Sixteen tracker dogs have been added to the Kruger National Park’s arsenal to crack down on rhino poaching.
Defence company Denel said in a statement on Thursday that the dogs – Belgian Malinois, Springer Spaniels and Labrador Retrievers – would be deployed in the nature reserve for the next 18 months as part of an agreement between the two state-owned organisations.
“There is global concern about the devastating impact of poaching on our resources, but the most effective action is to be on the ground, detect the poaching gangs and apprehend them before they can do further damage,” said the company’s chief executive, Riaz Saloojee.
The dogs and their handlers, he said, had in the past been used to great effect to detect explosives and hidden landmines in war zones across Africa and the Middle East.
They also scored successes sniffing out smuggled drugs, contraband and ivory at airports and border posts.
Saloojee said the company would supply trained dogs and train park dog handlers.
“Technical K9 support and specialised dog care program-mes will also be provided for the duration of the contract period.”
Senior manager of canine business, Dr Hannes Slabbert, said: “Over the past three years we have gained a lot of experience in this field by supplying trained, anti-rhino poaching dogs and specialised handler training to several private game reserves.”
The company said it took about six months to train a specialist anti-rhino poaching tracker dog.
“Training methods may not be divulged, but Mechem (a division of Denel) only trains using positive reinforcement techniques, the cost of which varies from dog to dog.”
They said a good working dog’s training started at a very early age: at six to 12 months, the dogs go through informal training or socialisation.
Between 12 and 18 months, they are given task-specific conditioning and, at 18 months, formal training begins.