00:00:05 Speaker 1: Welcome to this bonus drop episode of Backwoods University. I'm your host, Lake Pickle, and on today's episode, we're going to take a sharp topic turn and discuss a place and a subject that we have yet to cover on this show, the anti poaching in the continent of Africa. Now, I will give you a little bit of foreshadowing. We'll be taking a deeper dive into Africa and its wildlife and its wild places further down the line, because I am so fascinated by that continent and all the diverse wildlife that it has in it. And we're just gonna treat this bonus episode as kind of our first fora if you will, into that ever wild place. Today, we're going to hear from a man named Joshua Laws who worked directly in anti poaching for several years, and he has some wild and interesting stories. I think you're going to enjoy it. So let's get into it. Let's start, Let's let's go back, let's go Let's go back to the beginning because I got jumped ahead there. So, so you you're from San Diego. 00:01:08 Speaker 2: Originally, yep, went and raised in San Diego, and. 00:01:12 Speaker 3: And you spent some time in the military. Is that correct? 00:01:16 Speaker 2: Yeah? So I did the military, uh after before sorry, I did anti poaching, then the military then went back to anti poaching. 00:01:25 Speaker 3: So anti poaching came first. Okay, I had it. 00:01:27 Speaker 1: I had it in my head that you you did military first, all right, So take me there, Like, how in the like, how in the world do you end up like even pursuing that idea of getting into working in anti poaching. 00:01:39 Speaker 2: So I'd always had a passion for wildlife as a kid, you know, growing up my hero was Steve Herwin, the crocodile hunter and then Less Strout from Survivor Man. So I was like, how do I how do I combine this? And I always had the calling to join the military, but I wanted to do something first because I know, once you saw on that dotted line, they own you. So I was researching and then I found a company in South Africa, an anti poaching company that takes foreigners to come do their course and patrol. You're a volunteer, but you do everything that the rangers do and you become a ranger. So I was like, I one hundred percent want to do this. I was going to give it six months to a year before joining the army. So I got a job at my local horse ranch, quit all sports, worked, save up the money for plane ticket the course, and two months out of high school I found myself in South Africa. I was the only American kidding, yeah, only American on the course, and I absolutely loved it. It was like just baptism by fire in the bush, learning how to cook on fire track bushcraft. I absolutely loved every second of it. It was an amazing time. 00:02:43 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:02:44 Speaker 1: So, I mean, and so so you're this is a is it like a kind of deal where you you obviously you said your time was volunteered to go over there, but by the end you become a ranger. Is that like you get qualified or or something along those lines. 00:02:56 Speaker 2: Yeah. So it's a six week course and then from there you now know the basics, and then as you patrol you start to learn more. So I was always a volunteer until I started in Zambia and then I actually started working full time. 00:03:10 Speaker 3: Gotcha, gotcha? Why uh? Why Africa? Like why did you originally do? 00:03:16 Speaker 2: Like? 00:03:16 Speaker 3: Why did you zone in on Africa? 00:03:18 Speaker 2: I've just I've always had a calling for wildlife and it just the cards just worked out. You know, I thought about maybe I didn't want to backpack Europe. I was thinking maybe going to Asia and doing something there because I've always loved Nepoll. And then South Africa came on my radar and I saw an opportunity and I just took it andely. 00:03:39 Speaker 1: Yeah all right, so you you show up at this place and you're the only American there, as you said, and baptized by fire, like what what like walk me through? Like walk me through like day one out out in the African bush when you're like, oh my gosh, I don't really know anything, but I'm out here, Like what do you remember what Day one was? 00:03:59 Speaker 2: Like? Yeah, so day one it was foreigner wise, it was me a Canadian, two guys from the Netherlands, and the rest of were South African. So day one, they shave your head, take everything off of you, give you a uniform, boots, you know, old military rucksack, old chest webbing, and by the time all the admin's done, it's like four o'clock in the afternoon. So we do a six k march to camp. Then they quickly put us in camp for the night. First day is kind of just like not ADMIN but learning kind of where camp is, how we're going to do things for the six weeks. And then like day three was when we were first in the bush and we were doing tracking. They were teaching us how to track, so one instructor would go out with two of the two of us to lay tracks very easy so we could learn how to track, and then we'd eventually track them with the instructor and they'd switch. So I went I tracked the second time, and then it was my turnout to late tracks. So we're walking walking, and then we get to a point where we were sitting and used the tree in some shade and to simulate a rifle. They gave us white PBC pipe filled with concrete soud. The guys are having a smoke break. One of our instructors, he's sitting there having a cigarette and we hear a twig snap and I turn around and I think it's some of the guys because I see white, and it wasn't. It was a bull elephant with tusks, and I just heard that low rumble. Corporal Sepo was his name, the instructor. He's still got the cigarette in his mouth and he's just like weapons not up. But it's just there. He's like, ah, we need to go. So we just turned around and went and I was like that that was cool. So that was my first time elephant in the wild and I was like that's awesome. Yeah. And then from there we did you know, three day survival course, you know the guys who are rangers from South Africa. You know, we did the first aid and then we did they taught weapons competency for them as volunteers. Obviously we're not allowed to carry firearms, so we still did the training, but you know, we're not going to carry a weapon. And then it culminated to they took us out to Big Five out into a reserve, which Big five is buffalo, rhino, elephant, leopard, lion, so a reserve with everything in it, and we had to make a boma and then for a few days we were tracking there and then we had to go back to camp, but in a boma setting, so we'd have to dig trenches and cook on coals, dig trenches to use the toilets and all of that. Then the culmination of the last final exercise was a follow up chase how you would do it in this particular area in South Africa where you had two rangers who would go and leave tracks and then we had to find the tracks and then begin a follow up, which we had vehicles for this. So when you're tracking, you know you then we do what's called leapfrogging. So if you're on the tracks, you get a general direction where the track going, you know, by degrees, so you'd radio win generally they're going in this direction. So if Yokul would then go all the way around kind of look on the roads what we call sport traps, kind of where the tracks are easy to find, soft sand and if they find it, well they've just cut it and they've narrowed the gap and then we would jump on. So we did this for a few days. Now. We were all excited because it was the last one of the last things to do. But we've been eating hardly anything, so we were like, let's just get this done because as soon as we get it done, sooner we go back to camp and we can eat. So that was our big thing. During course, we didn't eat a lot, so they just taught us how to live in the bush. And then once you graduate. When I was working at that particular area, will volunteering in that particular area. It was fourteen sixteen days on four days off, which was amazing. It was sixteen days in the bush. You know, you didn't really shower, you ate what you carried with, and it was an amazing time. Yeah. 00:07:56 Speaker 1: At one distinction, man, So like I'm when you originally just because like the only experience I've had with Africa has been on safari, And so originally when you were saying tracking, my mind goes like trackers, tracking game. You're talking about like tracking people because you're tracking poachers, correct, Yeah. 00:08:14 Speaker 2: Sometimes track game like if you find rhino, you're tracking the rhino right right? 