p 15 in my opinion 4/9 - mara conservancymaratriangle.org/images/uploads/pressroom-training...while...

STARED OUT THE BACK of our Land Rover, watch-ing the iron gates embedded with bullets disappear inthe dust as we drove down the dirt road leading away

from what had been our sanctuary for most of the summerof 2009. As our driver slowed, I turned and watched as ahuge bull elephant passed slowly in front of our vehicle,flapping its ears and eyeing us cautiously. As we drove on,my mind drifted back to the beginning of our adventure.

My husband, John Lutenberg, and I own and operate atracking and trailing dog school in Cañon City, Colorado,where we specialize in training Bloodhounds. Our time inKenya started with an e-mailed request for help from acontinent away. The e-mail, from the Mara Conservancyread, “We are looking for someone to help us purchase andtrain Bloodhound tracker dogs for our anti-poaching unit inKenya.” I e-mailed a response and received a reply almost

BY L INDA PORTER

! Left: The authors andtrainees: standing (left toright) Naiyoma, Kip Rono,Linda Porter, Sabaya, JohnLutenberg, Meseto, andJames; kneeling (left toright) Mohamed, Robert,and Siele, with K-9s Moraniand Memusi. Above: Aherd of Cape buffalo inthe Masai Mara GameReserve.

KENYATraining Bloodhounds in

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Two dog trainers and former law-enforcement officers findchallenging tracking conditions in the African bush.

46 Police K-9 Magazine SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010 Police K-9 Magazine 47

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to hire a pet shipper, and the dogs were notallowed to fly passenger cargo into Kenya —rather, they had to be shipped air freightcargo. As the dogs grew, so did the crate sizeand shipping costs. This was the mostcomplicated and costly part of the project.The Mara Conservancy was good to workwith and helped us handle the difficultiesthat arose.

When the day arrived, we took the dogsto Denver to be shipped. Air travel toNairobi normally takes 24 hours. However,dogs require two days with a stopover inFrankfurt, Germany, to be watered, fed, andremoved from their crates for an overnightstay. Upon arrival in Nairobi, amazingly, thehounds were in good condition. Because thedogs arrived on a Saturday, however, we haddifficulties with the inspection. After threegrueling hours of immigration and vetinspections, the dogs were released into thecustody of the Mara Conservancy, and wewere able to head toward our finaldestination.

Extreme TrackingWith dogs and luggage piled into a small private aircraft, weflew from Nairobi to the Mara Triangle. From there, wetraveled by Land Rover across the reserve to a remote ran-ger outpost called Ngiro-are, located one kilometer from theTanzanian border in the farthest corner of the reserve. Thatis where the dogs would be stationed. Most of the poachingactivity the rangers encountered took place along the bor-der between Tanzania and Kenya. We were to work withthe rangers for four weeks.


good working lines and began training them in January2009. We planned to travel to Kenya at the end of May.

From photographs of the Mara Conservancy, we devel-oped an idea of the terrain the dogs would be working in.We used a combination of food tracks and scent trails to

start the pups’ training, giving them experience in scentwork and ground disturbance. As the dogs pro-

gressed in basic trailing skills, we focused on ruralterrain training trails with as many animal

distractions as we could find. We combinedthat training with hard-surface work. Weworked and trained the dogs five to six days

per week from January to the end of May,making sure they had a solid foundation beforearriving in Kenya to start the handler training.

We trained the dogs to pick up a trail from asimple foot track, knowing that would be the main

scent source available to the handlers and dogsduring a poaching deployment. We also trained using

various scent items. As the dogs advanced, we added crossand split trails to the regimen to introduce some scent-discrimination training. Armed with a little informationfrom the Mara Conservancy, we fine-tuned the training byhaving our trail layers emulate poacher behaviors andcapture and evasion techniques while laying trails.

As our departure date approached, the details of shippingthe dogs to Kenya became a paperwork nightmare. We had

immediately from a woman named Asuka, a veterinarianemployed by the Conservancy. She was looking for trailingdogs that could be trained to help their ranger unit trackpoachers in Mara Triangle, a 510-square-kilometer wildlifereserve within Masai Mara Game Reserve. After tryingfor three years to acquire puppies from a Kenyanbreeder without success, they had expanded theirsearch to the United States.

