A game ranger’s wife wept inconsolably when a bravery award was presented posthumously to her late husband, just one of hundreds of rangers putting their lives on the line to defend South Africa’s rhinos from heavily-armed poachers.
The purple bar award for bravery was made to field ranger Zephania Myeni of the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi game reserve by Ezemvelo KZN Wild-life chief executive Bandile Mkhize during the organisation’s annual awards dinner on Friday night.
Rhino and wilderness conservation stalwart Ian Player also received a standing ovation after being presented with a lifetime achievement award
Myeni’s bravery award was handed to his widow Nurse, who wept quietly for several minutes after returning to her table.
Her husband died in tragic circumstances after being shot accidentally by a colleague while rangers were trying to intercept a group of rhino poachers in the reserve last September.
While searching for the poachers an Ezemvelo team split up into two but came face to face with each other in pitch darkness, and Myeni was shot dead in the confusion.
A bravery award was also given to ranger Bheki Mkhwanazi who was involved in the same incident.
Field rangers Vusi Manzini and Lofty Nxumalo from the Ndumo game reserve on the Mozambique border were presented with laurel wreath bravery awards for intercepting a group of heavily armed rhino poachers in February this year.
The rangers heard a shot being fired just before sunset and soon came across four poachers trying to hack the horn off a dead rhino using axes.
Because Manzini and Nxumalo reacted quickly, the poachers scattered, leaving behind their rifles and equipment, and the horn.
Their colleagues Sthembiso Ntuli and Cyprian Gumede, also from Ndumo reserve, were decorated for confronting a separate group of rhino poachers in November last year.
One of the suspected poachers was shot dead after he raised his rifle to shoot at the rangers.
Presenting a lifetime achievement award to Player, Ezemvelo noted that the 85-year-old conservationist had a reputation which extended well beyond SA’s borders.
Not only had he played a major role in saving the white rhino from extinction in the early 1960s, he had also made crucial contributions to environmental education and the establishment of wilderness areas throughout SA.
“He is unquestionably, one of South Africa’s greatest ever conservationists,” says the Ezemvelo citation.
Player has received almost 20 awards locally and internationally for his work.
Earlier this month, he was honoured with the inaugural Anton Rupert Award for lifelong contributions to conservation. - The Mercury