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From Monday to Saturday, and many Sundays, more than 250 field rangers are deployed across the length and breadth of Kruger’s two million hectares to preserve, conserve and, where possible, maintain the integrity of one of South Africa’s prime wilderness areas.

For more than 100 years Kruger’s ranger corps has been building a proud tradition as old as the Park itself, established by Stevenson-Hamilton and his field rangers. It has not been an easy task for the men (and recently also women), who, despite an often exaggerated romantic shroud that conceals the realities of danger combined with gruelling hard work for very little money, continue day-by-day to protect Kruger’s biodiversity at the coal face of conservation.

Even though the advent of technology, perception of and approaches to conservation have changed since the time of Stevenson-Hamilton and new challenges are being asked from Kruger’s rangers, in essence, the corps remains the eyes and ears of conservation. They are truly the custodians of conservation.

The Kruger Park Times spent a day with field rangers from the Letaba ranger station to see how a typical day of the present day field ranger in the Kruger ranger corps would be spent.

I was late arriving at the Letaba ranger station, having forgotten that it is school holidays and I will need extra time at the entrance gate for the long queues at the gate –even at 06h00 in the morning.

At Letaba, section ranger Joe Nkuna (who was supposed to be on a two-day study leave), welcomed, briefed and introduced me to all the field rangers, also known as “˜maphoyisa’, under leadership of sergeant William Ndobe.
With all the formalities completed we left for the patrol area.

Ndobe explained that the 10 field rangers would be split into three groups, with our group comprising three rangers and I. Ndobe said the groups comprise a mixture of experienced and less experienced people to allow for the cross-over of skills.

“Sometimes,” he said, “the field rangers would patrol on foot, covering distances between 15 to 25 km.” On other days they would do bicycle patrol of similar distance or vehicle patrols.

After we dropped the other two groups off at specified points on the way, we drove towards the Mozambican border passed the Mala-mala koppies. On the way, in descriptive and often poetic Afrikaans, Ndobe allowed a brief glimpse of his life in the park the last 22 years – lion encounters, elephant incidents, poacher and illegal immigrant episodes and life in general. The road was too short.

Jumping from the 80s to the present, his stories are a mosaic of adventure that would rival those of pirates of the Caribbean.
He tells of how they recently helped the South African Police Force track alleged car thieves who had abandoned a bakkie near the Giriyondo border post. Apparently darkness and the Mozambican border won this round, although the vehicle was recovered and taken to the Phalaborwa police station.

As we spoke, Ndobe’s great respect for all Kruger’s animals, but specifically its lions came to light. He vividly recalled several encounters. “Once when I was still a field ranger at Mooiplaas we had to fix a “˜windpomp’. We were unaware of a two-day old lion cub in some tall grass about 15m from the pump. Its eyes were not even open yet. At first we also did not notice the lioness about 100 metres from us. She was watching us. We were concentrating on fixing the “˜boud’ when we heard a noise in the grass below. It was the cub, and then the deep, soft, throaty growl of a lioness as she covered the 100m to be with her cub. My friend began to tremble. I said, we need to finish and then get off on the far side, away from the lions. We got down very slowly, onto our bicycles and then rode for Mopani camp.”
“There my friend reiterated that perhaps his time was not yet up for “die Godheid”.

By this time we were driving along the Mozambican border and Ndobe pointed out the tell tale signs found in and around the fence. At one place a white rhino tried to break through the fence, “and he is now familiar with this path. He will want to cross here all the time now in the future.”

At about 08h30 we had reached the point from where to continue the patrol on foot. Ndobe led the way, with Abel Ramavale and Rexon Mathebula taking up the rear. Both men have been at Letaba since 2000. According to Ndobe we were heading for Makadzi.

Even though I asked them stay as close as possible to the reality as they could, I soon realised I was holding them back. They do not walk in the bush for fun. Their task is to observe and to record. I was an additional responsibility, which they did not take lightly.

“This area we call Tomahini (the place of the Jackalberry),” explained Ndobe effortlessly, while I tried to hide my lack of breath negotiating the layers of rock at a particularly beautiful waterhole.

We must have covered about 18km to 20km in the five and a half hours through terrain that changed from open grassland with numerous waterholes to dense mopani bush to deep rocky ravines. We walked about four hours without a break before Ndobe took a breather for my benefit.

Stopping briefly at tracks in a game path, Ndobe explained “The bush writes us letters.” He then explained how they scan the area for possible human activity as well, as they perform their counter poaching duties. It was in “˜brulpadda spruit’ that we first heard a giraffe before we saw the magnificent dark old bull. We did not see much game, but there are plenty of “˜natural’ waterholes in the veld.
As we approached the road and pick-up point, Abel, who is studying towards a National Diploma in Nature Conservation at the Tswane University of Technology, recorded the most important sightings on the Cybertracker.

These were downloaded at the ranger station and will be compiled in a monthly report to Skukuza. Abel also graciously shared an orange during the walk that saved my tongue from growing to the size of my tonsils. It was about 13h30. We were nowhere near Makadzi, Ndobe’s original destination, but we had covered a good distance.

We did not wait long for corporal Orlas Shiburi to pick us and the other groups up on the way back to the ranger station. Section ranger Joe, was waiting for us and oversaw the signing in of the weapons. Abel headed for the computer where the Cybertracker recordings had to be processed.

We bid our farewells and I could not help thinking how in their day-to-day endeavours, people like Ndobe, Abel, Rexon, Orlas and all the other field rangers each leave their own inscription in the centuries old Kruger Diary – and their contribution in the fact that it exists.

This artcile is used with the kind permission of http://www.krugerparktimes.co.za/