The cruel demise of Aina Moja the rhino...
Safe on a huge 20 000 ha private game ranch in Limpopo, she lived in the beautiful Bushveld with her older sister and some other members of her kind. Both sisters have a calf of less than a year old, and they had separated themselves from the others to guard jealously over their small offspring.
As it is now winter time and the food a bit sparse, their caring owner are giving them each afternoon some additional game pellets to keep the mother's conditioning up, as their two calves are still suckling.
Then, after feeding time on the late afternoon of Friday 5 August 2011, some human like predators slinked like hyenas out of the bush and cowardly slay the innocent older sister with an old .303 rifle, as well as another pregnant rhino, who suffered a lot before she became too weak from her police R5 [5.56mm] gunshot wounds, and her horn were then sawn off while she was still alive!.
The reason for these barbarians bravery is the lure of the god Mammon offered by aliens to Africa from a country far away to the East.
Though a developed and very modern race, some of these Eastern vultures still have some misguided believes in the magic aphorized qualities of the poor rhino's horn!
The very next morning the crime has been discovered and a massive manhunt was launched by the police, nature conservation officers and others , where helicopters, trackers, dogs and 4+4 were used.
By Saturday evening three of the gang of 11 heavily armed perpetrators was apprehended in the remote and dense bush in a deep kloof with the .303 still in their possession. These three cowardly hyenas were then also found to be illegal immigrants from a Northern neighbouring country to my beautiful South Africa. Without any remorse about the killings, their only excuse was that they needed the money because they were hungry!
As if that is a good enough reason to illegally go to another country and criminally invade somebody else's private property to commit such a hideous crime. Then in this hunger driven state they didn't even eat any of the meat-but took only the horns?
[Do they think us senile like their banana republic leader that they have fled from?]
I arrived on this game ranch two weeks later on Friday 19/8/2011. There I witnessed a small miracle of nature. The small calve of the slain rhino were feared to die, as he is too small to dart to take to another location.
On my arrival I was shown where the surviving sister had proudly taken over the role of surrogate mother for her and her late sister's calves!
She was promptly named Aina Moja [the kind one].
They were all in good health and seem to have recovered from the trauma of two weeks earlier.
In amazement about the caring nature of this rhino mother, I took a couple of photographs of her with her new family. With a song in my heart about the goodness of nature and the wonder of the wild, I left them and depart for my home far away.
I was in shock after I received the phone call on Friday 26/8/11, and excuse me as I still have a lot of anger deep inside me.
On the previous evening [Thursday 25/8] the poachers had struck again and killed another rhino bull, as well as Aina Moja. [both with multiple .375m wounds]
Then just out of sheer spite or a senseless madness, these thugs had then killed both her two innocent calves in a brutal killing spree as well. [Both with multiple light R5 5.56 assault rifle bullets]
As I sit here, I ponder about the meanness and greed of some people who deemed themselves to be above the law because of corruption, money, power or their sick and inflated twisted egos. Is this the beginning of the end for free roaming wild animals as we know it? Will our children's children still have the privilege to see animals in the wild? It is a huge financial expenditure to buy, keep, breed and take care of these wild animals, and nobody can continuously take such huge losses inflicted by these ruthless 'hungry' criminals. [6 rhino's killed and 2 wounded in 3 weeks of August on this one game ranch alone!]
Will we one day come to a point where it is just not economically viable or too dangerous [poachers already shoot at anybody who surprise them in the act] to try and keep wild animals on private property?
Mustn't we also start to adopt the same shoot to kill on sight of any poacher found on private or state game reserves as already implemented by some other African countries? [It is not as if anybody 'by mistake' climbs over a 2.5 m+ electrified fence with an illegal and stolen .303 or R5 automatic rifle, to know that you are trespassing and up to no good!]
And what if in future there are only a couple of sad specimens left in Zoo's of these once proud and free animals? How will these stinking rich hyenas then spend their money to satisfy their 'urges'? Start hunting humans? [Today human trafficking is already such a painful and shocking reality. And isn't it so that most of the final destinations of most of these trafficking victims are already to the same countries as the illegal rhino horn and elephant tusks?]
Where will it end?
Will it ever end?
Today I mourn you and your offspring Aina Moja [the kind one] as you are no more.
May the hyenas forever flee in terror before the wrath of the Lions!
