cost effective than much of the technology available."