00:08:21 Speaker 1: How long I mean, like the whole like tracking people, Like if you're tracking a poacher, Like how long did that take to try to feel to kind of start feeling like you had a decent grasp on it. 00:08:32 Speaker 2: Just the more practice you had, and then when you were if you were if you got lucky and your team leader was a very good tracker, you would then learn from him. So he might say, like, right, track us back to camp from the tracks we came in on. And if you weren't paying attention, you're new to the area, you don't familiarize yourself or if like, for example, you're going to meet up with a team, but you kind of cut their tracks. He'll say, right, don't walk to way. You know, track these guys so you kind of know where they're going and you can just kind of teach yourself. But it just takes practice. I mean, sure, I'll never be as good as the guys who grew up doing it. Yeah. 00:09:10 Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean, and like I said, we're talking different things. But like I remember the first time I watched like an African tracker track, you know, track animals, and I was blown away at how good they are at doing that. 00:09:23 Speaker 3: Just blew my mind. 00:09:25 Speaker 2: You know, it's it's insane how good they are. They see like something that means nothing to us, they can tell exactly what that means. Oh, he's the whatever animal it is, shifted its weight this side or is it's It's insane, it's an art form. 00:09:38 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:09:38 Speaker 1: The first time I was over there, the guy was saying, like I mean, he was having he was speaking in African, so I couldn't tell huntil the pH was relaying to me what he said, but he said that like the it was like a h, I. 00:09:51 Speaker 3: Think there's a wirebuck maybe but he. 00:09:53 Speaker 1: Said that one of them in the herd had a limp. And I was like what, and he said, by looking at the somehowut of the track, he's that he could tell. And sure enough, when we got up to him, like there was one in that group of like four or five that was limpit. I have no idea how he distinguished that or if either that or he was like pulling the wool over my eyes and he had seen him already. But man, those guys are pretty incredible. But anyway, man, so you go and you do this instructional course, and you're over there for six months, and then you come back home and go and do the military. 00:10:25 Speaker 2: No. So I came back home and then I really wanted to go back, and that's why the opportunity with that one nonprofit they offered, do you want to go and help? I said absolutely, I want to get back different province, and that's when I met Will. And then after that time there, I didn't go home right away. I then got an opportunity to then go back to the same area but with a different reserve, and so I then started working there on and off from twenty seventeen till twenty nineteen so that would that was when I really got to hone kind of my bushcroft and my anti poaching craft and how it works as just the boots on the ground ranger, because it was you know, multiple weeks in the bush, you go out for a bit, come back in, and we wouldn't just patrol in that reserve. We'd go to other hot zones as well in patrol. 00:11:18 Speaker 1: M So what like on one of an average day of like patrol, you're out there like you're going and you say you go into the bush for a bit. 00:11:27 Speaker 3: Like like what are you doing? Are you are you going there? 00:11:30 Speaker 1: Like is it a were there cases where there were poachers out there and you're having to catch them or is it more of like a preventive thing like what's in what's a day look like? 00:11:41 Speaker 2: So if you're just there's multiple ways to do it. So let's say you've been assigned to an area and you're in the bush. You built your boma or your boma's already set up with just a thorn thicket where you're sleeping at night. You know, from there, you might get told to go check an area for a few hours at first light, you go check the area. Then you might go back out in the afternoon last light. If it's moon phase and it's starting to get you know, full moons coming, you'll start to shift more towards nighttime. If for example, you're at the main HQ, you might go out at a completely different time, but you're going you know, from HQ. They might drop you off and have you walk back, or they might have you check a fence on the roads walking or with the vehicle. It totally depends on that threat assessment is in that area. 00:12:30 Speaker 3: Yeah, what is it? 00:12:32 Speaker 1: So like people, what's the more common when like people just like like meat poaching or depending if there's rhinos around, Like what would you run into? 00:12:42 Speaker 2: Yeah, if there's you know, if there's meat poaching, it's typically they're setting snares. They'll set their snare line and come back for it. There. I was in in South Africa. I didn't deal with the dog's flushing game. That was more Zambia and then the rhino poaching side. Almost all of the rhino poaching incidents I dealt with were reactive and they got intel from the inside and they know exactly where the rhino are. They go in, shoot it, chop the horn and they're out. So on big massive reserves, yes, it's difficult to find them, but if they get the shot off, you have time to catch them because they still have to get out the reserve. If it's a smaller reserve, it's quick to get in get out because when they're looking for the rhino, you know they're looking and they're trying to find the tracks. Sometimes they'll find the tracks. They'll then spend the whole day with the rhino, wait till lost light, shoot it, and by the time they've shot it, they know we're coming because we've heard it, and then they'll try to get out as fast as they can. But when they have the horn, they're not playing around. They come straight out now, so it's quick. But when they've shot, it's reactive. You know, if they don't know you're on them and they're just looking, they're kind of walking, they'll still anti track, but when they know you're on them, it's very difficult to track. 00:14:01 Speaker 4: Right. 00:14:03 Speaker 1: Well, first thing before I go back, and I got some question about that, did you how did you ever have instances where that happen, Like you're out there working, then you hear a shot and then you got to move. 00:14:13 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's you got to go, and it's quick more often than not, though for me sometimes it was like the neighboring farm or the neighboring reserve. Was it was they were shooting or hunting or doing doing something or culling. You still react, you know, you do. The first thing I always did is I drew a line in the sand with my foot, and I mainly put my compass down, and then you get, you know kind of I would write down on a piece of paper, was it high caliber, low caliber? What was the estimated distance, what's my location, what's the degrees on the compass it is? And then I go. So then at HQ, for example, they didn't go right, he's here, it's roughly here. We can send a team. 00:14:53 Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah. 00:14:57 Speaker 1: How many instances like that where it was a rhino and it was isn't like somebody else doing some other activity. 