- [Dr. Fowlds] Move, move, move!
- [Coyote] Oh, this is one strong animal.
Thing I don't want to have happen
is this horn to come up and hit me straight in the face.
(suspenseful music)
(chainsaw buzzing)
(epic music)
(rock cracking)
Okay so right now the convoy is headed out to the area
where the rhino crash has been spotted.
There's one specific male
that we are targeting this morning with a very large horn.
(knife sharpening)
- For well over a century,
humans have been decimating populations
of our planet's animals.
Many for reasons that make absolutely no sense.
(rhino bugling)
The rhinoceros is arguably the most recognizable species
for this global atrocity.
To date, nearly 95% of the world's rhino population
has vanished.
And most of it is due to one single thing.
(ominous orchestral music)
This is the fight to save a species
and our journey to the front lines of battle begins
at the Kariega Game Reserve.
I first learned of Kariega in March 2012
just after a dark shadow cast upon the reserve
and left them to face an unimaginable crisis.
Three of their rhinos were tranquilized by poachers,
brutally stripped of their horns, and left for dead.
One animal lost its life immediately.
The second passed within days,
its injuries too much to endure.
But the last, a female known as Thandi,
miraculously survived
due to the Herculean efforts of this man,
Dr. William Fowlds
- [Dr. Fowlds] Looking after these animals
is a massive collaborative effort.
No single reserve can do this alone.
And we do rely enormously
on the support of people around the world.
Getting this message out is critically important.
- [Coyote] In many large animal procedures
helicopters have proven to be a useful tool
as they allow veterinarians to cover
a considerable amount of distance
in a very short period of time.
White rhinos often graze across open Savannah
clustered together in a family unit
commonly known as a "crash"
and based on human intentions,
this social behavior has its pros and its cons.
The positive is that rhinos are big
making them rather simple to locate
from an aerial perspective.
While the negative is that when they're crashed together,
they become an easier target for poachers.
- [Dr. Fowlds] Now we're moving
from the thicket area into this grassland space
and this is where I would expect to find white rhinos
so we're just scanning the area to see
if we can find the right one.
- [Coyote] Our mission
centers around a specific male
whose horns have grown to a length
that makes him such a target.
So in order to give his facial ornaments
less black market appeal, it's been decided
and the permits granted
for us to give him a little trim.
- We got eyes on the target animal.
- [Coyote] With our bull on the run
and now clearly in sight,
Dr. Fowlds aligns his shot.
- [Dr. Fowlds] Okay.
Tell me when you're good, Alex.
- [Alex] Yeah I'm good.
(helicopter twirling)
- [Coyote] Wow!
Look at him move.
(gun fired) (epic orchestral music)
- [Dr. Fowlds] That dart looks good.
- It's nice and perpendicular. - [Coyote] Nice!
- We're now gonna set the stopwatch.
This is the really important part of the process
because we want to check time
from when the dart goes in.
- [Coyote] It will be several minutes
before the tranquilizer serum takes full effect,
giving us a narrow but necessary window to land the chopper
and move in is a ground unit.
- [Dr. Fowlds] All right, so we've got ourselves
into a little bit of a tricky position here
because got his head in a bush
which we're gonna have to curb now.
- [Coyote] A rhino procedure is best described
as carefully coordinated chaos.
- Just listening to his breathing,
which is nice and deep.
That's good.
- [Coyote] But at the same time
it's a masterclass of veterinary medicine.
Here's how it goes down.
The chainsaw masters take over.
Then in a matter of minutes,
they intricately landscape the dense thorny foliage.
Right now, it's important for me to be
as out of the way as I can.
Chainsaws going, they're taking down all these branches.
(chainsaw buzzing)
We gotta make space around the animal
before we can get in and do the procedure.
- Next, Dr. Fowlds administered a muscle relaxant,
which helps to calm heart rate
and lower the rhinos intense rush of adrenaline.
So it's all about keeping him relaxed
and those muscles un-tense from all the running,
obviously he's fired up, right?
- [Dr. Fowlds] Yeah.
