See What It Takes to Hide a Secret Tracker in a Rhino Horn | Short Film Showcase
[Music] Africa's got the greatest number and diversity of large mammals. It's the continent that's been blessed with the most wildlife. Many of these animals, like the black rhino, are down to a few thousand. This is it; in the next hundred years, years make or break.
Every animal comes each immobilization. Each animal I work with, these are quite a potent tranquilizer. From a seeing animal to putting a dart in, I'd be pleased maximum a minute. And perfectly listen, a black rhino is, in many ways, an animal that wants to be left alone. Those are the ones most likely to be poached, most difficult to monitor, and having a helicopter has made all the difference.
It simplifies the work very much simply because you can cover big distances in a short period of time, and they reach areas that we wouldn't have reached when we were to use the vehicle. It's a real pioneer in any of the more dangerous or more difficult game capture operations like we're doing here. The whole thing is to work as quickly as possible, get the job done, and get out again.
I'm going to spend about a minute or two just being comfortable. This animal is okay; it's breathing well. This animal is stable. We can now move on and start doing other stuff to it. So that's, that's number one. Positioning an animal is important. We tend to put it on the side, pump those legs, make sure there's good circulation to the legs, dusted with water a few times, and keep it wet.
Each person has their own job, focusing on stabilizing the animal. The horn employees usually have been a second or even a third vet. One vet will then focus on taking samples, and the other vet will focus on monitoring the animal. The animals are fully immobilized; we're using an opioid, which is a very powerful painkiller.
The back of the hole that we drilled to put in the gadgets is composed of dead cells, so the animal cannot feel pain. We drill a hole into the horn for the actual transmitter, and then we'll drill a long hole from the top for the antenna. We fill up the hole with dental acrylic dyed or put something with it to make it the same color as rhino horn, said if the animal is punched now, all is taken, you wouldn't easily realize that this F is transmitted in that horn.
When we give the antidote, suddenly that animal is awake again. You can see its prey; it's very, very spectacular. Within about a minute and a half, Elmen p.m. on its feet, you know that the job has been done; the animal's fine. One feels really good knowing where that animal is, means you can keep an eye on it and make sure that it's healthy. It's not being pushed.
[Music] [Applause] Horn from animals which have been poached has certainly been tracked down, and the folk who've been involved, either the poachers or the middlemen, have been caught. Supporting Tnaba and supporting other organizations like Frankfurt, making sure it's well managed, the wildlife is well protected.
The Napa is very important to secure the landscape, to secure the ecosystem. That is the biggest challenge over the next 10 years. I also very much enjoy working in Africa, with African people—a wonderful team to work with—to see how they go forward and how enthusiastic they are to conserve as well. I'm very proud to get involved in protecting these resources that Tanzania have.
A big chunk of the Serengeti is that much safer by the involvement of the Friedkin Conservation Fund, which we have here under Dan Friedkin. He's a great pilot; he's clearly very passionate about conservation, very passionate about Tanzania and the Serengeti, particularly. This operation has been giving us helicopter time; that's made all the difference. It's the first time essentially we've really had a helicopter here to do the rhino program.
Boy, what a difference! I mean, we need the future generation—including my children—to see these animals and get to understand them, and they continue the work to conserve them that we have been doing. I'd love to say to young folk out there who are looking for something to do, who feel a passion for conservation, get involved! You know this is the time to really save our environment.
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