Safe on a huge 20 000 ha private game ranch in Limpopo, she lived in the beautiful Bushveld with her older sister and some other members of her kind. Both sisters have a calf of less than a year old, and they had separated themselves from the others to guard jealously over their small offspring.
As it is now winter time and the food a bit sparse, their caring owner are giving them each afternoon some additional game pellets to keep the mother's conditioning up, as their two calves are still suckling.
Then, after feeding time on the late afternoon of Friday 5 August 2011, some human like predators slinked like hyenas out of the bush and cowardly slay the innocent older sister with an old .303 rifle, as well as another pregnant rhino, who suffered a lot before she became too weak from her police R5 [5.56mm] gunshot wounds, and her horn were then sawn off while she was still alive!.
The reason for these barbarians bravery is the lure of the god Mammon offered by aliens to Africa from a country far away to the East.
Though a developed and very modern race, some of these Eastern vultures still have some misguided believes in the magic aphorized qualities of the poor rhino's horn!
The very next morning the crime has been discovered and a massive manhunt was launched by the police, nature conservation officers and others , where helicopters, trackers, dogs and 4+4 were used.
By Saturday evening three of the gang of 11 heavily armed perpetrators was apprehended in the remote and dense bush in a deep kloof with the .303 still in their possession. These three cowardly hyenas were then also found to be illegal immigrants from a Northern neighbouring country to my beautiful South Africa. Without any remorse about the killings, their only excuse was that they needed the money because they were hungry!
As if that is a good enough reason to illegally go to another country and criminally invade somebody else's private property to commit such a hideous crime. Then in this hunger driven state they didn't even eat any of the meat-but took only the horns?
[Do they think us senile like their banana republic leader that they have fled from?]
I arrived on this game ranch two weeks later on Friday 19/8/2011. There I witnessed a small miracle of nature. The small calve of the slain rhino were feared to die, as he is too small to dart to take to another location.
On my arrival I was shown where the surviving sister had proudly taken over the role of surrogate mother for her and her late sister's calves!
She was promptly named Aina Moja [the kind one].
They were all in good health and seem to have recovered from the trauma of two weeks earlier.
In amazement about the caring nature of this rhino mother, I took a couple of photographs of her with her new family. With a song in my heart about the goodness of nature and the wonder of the wild, I left them and depart for my home far away.
I was in shock after I received the phone call on Friday 26/8/11, and excuse me as I still have a lot of anger deep inside me.
On the previous evening [Thursday 25/8] the poachers had struck again and killed another rhino bull, as well as Aina Moja. [both with multiple .375m wounds]
Then just out of sheer spite or a senseless madness, these thugs had then killed both her two innocent calves in a brutal killing spree as well. [Both with multiple light R5 5.56 assault rifle bullets]
As I sit here, I ponder about the meanness and greed of some people who deemed themselves to be above the law because of corruption, money, power or their sick and inflated twisted egos. Is this the beginning of the end for free roaming wild animals as we know it? Will our children's children still have the privilege to see animals in the wild? It is a huge financial expenditure to buy, keep, breed and take care of these wild animals, and nobody can continuously take such huge losses inflicted by these ruthless 'hungry' criminals. [6 rhino's killed and 2 wounded in 3 weeks of August on this one game ranch alone!]
Will we one day come to a point where it is just not economically viable or too dangerous [poachers already shoot at anybody who surprise them in the act] to try and keep wild animals on private property?
Mustn't we also start to adopt the same shoot to kill on sight of any poacher found on private or state game reserves as already implemented by some other African countries? [It is not as if anybody 'by mistake' climbs over a 2.5 m+ electrified fence with an illegal and stolen .303 or R5 automatic rifle, to know that you are trespassing and up to no good!]
And what if in future there are only a couple of sad specimens left in Zoo's of these once proud and free animals? How will these stinking rich hyenas then spend their money to satisfy their 'urges'? Start hunting humans? [Today human trafficking is already such a painful and shocking reality. And isn't it so that most of the final destinations of most of these trafficking victims are already to the same countries as the illegal rhino horn and elephant tusks?]
Where will it end?
Will it ever end?
Today I mourn you and your offspring Aina Moja [the kind one] as you are no more.
May the hyenas forever flee in terror before the wrath of the Lions!
.
