SNARE SWEEP TEAM SUCCESS

To celebrate World Ranger Day last month, Wild Tomorrow Fund joined forces with local volunteer group Snare Aware and students of Bhejane Nature training to conduct a joint snare sweep at Bonamanzi Private Game Reserve. It was a successful weekend with students and rangers working as a team side-by-side to remove 73 wire loops of death. Read more about this successful collaboration for wildlife in our latest blog below.

While habitat loss and the poaching of iconic species like elephants and rhinos are most often in the headlines, the threat posed by snaring and bushmeat poaching is even more devastating to wildlife reserves around the world. Snares are cheap to make and easy to set—anyone can get their hands on a piece of wire. They are also indiscriminate, catching everything that wanders into their loop of death.

It is this simple loop of wire that drove the last tigers and Indochinese leopards extinct in Laos within a protected national park in 2014. An extensive analysis of data from 1038 anti-poaching patrols in Zambia’s Luangwa valley from December 2005 to November 2010 found that snaring by-catch increased elephant mortality by 32%, killed one fifth of the adult lion population and impacted a shocking 67% of endangered African wild dogs in the park. Thanks to the intervention of vets and rangers monitoring threatened species, many of these individual animals were able to be treated and recovered from their injuries. Closer to home at Mozambique’s Niassa National Reserve, snares are the number one threat to lions, responsible for a shocking 40 lion deaths per year. There is no doubt that the basic snare is a deadly threat to all wildlife, including endangered species.

A snared duiker found during the World Ranger Day snare sweep weekend at Bonamanzi Reserve. Left to die a slow death and not retrieved in time to be used as meat. A waste of a life.

Why is a snare so deadly? Referred to by conservationists in South East Asia as ‘the landmine of the forest’, a snare is a simple loop of wire that works by closing in on an animal’s neck or leg like a noose, tightening as the animal struggles to free itself. Unable to escape, the animal is either suffocated to death or left trapped to eventually die of hunger. Those that do escape are often left maimed.

Snares are set to catch bushmeat which in our region includes antelope species such as duiker, nyala and impala, plus bush pigs and rabbits. However, they additionally indiscriminately kill and maim a vast array of threatened species as by-catch, particularly those that range widely. Snares are a very real threat to leopards, lions, hyena and African painted wolves (wild dogs), plus the larger species too, including giraffe, elephants and rhinos who have had legs injured or trunks amputated. Snares also negatively impact the recovery of threatened species by depleting their prey base - in other words, snares reduce the availability of food that predators like lions and leopards need to eat.

Uncontrolled snaring can quickly devastate wildlife areas, leading to what is called empty forest syndrome where heavily snared areas are almost entirely emptied of mammals larger than rodents. Often snares are not retrieved, leaving animals to rot in the forest, an unnecessary death evidenced by a decaying pile of bones, hair and wire.

“That’s why the role of a ranger is so important in the protection of wildlife,” said Wild Tomorrow Fund’s General Manager, Greg Canning. “Ranger patrols act as a deterrent to poachers, keeping them and their snares out of protected areas - a vital force in the protection of our region’s threatened biodiversity”.  

At Wild Tomorrow Fund’s newly protected wildlife reserves in KwaZulu-Natal South Africa, our rangers have removed 555 snares since we began counting in 2019. Along with our ecological restoration work, snare removal is an important part of restoring habitat, creating a protected wild space for the return of mammals small and large. It is a boots-on-the-ground effort to remove snares, requiring keen eyesight and lots of hours patrolling and searching. It is a rewarding moment to find a camouflaged snare and remove it from the bush, protecting wildlife from future harm.

Rangers around the world are literally the last ‘thin green line’ of defense for threatened species and their habitats. The COVID19 pandemic has reduced ranger numbers at many reserves due to financial pressures, leaving an opportunity for poachers to penetrate and succeed. It can be challenging for the remaining rangers to keep up with the pace of snares being set by poachers. This was the challenge for Bonamanzi Private Reserve, just a short drive down the road from Wild Tomorrow Fund’s Ukuwela Reserve. In the spirit of collaboration, we organized a volunteer snare sweep together with Snare Aware, Bhejane Nature Training and Bonamanzi’s ranger team. World Ranger Day, a day to celebrate all of the work that rangers do around the world to protect wildlife, was the perfect occasion for the snare removal mission.

Wild Tomorrow Fund’s rangers sweep for snares daily, and have thousands of patrol hours of experience recognizing bush signs that alert to a possible snare. It is difficult to see the snare itself, as you can see from the images below. Our rangers were proud to share their knowledge and tips for snare and incursion spotting with the volunteers. In total, the team removed 73 snares over the weekend - a big success!

“It was a fantastic experience for our students to be involved in such a collaborative effort to remove snares, walking side by side with rangers”, said Christa Panos, Managing Director of Bhejane Nature Training, a professional training program for future safari guides in Southern Africa. “Their tracking skills were put to the test, helping recover so many snares in just two days.”

In total 45 volunteers joined the snare removal team from across KwaZulu-Natal. Working together, the enthusiastic mix of volunteers, students and rangers from multiple organizations had one shared purpose: to find as many snares as possible and to remove this threat to wildlife. It was a fun and rewarding two days of hard work for all of the snare hunters in the team.

The team huddles together for a morning briefing before moving out into the wilderness to begin their snare removal mission.

“Conservation is all about collaboration” said the founder of Snare Aware who prefers to remain anonymous for security reasons. “We jumped at the opportunity when asked to lead a snare sweep through the exquisite Bonamanzi Private Game Reserve, together with Wild Tomorrow Fund and Bhejane Nature Training, in celebration of World Ranger Day. The weekend was a great example of what can be achieved by working together. 73 less snares in the bush!”

We look forward to future collaborations to support rangers and reserves by removing snares, providing safe passage for wildlife.

A successful weekend for wildlife! 73 snares removed, countless lives saved. Faces blurred to protect identities.

References:

Matthew Becker, Rachel McRobb, Fred Watson, Egil Droge, Benson Kanyembo, James Murdoch, Catherine Kakumbi (2013). Evaluating wire-snare poaching trends and the impacts of by-catch on elephants and large carnivores, Biological Conservation, Volume 158, 2013, Pages 26-36, ISSN 0006-3207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2012.08.017. Referenced at www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320712003722.

Niassa Carnivore Project. Reduce illegal killing - snaring is the biggest single threat. www.niassalion.org/threats/reduce-illeagal-killing/

Jeremy Hance, 28 October 2019. How Laos lost its tigers. Mongabay News. https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/how-laos-lost-its-tigers/