The poachers came first. And then the scavengers: the vultures and the hyena. Lion probably also had their share of the feast.
Now all that remains of the fallen rhino are a few bones bleached by the sun, a mound of sunken flesh and the ravages of the bullets that ended its life four days ago.
This remote patch of land, a breath from the Mozambican border, will now become a lonely graveyard for this rhino, as others have become in the poaching “hotspots” of the Kruger National Park.
“This is typically how a rhino is poached in the Kruger, far from anywhere,” explains Ken Maggs, the head of the environmental crime investigation unit at SANParks, as he gestures to the forensic team delicately gathering evidence around the sagging carcass.
“We’ve lost 13 rhino in this part of the park this year. The poaching gangs are coming into the park from Mozambique.”
There is only a “small window of opportunity” to detect a carcass.
“Where we are standing is just a pinprick on the map of the Kruger,” he says. “The park is so vast, and remote. It’s the same size as Israel.
“Scavengers feed on the carcasses almost immediately. You’re lucky if you have a window of four to five days. By the time you get here, the poachers are long gone.”
After 27 years in the Kruger, Maggs has seen his fair share of slaughtered wildlife. But the ex-cop is not hardened by the sight.
“It’s never nice to see a rhino lying dead and in my job I see a lot more than average. But I can’t let my emotions override my will to succeed.”
South Africa has lost 159 rhino so far this year – nearly 100 of them in the Kruger National Park, home to the bulk of the world’s rhino population.
Maggs warns that if the killing continues at the current rate, the country stands to lose 600 rhino by year’s end, to feed the insatiable medicinal demand for rhino horn in the Far East.
SANParks wildlife veterinary services head Markus Hofmeyr explained this week that rhino numbers could start to drop within three years but says SA’s rhino populations are not “yet at the point of no return”.
In the midst of the carnage, Maggs – like Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa – remains optimistic the onslaught can be overcome.
“We’ve got a really tremendous joint effort with the police and the SA National Defence Force. As we speak we have people in various hotspots in the Kruger trying to counter poachers. We will succeed. I have no question about it. We have enough committed and dedicated people and I’m confident, otherwise I wouldn’t still be here.”
But it’s in the clear glow of moonlight that poachers rule. Maggs and his team must counter this with more night-time offensives.
“He who owns the night wins the war,” he says, looking up at a night sky littered with stars and illuminated by the moon as he trudges through a drying riverbed to show the dangerous conditions special operatives are up against when darkness falls.
“Remember that tonight the moon is only three-quarters full. It’s bright enough that poachers can see a rhino right up close, shoot it and take off its horn.
“Soon we’ll have a full moon and that is when poaching begins to spike.”
Kitted out in full camouflage gear, Bruce Leslie, the special ops team leader, tells of terrifying encounters with nocturnal wildlife on their regular hunts for poachers.
“I wouldn’t say we’re afraid, I’d say we’re very afraid,” he smiles.
“But being afraid keeps you alive. It’s not only the poachers. We’ve had one person gored by a rhino. In the day you have to worry about black mambas, and in the night, you worry about spitting cobras.”
Poachers often leave notes on the carcasses of rhino, warning rangers they know where they live and where their children go to school.
“We haven’t lost a single field ranger and I think that’s down to the training we do,” explains Maggs.
Poachers are a formidable enemy.
“They are very good bush men,” he says, with admiration. “They know the bush like the back of their hands. They have a clear determination to succeed given the price of rhino horn.”
SA is working with Mozambican authorities to get private landowners to create a protected buffer zone bordering the Kruger in the southern realm of the park, where many rhino are falling.
“In a sense you’re trying to stay ahead, but are one step behind because there are no rules on the other side of the fence,” says Maggs, of the poaching gangs.
“But there are really dedicated people in this country, in the Kruger, and at provincial level, who are focused on trying to solve this.
“People think we’re not doing enough, I think to myself ‘My goodness… people don’t have an idea of how big, how remote the Kruger is.
“This is a huge problem that is being driven off our shores by organised crime syndicates. We in SA cannot solve this problem alone.”
Saturday Star