Meet the Black Mambas, the world’s first all-female anti-poaching group, connecting Intrepid Travel guests with nature in South Africa’s Greater Kruger National Park
Q. What led you to join the Black Mambas in 2019?
A. Growing up, I watched National Geographic with my siblings because we found animals fascinating, and I like being surrounded by nature and listening to the birds singing. The 16-day training was very hard. My father said you cannot do this job – he thinks a woman must be at home – but I was adamant. Now here I am, five years later, and he’s not saying anything, except ‘she proved me wrong’.
Q. Can you tell us about your day-to-day role?
A. We work 21 days on and 10 days off, and a normal morning patrol around the fence is four hours at a time. We patrol in twos with a two-way radio and smartphones, which were donated, so if we find suspicious tracks we log them in our app. We report cigarette butts or cuttings along the fence to the ops room and on night patrols, we have a spotlight to check for suspicious activities. We are unarmed – we carry handcuffs and pepper spray only – but we use all our senses. We’re in the animals’ habitat, so we must listen, observe and proceed.
Q. What kind of impact has your work had?
A. When the Black Mambas first started in 2013, they would find more than a hundred snares; now we might find one or two. It’s evidence we are doing good work – when we put our foot on the ground [to patrol], it makes it a less desirable place for people to poach.
Q. What other work do you do in the community?
A. We have projects of ‘bush babies’ and ‘bush grannies’. We are investing in children because we don’t want them to see movies in the future that say: ‘once upon a time, there was a rhino’, we want them to enjoy wildlife and nature. For the grannies, they were not privileged growing up and the animals were only for white people – when they come here, they see animals that are free.
Q. What can visitors on Intrepid Travel’s trips expect?
A. We welcome them, talk about the rhinos and demonstrate how we maintain the area to stop poachers coming inside the park. After that we do a walk to explain the trees and grasses, show them how to read giraffe or impala tracks and later we tell stories by the fire and they are free to ask questions. I love to show people that being around nature is different from reading articles or seeing animals in cages so when they go back, they will have a different perspective.
PICTURES: Transfrontier Africa; Rivoni Mkansi