So we need good relaxed muscles
that improves blood circulation
gets the lactic acid out of there.
And while he is shaking like this, he's burning up oxygen.
- [Coyote] Shadowing, the vet team
I follow precise, organized directives.
As we collect biometrics,
inject a multivitamin, and replace the batteries
on this big guy's ankle-oriented tracking collar.
Listen to the power of the breathing,
exchanging breath with a white rhino.
Such a beautiful animal.
You don't realize truly how big they are
until you are literally right next to them.
Look at the size of this animal's head.
(people grunting)
Finally, it's time for the most important order
of business: dehorning.
Do I have two seconds at this point
to talk about the horn a little bit.
- [Dr. Fowlds] Sure.
- So here's what's gonna happen.
Today we are performing a dehorning procedure.
There's a couple very important things
that you need to know.
This horn is not ivory.
This is keratin.
Just like the same material
your fingernails and your hair are made out of.
If you look close at this horn
you can see all of these fibrous-
- [Dr. Fowlds] Move, move, move!
(Coyote gasps)
Let him go.
Pull him left and pull out.
Gonna be a bit wobbly.
What this means is we've got our anesthetic dose
a little bit wrong and not too serious
cuz we're getting circulation back in his legs.
We're just gonna walk him towards the trailer
cuz that's where he needs to end up.
- [Coyote] Well, nothing will make your heart race
like a rhino getting up mid-procedure.
This is one strong animal
even when it's in this state.
You can only imagine how powerful this animal is
at full throttle.
- He should go down any minute now.
- [Coyote] The thing I don't want to have happen
is this horn to come up and hit me straight in the face.
- [Dr. Fowlds] Okay.
Just don't support him if he falls over by himself.
It's nice and soft here.
He can't damage himself.
(suspenseful music)
Okay, great.
Perfect.
We're just gonna give him a chance to settle down.
(Coyote breathing deeply)
- That was crazy.
Okay, we have successfully moved the rhino
out into a more open area,
which is perfect for this next aspect of the procedure,
which is horn removal.
Now I wanna be very clear about a couple of things.
This is what poachers are after.
This giant piece of horn.
And the problem is that poachers don't come in
and just saw off the piece
that doesn't touch the root.
They come in and they cut it out all the way down
to the root.
So that goes down and into the snout,
causes massive bleeding.
It's catastrophic damage
that in almost every instance kills the rhino.
So, as much as I hate to take away a piece
of this beautiful animal,
the true thing that defines it,
this is how you save a rhino.
And I cannot stress enough that this has not hurt the rhino.
Not physically in any way whatsoever.
(chainsaw buzzing) (epic orchestral music)
- [Dr. Fowlds] Nice and cool.
Okay, let's do back horn.
(chainsaw buzzing) (epic orchestral music)
This is the the procedure that we dread
doing the most on a rhino.
Just the absolute sacrilege to take these off.
- [Coyote] So do you think
that this throws off rhino's depth perception
at all by not having the horns in (indistinct).
(Dr. Fowlds sighs)
- I don't think so, but I...
They know that they don't have a horn anymore.
- [Coyote] Yeah. - [Dr. Fowlds] I mean,
they obviously have to learn that when they wake up
from all of this.
We're gonna walk him now. - [Coyote] Okay.
- [Dr. Fowlds] So we're just gonna rock him
onto his other side.
If he stands up in the process, then great.
- [Coyote] One, two, three, push!
- Push!
- [Dr. Fowlds] Just keep supporting him.
That lead's gonna be a little bit floppy.
- [Coyote] Here he comes, here he comes.
- We're gonna go, we're gonna go left.
He's in first gear, we're gonna change to second.
Keep pulling him.
We're gonna line him up with the trailer.
- [Coyote] With the dehorning complete,
our final task is to load this bull into a trailer
and relocate him to another part of the reserve.
(Coyote exhales)
- That was unbelievably exhausting.
Just the force that it takes to balance that animal.
Dr. Fowlds said probably about one and a half tons
and that's not a full grown rhino.
(door clinks shut)
- So what we're looking for in transit here
is that he's got complete control his body.