Although we routinely receive e-mails abouttrailing and tracking training, rarely does anoverseas inquiry come to fruition. Little didwe know that this was the start of a compellingadventure and the training experience of a lifetime.

The Journey BeginsThe Mara Conservancy had a shoestring budget and wastrying to fund the project with donations. As avid support-ers of wildlife, John and I decided to support their efforts bydonating our time to train the Bloodhounds at our home inColorado for five months. Then we would take the dogs toKenya to train the handlers in their own environment. Itwas an excellent opportunity for us to gain experience withtraining in another culture and in a totally different en-vironment. The Mara Conservancy agreed to pay for ourtravel expenses, accommodations, and food. It seemed like awin–win situation for all concerned.

We purchased two, 16-week-old male Bloodhounds from

As we drove along the rocky dirt road tothe outpost, we began to understand theenvironmental conditions and trainingchallenges that awaited us in the comingweeks. The climate was slightly humid butvery tolerable with temperatures fluctuatingbetween 60°F at night to 85°F during theday. As we drove, we could see largethickets full of twisted brush, trees, andvarieties of thorny vines. Beautiful acaciatrees full of colorful birds dotted thelandscape. We passed herds of elephants,cape buffalo, giraffes, topi, zebras, lions,cheetahs, hyenas, ostriches, and many morevarieties of wildlife. We spotted crocodilesand hippos lounging along the river’s edge,while an occasional cobra or black mambaslithered across the road and disappearedinto the chest-high grass. The reality of oursituation slowly began creep into our minds.“How could we possibly train in this en-vironment, on foot, and running behind adog on a 30-foot lead?” By the time we

reached the outpost at the edge of the park, we wereliterally stunned by what we were facing. If there was evera time to label a situation “extreme tracking,” this was it.

The outpost sat at the bottom of a steep escarpment andwas surrounded on the other three sides by swamp and low,rolling grasslands. The 15-foot-tall iron gates of the outposthad bullets embedded in them, and the entire outpost wassurrounded by three-foot-thick stone walls. Two corners ofthe enclosure had lookout towers for a topside view of thesurrounding landscape. It was a virtual fortress, completewith ranger housing, a crude cookhouse, and a small cinder-block hut that was used for daily meetings. The rangers

training bloodhounds in kenya

It was anexcellentopportunityfor us to gainexperiencewith trainingin anotherculture and ina totallydifferentenvironment.

! Above left and above:Training on the tall grass plainswas dangerous at times due tothe many obstacles and animalhidden in the vegetation. Abovefar right: Dogs and handlers pileinto the truck to hunt poachersat night.

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explained that the bullets imbedded in thegates were from a shootout with bandits andcattle rustlers that lived in some of thenearby villages.

We were welcomed with warm hand-shakes, enthusiastic smiles, and a marchingdemonstration from our new trainees. Ourhousing for the next month was a sturdy,comfortable tent pitched near the cookhouse, complete with real beds — andmonkeys that visited us during the breakfasthour hoping for a handout.

Initial Handler TrainingThe Mara Conservancy had chosen eightmen from local villages for the K-9 traineepositions. None of the trainees had priorranger experience. Three of them spokeEnglish, one spoke several different triballanguages, and the others spoke only Swahili. Through ourinitial correspondence with the Mara Conservancy, we hadbeen expecting to work with four fully trained English-speaking rangers for two rotating K-9 positions. When welearned there were eight men to train, we became con-cerned that the choice and number of trainees wouldfurther complicate our training schedule. The languagebarrier would obviously impede the training process. Noneof the trainees had any firearms or tactical experience, andnone had ever worked with dogs. We had one month totrain eight inexperienced men to handle two green dogs for

poaching enforcement. However, we soonlearned how capable, resourceful, resilient,and motivated these men were.

The first week, we held classroom presen-tations using a laptop computer powered bysolar electricity. We covered basic linehandling, scent theory, training techniques,reading the dog, environmental impact ontrails, and how to set up and mark trainingtrails.

Asuka, the veterinarian, held classes onK-9 nutrition, grooming, kennel mainte-

nance, and basic first aid, and taught the trainees how to fillout a daily health record for each dog. All the lessons had tobe trans-lated into Swahili by the K-9 unit team leader. Thetrainees’ hung on every word that was spoken and askedquestions in Swahili or broken English. Apart from theclassroom lessons, we encouraged the trainees to spend timeeach day feeding and grooming the dogs, learning how toapproach and praise them.