00:15:02 Speaker 3: Do you ever have like somebody shoot a rhino? 00:15:06 Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I've had it once. It was I wasn't. I was in the area, but I was way further away north and they shot it. They shot it in the south. I didn't know about it. I didn't hear it until like we had told on the radio. The next day, Hey, we've got two carcasses. We need to go do the crime scene. Meet us there and they told us where it was, so we went there and we had to do You have to cut it open, find the bullet. Hopefully there's a thumb print or you can trace that bullet to a different rhino poaching crime as well. At that point, it's reactive. Basically, by the time the SHOT's gone off, you got a rhino down, you've lost, and at that point you're just trying to catch the guys to some south situation. Yeah, that's the best way to stop them was always intel and being reactive, knowing where they come in and sitting on those high points, the big reserves and you know, using the buinos to find them come in an apprand. 00:16:05 Speaker 1: As far as I like being reactive, like you said, or like, how how is that how prolific of a problem? I mean, I've heard you, like I know enough to know that, like rhino poaching in South Africa is a problem, but like for your situation specifically, we're y'all having to catch people, Like how often were you catching folks that you knew were in there trying to poach? 00:16:29 Speaker 2: So it totally depending on the situation. Like twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen there I was in got hit extremely hard, and those reserves I was voluntary in in the beginning, and then the reserve I finally stayed at in South Africa, we had a very good anti poaching unit and it was a smaller reserve. We knew where all of our rhino were, so we concentrated our rangers there, so we only lost one when I was there. Otherwise guys would go to other reserves, so they knew like, hey, these guys are here, they're switched on. Let's go find easier pickings. 00:17:07 Speaker 1: M Yeah, what are these I mean, like how sophisticated are these poachers? Like I heard you talk about like sometimes they get inside information and stuff like that, or like these are these pretty sophisticated teams of people going and doing this? 00:17:22 Speaker 3: Or is it or not so much? 00:17:25 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the syndicates are very you know, you might have instances where if they know someone works on a reserve, whether you're a general, a worker, a mechanic, a guide, or a ranger, you know, they might go to the sabine at night that you drink out on your off in the local village and just say, hey, I'll give you three times your salary just to tell me where the rhino are or you know, what's the APU doing just for information because it's so lucrative. I mean I checked rhino horn in the black market. Pernounce is worth more than gold. Yeah, so you know, and you get in those big, massive areas like you know, Kruger National Park and the reserves that border Krueger. Those are huge areas. So sometimes if an area has been poached out, the you know, the scouts and the rangers, they're not gonna waste their time there because the rhino aren't there if they've got a serious poaching problem. So I've seen it where the guys just use that to walk through freely. And also sometimes that's where I had my first like visual this is these are rhino poachers, and then I spent the whole day chasing them. 00:18:36 Speaker 1: Really, yeah, that's gotta be man. I mean, I'm assuming these guys are armed. I mean obviously if they're shooting rhinos, you know, So I mean, like that's gotta that. I mean, it feels like it could get pretty sketchy at some points. 00:18:51 Speaker 2: Yeah, but they don't really care about us. Once they have the horn, they're they're good to go. They just want to get out of there as fast as possible. So my first ever visual like these are rhino poachers, okay, it's on, was in this one area. We had just spent eight days there. We're supposed to be there for ten, but my team leader had to go on off. So we did the rotation two days early. So I was the scout, he was the team leader, and we'd get water from the river. We would you know, use water, sand to rub, to clean ourselves eating. We had the anti track because these guys bring the area as well. We spent eight days on the high point. Nothing was quiet, you know, so okay, all right, So the night before they're like, hey, we're gonna come pick you up tomorrow morning. Go to the pickup point, which was this big tree, and we'll see you there in the office the nooon. Okay. Cool. So it was December fourteenth, fifteenth, twenty seventeen somewhere there. So I'm walking if it's five o'clock in the morning, but it's already like it's already like in the nineties, right, and I can see the tree. It's close, and I'm like, okay, all I'm thinking about is hot chow, a hot shower bed. And then I just hear Impaula do a warning coal and then I just instinctively see them and they're running this way. So I looked to where they're running from, and on the ridge was two guys, one with a backpack and one head sound slung. Couldn't see the rifle, but I saw the sling, and I remember as clear as day, one had converse on and the other had those dad white new balanced shoes, and I'm like, oh, so I like, look at my team. Later, I'm like and we're both like okay. We get on the radio and they're like, guys were coming to pick you up. Like no, no, no, no, no, we've got poachers. They're like, okay, cool, apprehend or follow up. We're coming with the helicopter and the fixed wing. Okay cool. Now, in our haste, we just unclipped our bags and went with just what we could carry. We didn't bring water, nothing. We were too quick. So these guys have no idea we're tracking them. So they're just you know, walking how they normally walk. So we're we're following very easily, and then we come up over a ridge and as we start to come down the ridge to kind of a valley, here comes a helicopter and then the fixed wing. Now the fixed wing is just going to do patterns to find them, and the helicopter has another team. So we get on the radio and a helicopter like the nose is twelve o'clock, the tail six either side is three and nine. Get on the radio, call him in and under our hats we've stitched in hunter orange to flip over so they can see us from above, which only works if they're like right above you. So we were given this white cloth about this big, and that was four you're supposed to wrap it around so other units. If you're on a follow up and it's like a multi unit work, they know you're not a poacher, so it we didn't use it for that. It's great, like this is a wind gage. So the helicopter comes in. We give them a general direction of where the spores going, so they go and leap frog, but with a helicopter land and now they're doing grids for these guys know what's going on. So they're now hunkered down anti tracking and slowly trying to come out because they know we're onto him. We've got other units from the east and the west, but we're the ones that are still on the tracks. That it gets to about ten o'clock and it's hot. I've had no water to drink for five hours. We're both finished, like I stopped sweating long ago, had my fingers and coffee. All Right, we can't find these guys. We know they're hunkered down somewhere, so we kind of do a big loop back to our old camp because the new team coming in was going to use that for a few days, and we had left some water there for them