The Kroo-ger National Park is framed by the Limpopo River in the north, the Crocodile River in the south and the Mozambique border that runs its entire eastern length, north to south. It is 360 kilometres in length and ninety kilometres at its widest point, and it covers over two million hectares of lush sub-tropical vegetation.
It is a veritable garden of Eden, providing the largest concentration and variety of animals in Southern Africa. It is home to over twelve thousand elephant, hundreds of rhinos, and tens of thousands of assorted game, including crocodile, hippo, antelope, buffalo, lion, and wild dog, as well as an incredible assortment of birds, insects and reptiles.
It is host to over two million visitors annually, who make use of its 1,800 kilometres of road, twenty-one rest camps, two private lodges, and fifteen safari camps. It protects over three hundred archaeological sites dating to the Stone Age, and includes 130 rock art sites from the San Bushmen and Iron Age peoples.
It is also the target of poachers, both amateur and organized, who wage a never-ending war on the riches contained within its borders. The protection of all that is the Kroo-ger demands a highly sophisticated, passionate, and committed team of specialists from the South African Police, SA Defence Force, SA Revenue Services border personnel, environmental managers, the National Prosecuting Authority, and last but not least, the SA National Parks Honorary Rangers.
The park’s defence, which incorporates offensive and defensive tactics, is comparable to a military operation and is coordinated via a Joint Operations Centre, which oversees the deployment of satellite monitoring, air surveillance, intelligence gathering, trackers, and combatants, as well as forensic scientists, with which to execute its anti-poaching strategies.
The Honorary Rangers are volunteers who participate in fund-raising, as well as active duties within the park, from enhancing the tourist experience to the identification, the removal of alien plants, and assisting in anti-poaching operations. They played a major role in the creation and ongoing support of the National Parks Board’s K9 anti-poaching unit, which deploys over sixty dogs in the Kroo-ger alone.
The K9 unit has proved to be highly successful in tracking down and apprehending poachers, sometimes several days after the initial response. Among its traditional Bloodhound and German Shepherd members, the unit has successfully introduced the Belgian Malinois breed, which has adapted extremely well to the African bush and has the capacity to track over extended distances.
I was particularly privileged to have been invited as part of a group to spend a weekend as guests of the SA National Parks Honorary Rangers in a bush camp located in the south of the park not far from the Crocodile Bridge camp. Our bush camp comprised a series of two-man tents pitched around the perimeter of the camp and serviced by a couple of brick ablutions, which were equipped with hot and cold showers, plus a catering and dining tent from which the rangers produced a spread that would make a five-star restaurant green with envy.
I haven’t mentioned the fence or the night lights, simply because there weren’t any. The camp lay in the bush, through which any and all animals had the right of way, with the path between the tents and the ablutions lit by the stars and the moon. We were required to carry our own flashlights so that we could find our way in the dead of night, assuming of course, one’s desire to pee overcame the fear of encountering a stray lion or jackal or two in the process.
The first morning saw us up and ready by daybreak and we were driven off to a location close to the Mozambique border. This is where we were scheduled to rendezvous with a team from the park’s wildlife veterinarian team out of Skukuza, which is the main camp in which the administrative headquarters of the park is located.
When we arrived, they were conducting routine tests on elephant and rhino to determine the presence, if any, of tuberculosis in these animals. That morning, they planned to randomly test a fully grown elephant.
We arrived at a spot in the bush just in time to see a parks board helicopter flying in ever-widening circles to our north. It wasn’t long before the pilot could be seen slowly descending and hovering while his passenger aimed a rifle and darted a lone bull elephant that they had seen from the air. The five vehicles on the ground kept their distance as we watched the drug take effect, and eventually the elephant fell over onto its side. The recovery team disembarked and ran to the sleeping animal. We witnessed how the leading veterinary doctor inserted a long tube into the throat of the elephant and pushed it down into the stomach before extracting a sample of the stomach acid and packaging it for analysis back in the laboratory. While this was going on, other team members inspected various vital signs of the patient and took measurements for their records.
Soon the team was done, and the massive beast was injected with an antidote. Everyone scurried back to their respective vehicles and stood well back to allow the elephant to find its feet. Slowly and unsteadily, the bull awoke and stood up. After a few minutes it started to walk away from us and finally disappeared into the bush.
The Kroo-ger’s air wing operates four Squirrel (H125) helicopters, which were acquired with funds donated by the Howard G Buffett Foundation. We were taken for a flip in a Squirrel. Up and over the bushfelt, and from our vantage point we saw a coalition of cheetah, a herd of buffalo, black rhino, and an assortment of buck in a matter of five minutes.
Then we set off in game-viewing vehicles to Skukuza, where we were taken through the fascinating DNA data banks and forensic laboratory, as well as the command centre from where satellite surveillance, field patrols, airwing, rangers, and the general public’s information is brought together to provide a comprehensive overview of the daily activities in the park, and from where the dangerous, anti-poaching operations are coordinated. It was a long day and we left to return to camp in the late afternoon.
The sun had already set and the tourist camps all locked down for the night when we came upon a dead buffalo lying on the road, surrounded by a pride of hungry lions who were patiently waiting for their King to have his fill. Not only did he have a good meal but decided to have his way with one of the females while we looked on. We couldn’t have scripted the day’s events better.