We obviously don't want him to be fighting in this crate
but he must be able to move himself around
and keep himself on his feet
without being thrown around by the movement of the vehicle.
- [Coyote] This new expansive habitat
is home to several first generation cows.
And it will only be a matter of time
before he claims this territory, breeds,
and diversifies the genetic population.
- What an animal, eh?
- [Coyote] Unbelievable.
- Hey amazing.
To think he's still got growing to do too.
He's not even fully grown yet.
Ah, incredible things.
- [Coyote] The charge of emotion right now
is almost hard to explain.
And as I prepared for today, seeing last night
I was laying in bed thinking to myself
there are a number of emotions that run through me.
Sadness, first and foremost.
I can't tell you how sorry I am
that we had to take the horn
from that beautiful animal.
Yesterday we were filming B-roll with it in the wild.
I mean, I looked right into this animal's eyes,
thinking to myself,
"I'm pretty sure that's the one whose horn
we're gonna take tomorrow."
So I had to carry that with me going to sleep last night.
So that's where the sorrow comes in.
Sorry that we as humans have put our planet
in a state where we are now being forced
to take the prized element
that defines a rhino away from it.
A dominant male.
This is everything that makes up
his emotion, his spirit, his confidence.
And within that animal's soul and body
he's gonna wake up and wonder,
"Where did my horn go?"
It makes me angry to know that we as humans
are doing something like this to our planet.
Doing something like this to our animals.
And the reason these animals are being poached
is because people in other countries,
and Asian countries specifically,
believe that the rhino horn has medicinal purposes.
I can tell you with 100% certainty
it has been proven by doctors that that is absolutely false.
Another thing is that wealthy people
would love to have this on their mantle,
but I can tell you this much.
There is absolutely no honor
in having the horn of a rhino on your mantle.
And for as angry as I can be at the process
that poachers go through.
You have to understand that in many instances
the poachers themselves are almost forced
into these situations.
This horn is worth money.
If they get this horn and sell that horn
that money provides for their family.
It is a vicious cycle.
So the sorrow and the anger build together
and I realized to myself,
you can't fight this fight by being angry.
You fight this fight
with having hope.
Dehorning white rhinos is necessary
because of the way that they move in herds.
The next animal we're going to look at is the black rhino,
a slightly more solitary animal.
And what we're gonna try with this next segment
is to find out whether or not technology can be the answer
to the future of these animals
and not taking its horn,
but providing something
that may be the front lines of conservation.
This horn will be immediately taken offsite
to a secure undisclosed location.
And I want to note that dehorning is only one aspect
of multidimensional wildlife protection
at Kariega Game Reserve.
(text typing) (crickets chirping)
There are around 20,000 white rhinos left in the wild
which classifies these gregarious giants
as near threatened.
Yet they're not the only rhinoceros in Africa.
The black rhino, a more elusive species,
is listed as critically endanger
and its wild numbers have dwindled to barely 5,000.
Visually, there are few noticeable differences
between the two.
For starters, black rhinos
are smaller in weight and stature
as compared to whites.
Taking a closer look at their heads, you will notice
that white rhinos have pointed ears and a square upper lip.
Whereas blacks have rounded ears and a pointed,
prehensile upper lip.
At ground level, these key features
make identifying Africa's rhinos quite simple,
but from a helicopter, it's all about experience.
- [Dr. Fowlds] This is typical territory
for black rhino.
To find a rhino here is incredibly difficult.
We can fly for hours here and not find one.
- [Coyote] Dense albany thickets blanket the hillsides,
creating ideal forging and hiding habitat for black rhinos.
But for Dr. Fowlds and the helicopter team,
seeking and successfully darting
our target animal is a noticeable challenge.
- [Mike] Coyote, Coyote, come in for Mike.
- Go for Mike.
- [Mike] Eyes on the rhino, we gotta move out.
- [Coyote] The good thing is that the hill sides
aren't too steep, but we might end up on the side of a cliff
doing this procedure so things are about to get intense.
- [Dr. Fowlds] So we've identified the right animal.