from the river, so we down that. Then we bring in the bloodhound and the canine unit, which you know, we were still we were still learning. So that was our first mistake. We should have brought the canon in first before another unit. The bloodhound is he's on he's on track, he's sniffing, but he's we can tell he's kind of following us and he's getting confused, and now it's hot. So they're like, okay. So my manager at the time, he knew this area well, so he's like, hey, I want to check one spot where I know they've come in and out before, so they're like quickly prepping LG. So we like break branches. The helicopter comes in, lands, we jump in. We land on the dry river bed and its thick bank on either side there, so we're like okay, but there had been a flood a while ago, so it's like perfect burms god like fallen trees and twigs. So we're like, these guys are here, like this is this is going to be an issue. So we're trying to move as fast as we can but as safely as possible, like clearing it, and eventually get up out of the river bed and their tracks have gone. They're they're gone, They're across the river and they're away. So we're like okay, So they basically just did a loop, you know, but that taught me from them on always carried double the water you want, you know, I always carried it in the beginning two leaders. I now carry four, and then I carry an extra one, which was just a hand to whoever's on the tracks. That guy's sucking, he's tired, you know, hand him some water. Because someone did that to me and I was like, oh, than gosh. So that was my first like, these are poachers and they're clever, so we think they saw us at some point because a couple of days later, so we've done the changeover. I'm back at Maine HQ doing like not light duties, but I'm not in the bush on that main camp doing some patrols. And itways, the guys radio in, Hey we've got poachers. Okay, cool, So we now we're prepping to go there. So by the time we get there, it's later morning. It was like four o'clock in the morning, so we need to go and now meet up with our guys, but we had a radio situation, so the radios were off to save battery because we have to carry all this stuff in we had radio times anyways, so we go walk up to camp and like try to call our guys, which was very sketchy. So we're like, they come out, it's us, okay, So we make a plan. Our two African trackers, most experienced ones, we going to go track where they lost confirmed the spot, and then what we were going to do was sit on high points in glass. So eventually what had happened the night before was they were busy filling up water from the river because we had drunk it all. We left them a little bit and as they're drinking, you know, you got to the hippo's crocs. Guys might cross you gotta be careful. So one guy's busy checking and he tells the guy and he sees them crossing. Now they're wearing our uniform, which was just Odie Green. You can buy it anywhere from a store. They'd either seen us or had it and decided to put it on. So they see them and like, all right, cool, let's go and follow up. So they follow them, they find the tracks. It's starting to get dark and they lose the track, so they do a three p sixty get back to their tracks and they see where they had walked. These guys had walked on top of so both people for each other. So the team leaders like, we're going back to camp for the night next morning, will look for these guys because there's lions around. So the guy would also they would go hunker down for the night as well. So we did another follow up as soon as the helicopter came in. Again, these guys know what's going on and they'll head out. So what we need to be on the tracks always because what's happened before is they'd go out of the area helicopters chasing looking here. If no one's tracking, they'll come in from a different side and go somewhere else. So you need to confirm they've gone out and like, hey, they've gone into this reserve. Now that reserves team will follow up and take care of it. Mmm. So it's very much a cat and mouse game. 00:26:33 Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess it's not all that surprising. Like you said, you said that you know they're clever folks. I mean that's to be doing what they're doing. I suppose they have to be otherwise they wouldn't make it that long in poaching animals. I guess suppose they got to learn some pretty some tricks to get pretty slick out there, which makes your job all the more interesting. 00:26:53 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the best rangers were former posters because they know all the tricks of the trade. Yeah. 00:27:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, well then like, and I mean this is no news to you, but like I've talked to several folks in like Safari companies of some of their game trackers or former poachers, you know, so it's like they get they're they're good at it. 00:27:14 Speaker 2: I in Zambia, I's all in the village, bring your rifle. I'll give you a job. And it worked a few times. Guys came in, they handed over their rifle to the game scouts. I gave them a job. 00:27:29 Speaker 3: Hmm. 00:27:30 Speaker 2: So interesting controls with them, which was extremely interesting seeing guys who had poached for years now teaching me their craft, which was quite cool. 00:27:39 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:27:40 Speaker 1: Yeah, did you ever learn like like, was there a pretty like established like list of like, let me try to think of a better way to word what I'm asking, Like, out of the swath of former poachers that you worked with, did did all of them relatively have the same skill set? Like I'm sure some of them had like unique things that they did, but did they all kind of have like certain tricks of the trade That was like, these are what poachers do? 00:28:11 Speaker 2: Yeah, now you've got like obviously rhino poachers are very different to meat poachers. But like the meat poachers I did a lot more work with in Zambia, you get to talking to the guys and they get to trust you when you go and patrol with them, and you're spending days out in the bush with them, So eventually you'd ask like all right, So what would you poach? And they'd eventually tell you, and you'd ask, all right, okay, how would you poach a leopard? And they'd tell you and shoot a puku. I'd hang it in a tree, I'd hide, I'd wait there for heever this thing would eventually come, might take days, I'd shoot it, you know. So they tell you these and you learn the tricks of the trade, and like I've had it before. We were on patrol then, like we might come across tracks, but we we knew the area and we knew they were either passing through or they were coming out, or they were operating in our area. And you can talk with the guy's body language. If the guys get energized and they're like excited, I know, okay, this is fresh. So then they you know, it's all now it's time to go in track. And yeah, I let them do that because they're better than me. 00:29:12 Speaker 3: Sure. 00:29:13 Speaker 1: Sure, that's interesting, man, that's so what man? How much I mean these guys that are like doing this rhino poaching, Like like what is the like if you were to catch one of them, Like if you are to catch a couple of rhino poachers, what like what penalty or that do they stand to face. 00:29:31 Speaker 2: It depends with what country the poaching is in and what the laws are. I know, South Africa I think's cracked down quite a bit. Well, unless they've shot a rhino, they haven't committed a crime in terms of rhino poaching. You know, you can get them for trespassing, illegal of a firearm, things like that, But unless they've shot the rhino and they've got a horn in their hand, you can't charge them with it. 00:29:56 Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, what if if they if if you catch them and they've shot a rhino, Like, how much trouble can they get in? 00:30:06 Speaker 2: Off the top of my head, I couldn't tell you. I never dealt with that. I just like, once they were caught and gone, that was the courts and then that was the lawyer's issue to deal with. 00:30:15 Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess what I'm asking is I'm trying to weigh like risk versus reward, Like how I come like this obviously had to have been somewhat like lucrative or like a like a way for these guys to make a living. Otherwise, I mean, these are some like dangerous, sketchy and like very illegal situations. These people are putting themselves into so it had to be a pretty high reward. 