Anti-Poaching Team Save Drowning Elephant

A couple of members of ant-poaching team were patrolling Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park early in the morning when they chanced upon a truly awful sight according to National Geographic. Tom Lautenbach one of the members of the patrol said to their surprise they noticed four very large grey legs sticking out of the man-made water trough, which was established to provide clean drinking water. Mr Lautenbach adds that they then realised the legs belonged to an elephant.

Assumed elephant was dead

Mr Lautenbach and his colleague Gift Kgadima both of whom work as drone pilots from the anti-poaching team known as Air Shepard first assumed the elephant had been killed by poachers who have been known to drop kilos of cyanide into popular watering holes frequented by elephants. However, the sad sight became one of optimism when the upside-down elephant began to thrashing about. The team realised the elephant was not dead but it was at risk of drowning.

 “One of the guys held its trunk out [of the water so it could breathe] and [another] went for help, If we had not seen it, [it] would have been dead 20 minutes later” One of the rescuers said in an Air Shepherd post on Facebook.

Call for help

The drone pilots first attempted to save the elephant by tying a rope around its foot and physically drag it out of the water using their vehicle. However, that strategy did not work and they called for help from the National Park. Another rope was brought to the scene along with a team of rescuers who were then able to pull the animal to its feet.

Exhausted elephant

Mr Lautenbach says the elephant was of course exhausted and was unable to stand initially, so the team waited for the elephant to recover and then decided to push the animal towards the shallower end of the trough where he would be able to easily able to walk away, which he ended up doing. Air Shepard crews have been flying drones in South Africa’s iconic Kruger National Park to combat poachers for about four years. The team makes use of silent drones which fly at night making them incredibly hard to detect. Word has spread that drones are being used in a particular area amongst criminals often driving them away.

Sitting targets

During the dry season, which is taking place now, animals tend to congregate around watering holes making them easy targets for poachers. As a result, Air Shepard patrols those areas. In particular, the watering holes which are near villages or the watering holes that are the easiest for poachers to get to. Fortunately, this time around the young elephant wasn’t killed by poachers and the story has a happy ending.