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The work that I do here is very important to me
it's also very important to all of us
I'm doing something for a better
protecting these animals that are about
to become extinct compare our failure
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I've been doing the job for almost 5 years now
I have good experience from this job
most of the time I come to learn wildlife here
people experience good things being close to animals like these
you know, this is a big job,
with a lot of risk
just being out here in the morning
catching that morning breeze makes it
nice that's why I love my job of being
around animals
I'm doing something for a better but
protecting these animals that are about to
become extinct I'm guarding the future
of our most threatened I never thought I'd be a
ranger one day but I once saw a clip on 50/50
I think and I saw this
mother rhino that was poached and I really felt it
training is very
important not one of the rangers working
here comes from a military or a
traditional nature conservation
background they were all unemployed
people from the vicinity but we also get
a lot of return from that because
they're absolutely passionate about what they doing
most of the time as animals go out to the field
I check the fence at the border of the property first
to see if the wire fence is damaged or cut anywhere
when you work with these animals
you create a bond
so I don't want to see the rhinos go extinct in a few years
I still want my kids to grow up and see rhinos
knowing their dad worked with them
and looked after them as I am looking after my kids
if you communicate with him he will listen to you and you will listen to him
every now and then I talk to them and they listen
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there's the challenges that you face on
a daily basis sometimes it gets to you
you so tired then there's times
whereby there's females who have calves that
you have to look for in the bush in the
sometimes just don't find them and you
just feel like giving up and then just
get to think that no what if something
happened to the to the to the right and
so then you keep on pushing mostly
most of the time the adult rhino leaves the calf and
walks into the bush
only once outside they realize their calf isn't with them
then they come back to look for their calf
there's a certain sound they make when calling their calf
it sounds quite funny
then they're looking for their calf
after a while, they'll hear the calf make the same sound
then they meet each other at the gate again
they have a way of looking at each other
they will gently push and rub their heads against each other
they have a way of knowing that they're family
then they go out
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it's an adventure in the morning getting
up saddlin your horse
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to go to the tower the observation point
just to see the sunrise with your
animals below you there
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first thing I do when I am in the lookout tower
I make light in and around the tower
see if everything is fine in the Boma
the first important thing is the animal's health
my employer and I were talking the other day
then he asked me
whether I thought before what I'd do if I came across a poacher
then I told him no it's not really on my mind
don't even think about it as it will only make your day worse
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in July of 2014
my whole life changed the first rhino was
poached here at Rockwood and it was a
very very emotional experience one of
the guys was sitting there in the tower
and he just heard shots coming from
within the boma where we keep our
animals when the security got there the
guys were gone and all the animals ran out
and certainly we lost a rhino in that process
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the bullet was lodged just above
his spine and as a result the whole back
part went lam and we had to put it out
and that was that was probably the
second biggest emotional moment of my life
we have its calf which actually survived
because it also took a bullet
to his head
we treated it and the guys gave it
it the name of Survivor
that calf is now a sub-adult bull of
about five years old
quite a majestic and and beautiful
animal it was in the first year when I
just started working here as a field
ranger I was a little bit scared but it
just gave me more courage to keep on
doing what I'm doing to protect these animals
it hurt to
see how an animal dies right in front of you
it's almost like a child of mine
I love them very much
for me to see how the animal is dying over there
then I feel like it's not my day today
people who poach don't love animals
all they're seeing is making a quick buck
rhinos are going to go extinct
I mean it is part of their faces
if somebody chops off a part of your face how will you look?
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it hurts to see big animals like that suffer
actually if people can just get to a point where they can think and realize
something as big as that really hurts
I don't want to go too deep into things like that
here we raise the rhinos we do not kill them
it takes quite a lot of effort to protect them
we have a call it aggressive strategy
to keep them maybe in smaller areas
where we can protect them better where we can
intensify our efforts it's quite a risky
job you always have to look above your
shoulders to see who's around you you
know because we all know poachers are
very dangerous stuff we gotta save
as Mr. Wic always say just be on your toes
be very alert for everything
because here you have to expect everything
you will see everything here too
it is risky to tell people about what I do because
you never know who's listening you can
just go and tell a friend about it then
you don't know whose listening there and
the information could just get into the
wrong ears and then you can have
incidents where by rhinos get poached so
they don't really talk that much about
it they basically do know that it has to
stay in the family
we basically have a small army in at
Rockwood to protect these animals
for us to succeed it's very important
that we get as many people involved as
possible
my second family is here at Rockwood so my
we're family here
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people in nature has to live together
especially in Africa and if we're not
going get that right the habitat and
in the area that that wildlife can roam
is going to get smaller and smaller and
smaller all the time
actually here we are learning more
and we want to learn more in the coming years
and those that want to know more can come
so we can chat about rhinos
but actually it's not going to stop here
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