00:30:39 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the rhino poaching guys, they they did very well for themselves there. There's a small town in Mozambique called Musannghita. Before the rhino poaching kicked off in two thousand and nine, it was just a small little village. You go there when the rhino poaching was like peak peak in twenty sixteen seventeen. When I was there, stories I heard people are brand new houses, new vehicles. You know, whoever had the nicest house was the best poacher in that village. They obviously went from mozamb beacon to Kruger National Park. And then the stuff I dealt with was syndicates in the area, you know, coming in. 00:31:13 Speaker 3: That's insane. 00:31:14 Speaker 1: So like people were like popping off in this town like all of a sudden, like big new nice house and stuff, and I guess they just weren't able to able to catch them more or less. 00:31:23 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, these guys are clever. I mean, Mozambique had a long civil war in the nineties that ended, and those guys, some of them became very good rhino poachers because they're very good at bushcraft and tracking, and you know, some of the guys we tracked, we figured they were better than us what we were doing because they did it for a lot longer or not what we were doing, which was protecting wildlife. 00:31:45 Speaker 3: Yeah, that is wild man. 00:31:47 Speaker 2: They always ran the risk of obviously getting eaten by lions, you know, getting shot if they came into Kruger Park, they could get shot by the government sand park rangers. So you know they ran a risk. But you know, you got to respect them for the skill they had. 00:32:03 Speaker 3: Yeah, that is fascinating man. Okay, let's deviate, like, so you go. 00:32:11 Speaker 1: I mean, you're in Africa, and I know I was talking about specific instances like how how long were you over there that time before you came back home and went into the military. 00:32:23 Speaker 2: So I did basically twenty sixteen to January twenty nineteen. I was in South Africa on and off. I'd go back, go for a few months, come home, go back to the old job working at the horse wrench to make some money, go back. Because I was a volunteer, I wasn't making money. I was just doing this because I absolutely loved it. And then I remember I was on a patrol and I was like, I want to keep doing this, but I need money and I need to kind of make a plan here to kind of muster myself, make a better resume for myself. I was all right, let me join the army now. So I came home joined and then I actually got stationed up in Alaska with their one unit there in Anchorage for three years. 00:33:06 Speaker 3: Three years? 00:33:08 Speaker 1: Did you I mean did you did you always plan on getting back to Africa after It sounds like you were Yeah. 00:33:16 Speaker 2: At that point, Yeah, definitely that was the plan. 00:33:19 Speaker 1: Yeah, well, sir, and talk me through. I mean, I'm trying to get like all the details of your story just because I find it interesting. So you're in the military for three years, you get out, Like what was your game plan from there? 00:33:33 Speaker 2: So the lost See I got out jullel May thirty first was my date. I got out with leave twenty twenty two. End of January of twenty two, I had surgery. I had partially torn a ligament in my ankle on a jump. It was just a routine surgery, but I had to physio that. So I was already making calls then and like, I know I'm getting out and you'd be proactive and one of my mentor from South Africa. He ended up working in Zambia and he said, hey, there might be an opportunity for you here. So he gave me the contact details. We sent a few emails, we had a few phone calls and he's like, if you're interested, come for an interview in Zambia. So I went got out. Yeah, I think the forty first thirty first of May twenty twenty two. I got out, and I want to say end of June. I was there for the interview. 00:34:27 Speaker 3: Yeah, and then you didn't waste any time, No, I was. 00:34:31 Speaker 2: I was committed. So then I started working. It took a while to get all the PaperWorks sworded. I started working in March, early March of twenty twenty three, and then did anti poaching till about towards the end of twenty twenty four. So I did that for eighteen months. 00:34:53 Speaker 3: How did that? How did that evolve or turn into what you're doing now? 00:34:59 Speaker 2: So I he loved anti poaching. It's an amazing job. It's a hard job, but it's great. 00:35:04 Speaker 1: Sounds like, dude, it sounds I mean, it sounds like a hard job you're talking about, you know, getting water from the river, dodging hippos and crocs and not eating much and fingers swelling up from dehydration. 00:35:15 Speaker 3: Sounds like a hard job, but it sounds like you liked it. 00:35:19 Speaker 2: I absolutely loved it. And like a lot of guys have ostome once the day, it's anti poaching and the army. The biggest different is the army you have support anti poaching. You don't. It's you and the guys you're with, and that's that's it. You know, you got to make your own food. You've got to patrols. There's no backup like in the military, there's no going back to the barracks. One thing that stuck with me is I did a patrol with some of my scouts in here in Zambia, and we were going through some swampy areas, but it was the dry season, so it was kind of burked out fields. But then the swamps are still wet, so we're wearing gum boots. It's hot. We did about maybe twenty two any two k's that morning. I'd already drunken all my water and we've got like ten kilometers to get back to the vehicle. The vehicle can't come to us. No one can drive it but me. No one knows how to drive it but me. I remember walking, same thing. I stopped sweating, you know, fingers swollen during the walk. I was like, you can't quit. There is no quitting because no one, no one's gonna come and get you. You need to walk. So by the time I got to the car, I was finished. I was just like, Remember I started the car and I was just like, ace didn't work. I didn't care. I just was like even the guys were like, ah, one night, you pushed yourself. I was like, yeah, yeah, so that's the biggest thing. There's no there's no calling in for help, there's no you know, help is far far away. That's the biggest Yeah. 00:36:50 Speaker 1: Well, how okay, so how does that? How do you how do you turn what you're doing in anti poaching to what you're doing now? 00:36:57 Speaker 2: Yeah? So, you know, love it, but you know, living in the bush twenty four to seven, you know, living on a river, living living next to the river, living in a tent is great. But as I was getting older, I was like, you know, I'd eventually like to have a family, do other things, but I still want to. I still love this passion. How can I keep how can I fund my passion? Still and in the bush. So I was like, right, I'm an American. People from back home might listen to me from my story. Maybe I could connect the dots and bring people here to Africa. So that was the plan. I had, like made a few calls to preserves and lodges i'd worked around in my experience, and they were like, yeah, we're very interested. And then people back home are like, if you start a company, like I'll definitely come on a safari. So I just went okay, uh, you know, and then started the company, which was a huge learning curve. Going from living in a tent on the bush to now learning to run a company was very difficult. 