AN INQUISITIVE MUTT TRAINED TO TRACK SOUTH AFRICA’S RHINO HUNTERS

A young mongrel dog romps and sniffs at emergency vehicles and shelves in a fire station. It looks as if the agile and almost uncontrollable four-legged friend just wants to play. But the dog, named Gooods Kulava Kutiva, is in the middle of an apprenticeship.

According to dog trainer Perdita Lübbe-Scheuermann, the dog’s name means “curiosity” and that will be her job in future. With her fine nose, she is being trained as a rhino horn sniffer dog and is set to spoil the business of poachers in the Kruger National Park in South Africa from next year.

“She’s just right for us. She’s crazy, wild and persistent and that suited us perfectly,” says Lübbe-Scheuermann, who runs a dog training school with her husband in Griesheim, south of Germany’s financial hub of Frankfurt.

The young dog was too much for her previous owners. “She always had her foot on the gas and they just couldn’t handle her.”

Nicole Tomera from the animal shelter in nearby Viernheim drew her attention to the dog and got the animal last year.

For several weeks now, Kutiva has been trained and conditioned by Matthias Klein at the Alsbach-Hähnlein volunteer fire station. The 43-year-old police chief inspector is head of the service dog squadron at Darmstadt police headquarters and works with the dog on a voluntary basis in his spare time.

It was cruel at first, says Klein. “She sometimes lay in the room for an hour and didn’t do anything.” Then it got better, and now it’s a lot of fun. Kutiva has to sniff at numerous magnetic tin cans between shelves, cars, hoses and uniforms. If she finds something suspicious, she lies flat on the floor and reports the hit. By the end of the training programme in April, she will be able to sniff out rhino horn as well as ammunition, weapons, pangolin scales and ivory in the fight against poachers.

Finding a rhino horn is a particular challenge, unlike detecting humans or drugs. The horns are “no different than fingernails,” says Klein.

The horn scent is not detectable by humans but it is by dogs. The animals are mainly deployed at the gates of a fenced-off area of the Kruger National Park, where they are tasked with checking vehicles. However, they are also used on surfaces and in rooms.

“We currently have four dogs downstairs,” says Lübbe-Scheuermann. She receives daily feedback from the dog handlers as part of her “Save the Rhino” project.

According to the South African Department of Environmental Affairs, 448 rhinos were poached across the country in 2022. In the first half of 2023, 231 animals were killed. Several successful arrests and prosecutions have been recorded and, according to the ministry, poaching of these animals is on the decline.

The environmental organization World Wildlife Fund (WWF) considers the ministry’s figures to be credible. “There is still a number of unreported cases,” says poaching expert Katharina Hennemuth. The ministry only publishes figures on cases where the dead rhinos are actually found.

Lübbe-Scheuermann and Klein do not trust the ministry’s figures, which they believe are too low. “The state is sweeping this under the carpet and those responsible on the ground believe that there are many more,” says Lübbe-Scheuermann.

The Kruger National Park covers an area of 19,485 square kilometres. Klein believes it’s impossible for all dead rhinos to be found in such a vast area.

“The horn continues to be sold on the black market, especially in Asia, where it is in demand for traditional medicine due to its high value, but also as a status symbol,” says WWF expert Hennemuth.

Rhino horn is considered one of the most valuable illegal wildlife products in the world. The incentive to poach is correspondingly high and criminal networks are well equipped and organized.

“Corruption plays a major role, both in poaching and in smuggling out of the country,” says Hennemuth.

According to the WWF expert, the sniffer dogs are a good support and could provide important added value in the fight against illegal species trade. According to the WWF, the rhino population in South Africa alone has declined by at least 8,000 animals within 10 years.

Due to the dwindling rhino population, attention is increasingly on the pangolins, Lübbe-Scheuermann says. The meat is a delicacy in Asia and the scales are processed into a fashionable drug. The animals are smuggled to Asia “by the ton,” explains the expert.

She and her husband launched the “Save the Rhino” project in 2012, says the 58-year-old, who also plans to publish a rhino children’s book next year. They had come across poached rhinos on three safaris.

“We are very involved in all the anti-poaching activities in South Africa.” Kutiva is already the seventh dog to be trained since 2012. However, the association relies on donations for its work, including for vet bills, equipment, camera traps and petrol money in South Africa.

The young dog is now also facing other challenges during her training. She has to learn to block out all distractions and other odours, including on a visit to a zoo.

She also has to learn who it is better to avoid. Dogs are prey for lions and leopards.