Meet the World’s First All-Female Team Created to Combat Poaching | Short Film Showcase

The old-school conservationists laughed at us. They said, "It's never gonna work." I'm 25 years old and one of the Black Mambas. I'm looking at other Black Mambas and approaching the unit. They're always very, very shy at the beginning, and then they get a six-week training course. That's taking them through readiness procedures, fitness, and how to use the equipment.

In two weeks, they'll go off in a bush somewhere, and they have to survive by themselves. But in my own way, I took swimming lessons to learn about the behaviors of the animals, the wild ones. So when we come across them, we know what to do. I told myself that I have to do it; we haven't had a single profile—huh—no.

So now I'm used to it, and it was protecting nature itself that has always driven me from when I was young to protect the environment. When I came out of the training, I made very different friends. My favorite part of my job is patrolling the fence, going around the sleeping areas every hour. I call in to check on them; if we find something suspicious, we call for backup.

Usually, we're not using weapons; we're the eyes and ears of the reserves. We are doing it differently. This form of poaching is bigger than guns and bullets. We are going through schools to teach children about the environment, about how to protect the animals. It's not good to kill an animal that will like you because we didn't have that opportunity. There was no one to tell us about the life of animals, and now visiting is 668 learners that we're reaching.

Awareness isn't the main objective; to be a Black Mamba means we are tough and strong young ladies who can work in the bushes without fear. I know that I'm helping the animals out there. As a Black Mamba, I feel proud in a community. When I'm wearing my uniform, and people look up at me, they see a hero.

If we lose a rhino, then we've failed. We mark our success by the amount of time that we've gone without losing any. Within one year, they've brought down snaring by 86 percent, and there had been no rhino poaching in this region either. That was proof enough to everybody that it's working. Now that we are having big numbers, there's a decrease in poaching. We are making a difference.

I always knew that it would work; we just didn't realize how quickly it was going to take and how quickly the results would show.