00:38:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, so so tell me say on here so folks can hear. What's the name of your company? 00:38:05 Speaker 2: One Niner Expeditions. 00:38:07 Speaker 3: Where'd the name come from? 00:38:09 Speaker 2: Bible verse Joshua one nine? 00:38:12 Speaker 3: Oh yeah. 00:38:14 Speaker 2: During the later years when I was in anti poaching, that gave me a lot of comfort. So I remember I was I was thinking of names for my company. I was sitting on the banks of the Kafui River, Mosquitos everywhere, So I've got redlands on, I'm writing, writing, and I can't think of anything, like I'm putting Safari, I'm putting I can't think of anything. And then it just clicked. So I just went one Niner expeditions. There you go. Yeah, so I was like, this is perfect. Yeah. 00:38:44 Speaker 1: This might be a difficult question to ask because if someone asked me the same question, I probably have a hard time answer it. But I'm curious. Nonetheless, what about Africa? I mean, you grew up, I mean if you were from San Diego, like California is a beautiful state, you know, like we have wild life and wild places here in America. What like what drew you to Africa? Specifically? 00:39:09 Speaker 2: For me in the beginning, it was the freedom of just the bush, Like there it is, go explore, there's no my worries were what I'm when I get back to camp. I need to cook, I needed did I bring firewood? Is the Did I bring enough water? You know? Is did I dig a dipping Do I need to redig a hole to go to the restroom before bed? Like and just the freedom of being out there in no worries. It was absolutely amazing. And then you know, going to Africa, you either it either stays with you and you love it and it gets in your skin like that's why I got it tattooed here, or you never want to go back, and it's just one of those things for me. I can't. Like I went home. I went to San Diego in March and I was there for like you know, I was there for two weeks and my family's like, yeah, you're ready to go back, aren't you. In the last like three days I was there, I was like, no, no, no, I'm still good to see you guys, Like I'm happy. No, no, no, you need to go back. So yeah, it's just absolutely love it here. 00:40:07 Speaker 1: Yeah, man, And like I said, I've not spent a fraction of the time in the African continent that you have, but I'll give you, like briefly kind of what happened to me. I got the opportunity to go on a hunting safari back in twenty twenty three, and it was like I wasn't seeking out the opportunity I had. I had friends that had gone and told me how incredible it was, and I just honestly didn't think that much about it. I was like, I'll do it one of these days, Like It's something I wanted to do, but it wasn't like high on. 00:40:35 Speaker 3: The priority list. 00:40:36 Speaker 1: Well, this this opportunity arrives and it's just like the timing of it worked out. My wife would be able to go with me, and I was like, yeah, let's do it. And my genuine mindset is I was like, I'll go to Africa and I'll I'll check the box and I'll go. 00:40:51 Speaker 3: I did it. You know. We went on a hunting safari in Africa and I saw it and that'll be that. 00:40:56 Speaker 1: We were two or three days into that trip and my wife and I were talking about how we were going to get back there like immediately, and I can't. And that's what That's why I say, I understand how it would kind of be difficult to kind of put your finger on it. Because folks who ask me, like folks that I, you know, grew up with or have hunted with a ton around here and I still love the United States. I still and I hunt around here all the time. But they're like, why do you talk about Africa so much? I'm like, because I can't get it out of my head, Like I can't really explain to you why I just can't I can't get it out of my head. It's something about that landscape and how wild it feels over there. I know as part of it. That's not all of it. But yeah, the way you put it is correct. It like if you go there and it gets it works its way into your bloodstream, there's no getting rid of it. Like I'm I'm constantly thinking about like I as we as you and I are talking right now, I leave for Quasulu natal in nine days, and nine days can't come quick enough, Like that's all I can think about. It's getting over there. So I understand. I understand the attraction of Africa. I just am curious sometimes I'm curious with myself. I'm like, why is the pool so strong? But I don't know. 00:42:11 Speaker 3: I just know that it is. 00:42:12 Speaker 2: Yes, It's it's one of those things where if people get it, they get it, you know, Like I've I did an expo in southern California in March, and I was like speaking to people and some people are like, and I don't want to go to Africa or one day, and then you know people who have been there, like, yes, talk to me. They like they get it, and you know it was you could see in their eyes. They've been there and they've seen it. 00:42:37 Speaker 1: Yeah, what to talk to me at One Niner Expeditions? 00:42:41 Speaker 3: What talk? 00:42:42 Speaker 1: Give me like a overview? Like what does this company do? What is your company One Niner Expeditions? 00:42:46 Speaker 3: What do they do? 00:42:48 Speaker 2: So the main main thing is I take clients to places I have been myself or are now associated with. So one of our big our one of our luxury lodges in South Africa, I used to patrol there, you know, and I've taken clients there and I know the place better than some of the guides. You know, there's been if there's been a time or two where the guy he doesn't know a specific area we're going to, and I'm like that word because I walked it and I didn't drive it. And all the senior scouts when they see me, well I'm on the back of the game viewer, so they just think it's guests. And then I'll be like a wave and they'll go wow, I'll jump out hugs. We haven't seen each other a wile. We've had each other's backs back in the day. So and you know, the tracker and then the driver like I was like, yeah, I'm told you, I wasn't lying like I. You know, I used to patrol here. These are my guys. And then we also it's all about conservation. So when clients go to that place, for example, we then take them to the ranger HQ, they can get a talk from the rangers there about how they do anti poaching in that specific area because that reserve it's all it's fencing on all sides, not an open system. And then I also work with the first all female anti poaching unit, the Black Mambas, So I take clients to go meet them and they see how they operate and how they have a different style because they're unarmed and they're in a open system, so that the reserve they worked on has other reserves around them, all no fences, and it's connected to Kruger. So it's all about learning conservation, you know, how the communities are involved, and I tell people the realities of anti poaching. You know, just to get a scout on the ground is extremely expensive. You've got to pay for his training, or if you get someone who's come from training and certified, you've got to pay for this qualifications. You got to feed them, You've got to give him a uniform. If he's armed, you have to give him a rifle. You know. If he's from someone in house you want to train, you got to send him to get his competency. You've got to have a vehicle, you've got to get the fuel to drop him off. So