K9 heroes: Dogs’ vital role in Kruger Park’s poaching crackdown

The Kruger National Park’s dog unit (K9 unit) is branching out to give quicker access to hot poaching scenes.

South African National Parks yesterday hosted a demonstration of its K9 deployment and the launch of the satellite hound site near Mathekenyane Hill in the Kruger Park (KNP).

SA Wildlife College chief executive Theresa Sowry said K9 unit hounds have executed 181 deployments, with 101 successes, resulting in 193 arrests and 88 weapons seized.

KNP regional ranger Steven Whitfield said the approach to rhino poaching had progressed from 13 years ago.

“A game-changer was the introduction of dogs,” he said. “It was something that had a profound impact on our ability to combat rhino poaching.”

Whitfield grew up with dogs

Whitfield grew up with dogs as pets and home security, not protecting animals in the wild.

“When they first told me we were going to start using dogs for rhino poaching, I said ‘no way, you do it, I will do what works’.

“It was probably one of the wrongest statements I made because if it wasn’t for the dogs, we wouldn’t be anywhere as successful as we currently are.”

The dogs were used when the team responded to shots being fired, found a fresh carcass or picked up tracks, Whitfield said.

Previously, rangers visually identified tracks but that became tricky when poachers tried to hide their tracks.

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“Dogs don’t see tracks, they smell tracks. That’s how we complement each other,” he said.

SA Wildlife College K9 unit head trainer Johan van Straaten said getting the unit off the ground had been hard.

“Only about 10% of people believed it would work,” he said.

The first test-run used an old GPS device that lost connection each time the dogs went on track or when the dogs went around a corner, “then you had to go track the dogs…”

“We have come a long way since, running with the dogs on foot and tracking them; that’s how we learned how to read them,” he said.

Dogs raised and trained in harsh environment

Van Straaten said in the beginning, they had to go and fetch the dogs after they had tracked an area. “Now the dogs came running to the helicopter when it lands.”

The dogs are raised and trained in the harsh environment of the park. The unit had only lost three dogs – two to lions and one to a hyena – in eight years.