Just going to load a dart in quickly.
Now what Alex is gonna do is just line up this rhino
and when she's comfortable, she'll tell me
when the I can take the shot. - [Alex] Okay.
(helicopter whirling)
Okay, ready?
(suspenseful music)
- [Dr. Fowlds] We are good.
- [Alex] Good.
- [Coyote] All right, rhino's been darted.
Nice.
This is all open flat area right here.
(helicopter whirling) (footsteps crushing grass)
Okay, got animal down right here.
- [Dr. Fowlds] This is typical black rhino.
He's got himself with a head in a bush.
I'm just gonna put his blindfold on.
Make sure we protect his eyes.
- [Coyote] All in all,
black rhino veterinary workups are very similar
to our previous white rhino experience:
carefully coordinated chaos.
One, two, three!
(people grunt)
- [Dr. Fowlds] K.
- [Coyote] The biggest difference is that instead
of taking this animal's defining feature,
we'll be performing an inter-hornal implant procedure
that disguises a GPS tracking system
into the rhinos rear horn.
And you can notice how much larger the horn is
on this rhino because it's never been trimmed before.
Using a drummer,
we carefully carve a cavity
which provides a snug fit for the GPS.
(rhino exhales)
It's amazing to hear it breathing.
This is what we're fighting to protect right now.
And the toe structure is quite a bit different
between black rhinos and white rhinos.
You see these three large hoods up front.
How agile these animals are,
being able to move around on these steep hillsides,
a lot of cushioning in the foot
so these toes can almost grip around rocks.
For such a large animal, it's amazing how agile they are.
Next, a strategically colored dental epoxy
is used to fuse the unit in place,
keeping it camouflaged and outta the battle zone
if this rhino ever squares off with another male.
All right, you can see how noninvasive
this device is on the animal.
Now, once that epoxy's cured, we will grind it down slightly
to blend right into the horn,
put in the reversal serum.
This animal will be good to go.
- [Dr. Fowlds] Right, let's go guys.
Move outta the way, wake ups are different.
We need to get outta here. - [Coyote] Okay.
- All the way.
(intense orchestral music)
- All right.
The transmitter is officially locked in place in the horn.
That is what you call a successful mission right there.
We put the reversal serum into the animal
and we got the drone up in the air.
We'll be able to follow it
as it tracks back and off into the wild.
Yes!
This was incredible.
- [Dr. Fowlds] Looks good.
He's finding his feet very nicely.
His anesthetic was smooth all the way through.
Very happy about that.
He didn't give us any surprises
which was good for the humans.
And I'm actually very impressed with the implant.
We managed to get it in there with a lot of space around it.
So it's been a good procedure.
- [Coyote] I am excited to have participated in one
of the first inter-hornal implant procedures
that has been performed on this species
and the technology linked to it
will help protect this animal and its horns
on a daily basis.
That's how you do two rhino procedures in two days.
The white rhino dehorning,
the black rhino with a piece of technology
that might change the face of conservation.
What an unbelievable experience.
I'm Coyote Peterson.
Be brave,
stay wild.
We'll see ya on the next adventure!
After traveling a journey like this,
you arrive at the realization
that your final destination
has somehow become a new perspective of the world.
What happened?
Where did we go so wrong
that as humans, we have put a fictitious value
on the horn of an animal that created a black market demand
worth more than gold, diamonds, or oil.
When are we going to stand up
and who is going to break the wheel
that drives the Game of Horns?
Brave Wilderness,
in collaboration with Global Conservation Force
and Kariega Game Reserve,
have a pioneering vision to help the future
of Africa's rhinos.
We are building a safe haven
in the Eastern Cape
that may become a last stronghold
for the preservation of these animals
if poaching is not brought to an end.
What we do now does truly echo an eternity
and I can promise you, in less than 10 years,
these animals will be extinct in the wild
if we do not take action now.
This is the truth of the rhino's plight,
but you can change their future.
Become a warrior and join the fight
by clicking the donate button
so that together
we can prevent the loss of these vanishing giants.
(epic orchestral music)