before that scout, you've hired what's his boot on the ground as the first patrol with you. You've spent thousands of dollars on him just to patrol. And a lot of the times that money comes from landowners or private donors or organizations. So how do you subsidize that to keep wild life sustainable? Management tourism is a big part of that. So I show people this so they don't just come to Africa and go okay, cool. I saw the Big Five, saw some rhino. We went. I saw the Victoria Falls in Zambia. I did a sunset cruise like a camp or a state luxury. They really get to see what it means from someone on the ground like me. It's extremely passionate and education. If you can educate someone and they can go home and tell someone, you know, one person was motivated by what I told them. They go and then tell ten people. They tell ten you know, you spread the word. 00:45:45 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So how do like. 00:45:51 Speaker 1: So you bring, like you take take like a you have like a group of clients that are they're coming in and it's like their first time in Africa. What is there, Like, what's a normal more reaction because when they're when they're learning all this for the first time. Because again coming from even I'm assuming to me if I'm wrong, most of like your clients like they're familiar with like hunting, and I mean, I know you're not a hunting safari, but they're familiar with like the hunting culture in America. How like how do they perceive and when you hear someone got caught for some sort of poaching in America, it is a typically very different thing than poaching as it takes place in Africa. So like, how how do your clients kind of absorb all this the first time they're learning of all this activity. 00:46:43 Speaker 2: So I've I've I've noticed it very quickly, like on our first game drive or our first time in the bush, everything is amazing. We're stopping from Paula, We're stopping for baboons, we're stopping for birds. By the end of their safari, they're like ah, it's an impala, it's a you know, it's a baboon. I don't care. I want to see the big stuff. And that switch comes very quickly, especially if they see a lot of wildlife and they've been immersed in it properly. And you know, I get asked around the fire all the time, talk to me about, you know, sustainable conservation, and I'll explain it to them. You know, if we're in an area where you know, there's a village and you know they're harvesting their crops and I heard of elephants come in and they eat all the crops that night, they're not gonna want the wildlife there that's feeding them. That's you know, their subsistence farmers. Yeah, or there's no infrastructure there and source of income is going to poach. Where if you put a lodge in, if you bring international clients through this lodge, I'm simplifying things here. You've got you know, chefs, you've got trackers, you've got drivers, you've got you know, maids, You've got people in that lodge and you're hiring them from the local community. But then it amplifies right. Well, now there's a few other lodges when yourself the p coaching, so there's more wildlife. So you then used your funds or however you want to do it to then put in the anti poaching, bring the wildlife up, and that's sustainable use. And you see it click with people like, ah, okay, I get it now. I wouldn't have got that had I not come and seen it myself. 00:48:20 Speaker 1: Yeah, I would imagine that's a probably a pretty fun part of your job watching a lot of these people experience that for the first time. 00:48:30 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, I love it, you know, because at first I didn't realize I obviously did it the first time I went ten years ago. Baboon and Paula just the general game, general wildlife. So the first time it happened with a client, they were I was like, okay, And then now it's a reward. I love seeing the shift of ah, it's just a baboon, let's let's keep going, you know, and like, I get it now. So yeah, you'll well, sometimes they all a tracker about an impala or something in the tracker might joke, yeah, it's great meat in the initial shock and they go, yeah, obviously we eat them. So it's very interesting to see that. 00:49:13 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, do you I mean, like, I know you're not. I know, like the the your outfit isn't taking people hunting. 00:49:21 Speaker 3: But do you like. 00:49:22 Speaker 1: Work cooperatively cooperatively with any like or any of the properties that you work on. Is there any hunting or culling that takes place on there? 00:49:30 Speaker 2: I mean everyone culls, you have to, especially in a fenced in area, and culling is a good thing. It means your your management practices are working. But I don't specifically work in areas with hunting. 00:49:41 Speaker 3: Now, what do you think? 00:49:43 Speaker 1: And this is another one of those like big questions, but you can take it how whatever direction you want to take it. How is like, well, I'm frau. Is it like, let me do this one first? Other than like the obvious, Like we been talking a lot about poaching. What do you think the biggest threat towards like wildlife and wildlife habitat is to Africa? And I know that's a big question, and it may be something as simple as poaching, but are there are there other threats? I know because you again looking at if you hear like if you just go off press releases over here, you're always hearing all kinds of stuff going on in Africa. You'll hear about poaching cases, You'll hear about elephant population problems. You'll hear about habitat destruction. Like what you're on the ground over there, what do you see? 00:50:34 Speaker 3: Like is it? 00:50:35 Speaker 1: Are there big threats to wildlife and wildlife habitat in Africa? 00:50:39 Speaker 3: And are there not? If there is, what are. 00:50:41 Speaker 2: They If you asked me in the first few years of me being here, I would have said poaching, poaching and poaching. But looking at it now, I mean kind of like everywhere in the world, human encroachment, to people encroaching on these areas, mismatten, I would say, also mismanagement and not putting the people on the ground who deal with these animals on a daily basis involved so they see them as a set not in Hindrance, you know, through ethical tourism, which is the way I do it. You know see it. No, we're not going to go put snares or like, yes, we understand those elephants came through and ad all of your crop. We're very upset. We go through and work with the right organizations. One they'll probably reimburse you, or there's ways to manage it. So I think that would be the biggest is not helping the people on the ground and just looking over them and trying to like, you know, look from above and just say this is how I want to do it from you know, around the world, and you know, humanity is getting bigger, wild places are getting smaller and smaller. Unfortunately. 00:51:51 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the way I always try to stay stay like I guess like I try to keep in front of mine because I heard it was it was a pH that operates out of Tanzania. But they said, they said people they said, they said people all over the all over the globe, but particularly in North America and Europe love signing petitions about a country they most of them have never stepped foot in. And I was like, they make a good point. It's like, uh, I myself, it's like I have opinions on wildlife things going on in Africa, like, but I've been over there one time. You know, It's not like I'm living over there, and so I'm always curious to like, what's the people that are actually. 