It’s 2am in the South African bush, and there’s something outside of my tent. I’m camping in a dried up river bed in the Olifants West Nature Reserve, part of Greater Kruger Park, and the night is warm and still, except for the rustling, which is getting louder. I lie rigid in my sleeping bag. This is Big Five country, where lions, leopards, elephants, buffalos and rhinos roam. Not, I imagine, that there is a solitary African elephant inspecting the ground just feet away from my head, separated only by the thin nylon wall of my tent. Far more likely to be a foraging rodent, I tell myself, maybe the nocturnal porcupine. Or maybe a scorpion. Soon, my inquisitive friend moves on, and the night is still again. Until later, when I’m woken by the distinctive whoops and whines of hyenas – or perhaps African wild dogs – echoing from somewhere deep in the bush.
This is my first and only night camping in the depths of the Kruger. But for my fellow campmates, this is just part of the job.
Thanks to a new partnership with Intrepid Travel, I’m here with the world’s first all-female anti-poaching unit, the Black Mambas. On the border of the renowned Kruger National Park, 36 highly-trained female rangers patrol the park monitoring wildlife, destroying snares, and deterring poachers with their presence. In the past six years, they have removed more than 1,470 wire snares – typically used to trap bushmeat, but with the ability to kill almost anything they ensnare – which are now presented, entangled together in a huge mesh of wire, outside the Black Mambas headquarters in Olifants West.
It’s here, some hours before my night in the bush, that I first meet the Mambas, a group of young women dressed in camouflage uniforms and heavy black boots. On the ground beside us lie three huge rhino skulls, killed by poachers. A rise in poaching for rhino horn and increased habitat loss over the last 50 years has decimated rhino populations in Africa, with South Africa representing the epicentre of prohibited wildlife trade. Today, approximately 23,885 black and white rhinos remain in Africa, with the global figure of all five species estimated to be around 28,000. At the start of the 20th century, this figure stood at 500,000.
But in Olifants West, the Black Mambas offer hope. In the areas they patrol, there has been a 63% reduction in wildlife poaching and sharing, and no rhinos have been killed since their deployment in 2013.
From the control centre, we bundle into the Black Mambas’ patrol cars and head to the campsite where, to my surprise, there’s cold-water showers, toilets and sinks. Rows of tents are lined up in the sandy riverbed, and while there’s no electricity, the campsite is dotted with solar lamps for when the sun sets. Rows of chairs surround a campfire and platters of fresh fruit, coffees, teas and drinking water are piled on wooden decking, shaded from the beating sun by a tall acacia tree.
After we’ve settled into the campsite and quenched our thirst from the South African heat, it’s time to join the Mambas on patrol. We follow rangers Leitah Mkhabela, Collet Ngobeni, Cute Mhlongo and Debra Mukanzi into the bush, striding in single file through the tall grass which glows golden in the late afternoon sun. Within minutes, Leitah points to some movement in a thicket nearby. We freeze. “Look, a wildebeest!” she says in a hushed voice. It glances at us for a moment before galloping into the bush.
“We patrol the park for eight hours a day – often four in the morning and four at night – covering 15 kilometres along the park’s fence, looking for signs of poachers,” says 35-year-old Cute, who joined the Black Mambas in 2014. “A small hole in the fence, a footprint – anything can be a clue.” She points to a tree up ahead where, many years prior, she'd located and removed a dozen snares, thankfully with no indication that they’d harmed any animals. “Now, I can’t remember the last time I found a snare,” Cute shares. “When I started, I’d come home with 300 from one patrol.”
I wonder how they defend themselves in dangerous situations, particularly against armed poachers. Controversially, the women are armed with nothing but pepper spray and handcuffs, but the Mambas are keen to remind me that none of them have been harmed. “None of the Black Mambas have ever been killed by poachers or animals because we are well-trained,” says 31-year-old staff sergeant Leitah, explaining that new recruits undergo three months of intensive military-style training, where they run for 3 miles every day and learn surveillance, compliance and survival techniques.
Regardless, this decision has drawn widespread criticism, something which Craig Spencer, the founder of the Black Mambas and CEO of conservation non-profit TransFrontier Africa, is very much aware. Craig is waiting for us at camp when we arrive back from patrol, a pipe-wielding man in his ‘50s with a deep tan and a passion for demilitarising wildlife conservation (despite, somewhat ironically, being accompanied himself by a very large anti-poaching dog).
“We have this bizarre gun culture in South Africa, and we wanted to break that culture,” he says fervently as we position ourselves around the campfire. “I don’t believe for one moment that with the right kind of training, you still need a weapon to defend yourself against animals. As for poachers, they’re scared of being detected. We’ve seen it in the clothing they’re wearing, the traditional medicine they carry to protect them from gunshots, the sponges they put under their shoes so that they don’t leave tracks… The poachers’ intention is not to kill the Black Mambas, but to get away from them as fast as they possibly can.”
Conversely, the women around the campfire concede that in the 10 years they’ve been operating, they’ve been chased by men with guns twice. “I’m not saying it’s not risky,” Craig asserts, “but we don’t deploy an unarmed group of rangers unless there’s an armed response unit ready to back them up if needed.”
Leitah agrees, highlighting the importance of education in conservation practice. “We are unarmed because we cherish life,” she says proudly. “We believe that if we use education and knowledge, we are going to win. But if we use bullets and blood, we will start a war in our communities. We go to the same shop to buy bread with the poachers. We are mothers; our kids go to the same school as the poachers’ kids. These men are part of our community. I don’t want their kids to grow up knowing that I killed their father. That’s why we use education to unite everyone in conservation.”
Through their Bush Babies programme, the Black Mambas run educational workshops in schools and local communities. “We invite kids into the reserve, teach them about the iconic animals, and they take the message back home that we must protect wildlife and conserve nature,” Leitah explains.
As the campfire starts to dwindle, we polish off our dinner of vegetable stew and begin to peel off back to our tents, our paths illuminated by solar lamps and the impossibly bright stars blanketing the night’s sky. Cute walks next to me, and for our final conversation before she continues her work, I ask what she’s most proud of. She pauses, thinking. “I’m doing this for my daughters; for the future generation of girls,” she says, smiling. “We are role models in our community, and we inspire young women who were told that only men can be rangers. When this project started, many people didn’t believe we could make it. But we proved them wrong. We proved that we can do it better than the men who carry guns.”
The Black Mambas experience is offered exclusively in three of Intrepid Travel's 16 South African tours: the Kruger & Coast; Kruger to Victoria Falls; and Victoria Falls to Kruger.
Prices start from £1070 per person and include accommodation, ground transport, selected meals and activities. British Airways offers flights from London to Johannesburg from £700.
Book now at intrepidtravel.com. To donate to the Black Mambas, visit theintrepidfoundation.org.
