By Mark England, Lone Star Outdoor News
Two game wardens helped South African park rangers hunt for poachers last month, which Texas Parks and Wildlife Department officials hope is the beginning of a dialogue between both organizations on addressing the global issue of wildlife trafficking.
“Texas is not on an island,” said Col. Grahame Jones, director of TPWD’s Law Enforcement Division. “We’ve worked cases involving rhino poaching. We all have to work together and communication is the only way to keep on top of the trends in wildlife trafficking, which are constantly changing. Whether it’s ensuring that rhinoceros or the Texas horny toad are around for future generations, conservation is hugely important work.”
Capt. Craig Hernandez and Harris County Game Warden Hennie Volschenk visited Kruger National Park, roughly the size of New Jersey, in early December for nine days. Many LSON readers may know the area from the 2004 viral internet video entitled, “Battle at Kruger,” which garnered more than 80 million views.
The amateur wildlife video depicted a showdown between a herd of Cape buffalo, a pride of young lions and a crocodile at a watering hole.
“We saw lions, hyenas, elephants, hippos, you name it,” said Hernandez, an instructor and supervisor at the Texas Game Warden Training Center. “You have to be more in tune with your environment when patrolling. It’s not the same as checking a ranch in South Texas, where you’re more worried about rattlesnakes than anything else.”
Volschenk came away impressed with the park rangers they accompanied.
“These guys don’t have the equipment we have and the pay isn’t significant compared to ours,” he said. “But their commitment to what they do is from the heart. The stress they face from being away from their families for weeks at a time is very real. That may not be what people think of when it comes to rangers, but they’re men and women just like us.”
The Texas game wardens didn’t come across any poachers.
Danger, however, is always nearby at Kruger National Park. During the summer, a 34-year-old ranger was killed when his K-9 unit encountered poachers. And rangers, acting on intelligence, broke up a rhino poaching ring in the spring, killing two poachers and capturing 10 people, including a South African policeman.
“We found quite a few tracks, but no poachers,” Volschenk said. “The day we were there, however, a rhino was poached, and we got to see how their system operates and how successful they are in their approach.”
Volschenk declined to elaborate on how the park rangers later caught the poachers. But he did note the Kruger rangers are some of the best trackers in the world.
“I used to hunt with my father and opa in the bush,” Volschenk said. “We’d find tracks and follow them until we found the animals. When we hunted bushbucks (antelopes), I could tell how many animals there were and their sex. The males’ tracks were deeper and had less of a diameter. But I don’t put myself in the rangers’ league. Their ability to read the environment is phenomenal.”
Opa is Afrikaans for grandfather. Volschenk grew up in South Africa and was a park ranger himself for a year. He met his American-born wife, Nicole, when he moved to the states.
Hernandez calls Volschenk the “catalyst” for the liaison between South African rangers and TPWD.
The connection has already changed his perspective, Hernandez said.
“I thought, maybe because of my background, that we’d help give them a good foundation for their work,” he said. “They already have that. They need advanced training.”
TPWD is uniquely qualified to provide such training, he said.
“Our game wardens are involved in so many different environments, from the Piney Woods to the Panhandle to El Paso,” Hernandez said. “They all have local needs. The diversity in our natural resources has enabled us to be a diverse law enforcement group as far as training.”
Volschenk believes the relationship between South African rangers and TPWD will be ongoing. He noted that terrorist groups (such as, reportedly, ISIS) use poaching to fund their organizations.
“When you look at it from that perspective, what happens to the wildlife trade in South Africa does affect us,” Volschenk said. “This will not be a check the box type of program. We definitely want to be a part of the solution.”