00:52:36 Speaker 3: Living there every day? What are they putting up with? 00:52:40 Speaker 1: And you know what, like what's really going on. I'm just always curious about that. 00:52:45 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean a big way I can put it is obviously, you know California in the state flag has the grizzly bear on it. Right, someone from you know, Africa, Asia, Australia is now telling people from California, right, We're gonna dump a bunch of in la and you need to now just deal with it. No, you know, you need to find a stainable way to do these things. I'm oversimplifying it, but you kind of get what I'm saying. 00:53:10 Speaker 3: I follow. 00:53:11 Speaker 2: Yeah, So how the people on the ground who deal with these things, how they see fit is how it should be done, because at the end of the day, it is their country, their resource, their heritage. It's how they should want to do it, you know. 00:53:26 Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, what is like like, like, uh, some of the folks that I talked to over there, and I know I'm asking you all these hunting questions and I apologize, but the. 00:53:38 Speaker 1: Like, how bit Like a lot of the folks that I talk to, they always talk about like this pressure they get from all these anti hunting organizations, And again, do you see any of that because again, like we get like over here, you'll get some anti hunting pressure and stuff, but it doesn't. It seems pretty pale in comparison to the stuff that Africa gets from elephants and lions, like the whole cease of the lion thing, Like, do you like how heavy is that pressure? 00:54:08 Speaker 2: I haven't seen it really here. I mean, I haven't seen it a whole lot, but you do get I guess a big one would be, like, you know, some of the trackers are the people we work with. They game meat. It's part of their culture. So having clients hear from people on the ground say it's part of our culture, we eat it like it's sustainable resource, it's part of our heritage for hundreds of years, then it kind of clicks. Okay, so you know that's I'm oversimplifying it again, but you kind of get what I'm saying. But in terms of the anti hunting stuff, I haven't really seen it myself. I've just been more involved in the conservation on the ground. Is this organization or is this what if your agenda isn't trying to actually help on the ground, I don't have time to hear. I've got things to do. 00:55:01 Speaker 1: Sure, Yeah, because it was I mean, it was fascinating to me. Man like the where I was at, every every tracker, every person, every person who worked that outfit from the skinner into the tracker to the people that worked in the lodge everything, like all of them. I don't they told us like game meat is all they ate, Like they didn't eat anything else as far as meat goes, Like all they ate was the wild game and most of it was like stuff that was brought in from those hunters. But I was like, man, if you were to take this away, that would be a huge shift in how they live their lives. 00:55:38 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean in the very rural communities, they're not going to slaughter other a cow every so often to eat. You know, they subsidized with fish or game meat. You know, their cows are their currency, their resource. They're they're not just going to you know, kill one to eat. 00:55:56 Speaker 1: Yeah, topic going back to one nine or expeditions, like what. 00:56:04 Speaker 3: Do you like, what do you take these folks to do? 00:56:07 Speaker 1: Like I was looking around at some of the stuff that you offer, like I think you have one coming up, and like you'll think I've seen one coming up in like Zambia or stuff like that, Like like take walk me through. Like if if I were to if I were to book a trip with you, like what what are we going to go do? Like I know we're going out into the bush, but like what are what are we going to see? 00:56:26 Speaker 3: What are we gonna go do? 00:56:29 Speaker 2: So I sit down with all my clients. I mean, I've got general stuff on my website, like pre done packages, but I customize everything for my client. If they're like no, from the second I land on content till the second I leave, I want you to handle everything. I'm like, got it, I can handle. You know. Land at the airport, I'm there. My private transfer company that I've used and I know well we use. We go stay at you know, if we're overnighting in Johannesburg, we stay at my friend's lodge. It's just they all know me. Then if we're going to Zambia, we're staying at places I know, the guides there, the trackers there, I all know, you know, in like Livingstone for example, South Africa, the lodge I used to work at. You'll see, everyone knows me there and it puts everyone at ease. I remember one client we were checking into a lodge and I just you know, I just greeted the guy in the local dialect, and he smiled and we started chatting. And at the end of the trip she was like, you put me at such ease because of that, And all I did was say hi in the local dialect. So just small things like that, So I tailor everything. If someone's like, hey, I want to do a helicopter ride over the Victoria Falls or up over the will on the game reserve, we can organize that. You know. They want to do a snare sweep with an anti poaching unit, we you know, we can do that within reason. So I customize everything and I can help people with their expectations as well. 00:57:54 Speaker 1: That would be doing a man I would be. I would be all over doing a snare sweep with the anti poaching team. Think they'd be stupid cool. 00:58:02 Speaker 2: I love it because it's one of those things where if you find a snare, you've directly saved an animal, you know, like, because the snare gets set and it's left, you know, the animal gets into it, it's going to suffer and die. So you've just you've directly done wildlife conservation and that instant you've taken it down, you know. 00:58:21 Speaker 1: Well, the biggest thing that I can take away from This is just more people should go to Africa. 00:58:28 Speaker 2: And everyone has this preconception of its like super super expensive and once in a lifetime. Yeah, you can do those, but there's also you can customize anything to fit your budget, you know. And then to day if you just want to come and see wildlife and you don't care about a five course meal, more power to you. You want to go camping, that's also amazing. It's just about getting out there and experiencing these things. 00:58:52 Speaker 3: How can people find You. 00:58:54 Speaker 2: Can find us on website one niner Expeditions dot com, Instagram, Facebook at one nine er Expeditions. We have a YouTube channel where we have all of our highlight videos of safaris and a couple of documentaries. And I've also done an interview with an owner of a game launch and we discussed how safaris work from that side of the house too. People can find us there. 00:59:17 Speaker 1: Cool cool man, Well man, it was fantastic getting to talk to you of a really interesting story, and good on you for figuring out a way to stay in Africa. That's I'm slightly jealous that you're just there all the time. 00:59:33 Speaker 2: Thank you. I appreciate that, and thank you for having me on was amazing, and. 00:59:37 Speaker 3: That's gonna wrap us up for today. 00:59:39 Speaker 1: I hope you all enjoyed that conversation as much as I did, and I hope you enjoyed kind of this first step into Africa and its wild places and its wildlife, because, like I said, we're gonna learn more about that place in the near future. Thank you for listening to Backward University as well as Bear Grease in this country life. It means a whole whole. 00:59:57 Speaker 3: Lot to all of us over here. 00:59:58 Speaker 1: And if you liked this episode, share it with a friend and be sure to stick around because there's a whole lot more on the way. 01:00:04 Speaker 3: We'll see you next time.