We were impressed by the construction of the MaraConservancy’s kennels. The Kenyan carpenters had built adog fortress inside the station: indoor–outdoor doghouses

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010 Police K-9 Magazine 51

and runs with thick cement flooring, large metal interior andexterior doors, and doubled chain link wiring. The reason forthe overkill construction would become apparent later.

Twice a day for the first week we ventured outside thestation with the senior rangers and trainees and ran shorttrails with the dogs, showing the trainees how the dogsworked. We required an armed ranger to run with the traillayer and one to run with the dog team to watch fordangerous animals that might be hiding in the tall grass.

The trailing conditions for the dogs were great: moist,lush grasslands as far as the eye could see. The houndsworked trails through the chest-high vegetation at fullspeed, making it difficult to keep in step with them.Compared to our sure-footed Kenyan friends, who ran trailsin sandals or flat-soled tennis shoes, we were slow andclumsy in the bush for the first week. Running for anydistance in the chest-high grass was like running in waterfor us. Our feet caught on dead underbrush and sticky vines.We tripped over termite mounds, hidden rocks, andelephant dung, and fell waist deep into warthog holes.Grasshoppers the size of hummingbirds landed on ourclothing and stuck like glue as we tried to brush them off.Huge army ants marched across the ground in long, thick,black trails.

At the end of each day, our muscles ached from running.

50 Police K-9 Magazine SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

! Above left: The trainees attended classes inhandling, scent theory, trail setup and marking,reading the dog, and environmental impact, aswell as K-9 health, first aid, and grooming. Aboveright: The trainees learn basic tracking procedures.


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We soonlearned howcapable,resourceful,resilient, andmotivatedthese menwere.

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trusted their experience and got busy training.We ran short training trails that incorporated the wildlife

distractions — right through herds of darting zebra, topi andantelope. After half a day the dogs became disinterested inthe animals and stayed locked onto the human scent trails.

Training in the shorter grass around herd animals had itsadvantages, but those areas also attracted large predators.One day we sent an armed ranger and two tracklayers out tolay a mile-long trail. Scanning the horizon, I noticed ananimal sitting on a low mound of dirt about a quarter mileupwind from the tracklayers’ position. I immediately askedMohammed whether it was a lion. “Yes, that is a Simba,” hereplied. I asked whether he thought it was a problem for ourtracklayers. He said, “No, because the ranger sees him.”

Within the next five minutes, to my horror, I saw sixmore lions appear. They sat facing our tracklayers, theirnoses sniffing the air and smelling the human scent on thewind. I grabbed the radio and shouted into the mic thatthere where now seven lions and asked whether thetracklayers had seen them. The sergeant calmly respondedthat they saw the lions and that it was safe to run the trail.He said the lions were not a danger to them “right now.”Mohammad radioed Asuka and had her drive slowly towardthe lions, moving our car between the field team and thepride. As we started the dog on the trail, the lions slowlyretreated, disappearing into the grass like ghosts on thewind. By the time we reached the tracklayers, the lions weregone. After that experience, I did not question the ranger’sjudgment again.

Wildlife ChallengesLions where were not the only predators we had to dealwith. The dog kennel was located inside the 15-foot-highwalls of the outpost and sturdily built for a reason. Onenight during a storm we were awakened by the sound ofbaying and whining hounds. Our tent was close to thekennel, so I grabbed my flashlight and ran outside in thepouring rain to see what the problem was.

When I reached the kennel, I noticed that one of theinterior doghouse doors had swung shut in the wind. Iopened the large metal door so the dog could get inside andthen, without a further thought, ran back to the tent to dryoff and get back to sleep. The howling and desperate whin-ing continued. A short time later, we heard one of thetrainees checking the dogs. After that, we heard no moresounds from the dogs for the rest of the night. In the morn-ing, we asked the men what they had done to quiet thedogs. They advised us that when Mohammad had gone tocheck the dogs, he noticed the shadow of a leopard pacingalong the top of the wall next to the kennel roof. He lockedthe dogs in their houses behind the heavy steel dog doors sothere would be no problems from the leopard. I learned toalways look up after that night.

Other hazards existed on the trail. One morning we wentto a location where the grass was head-high. As usual, therangers patrolled the training area with our vehicle to clear


We had excruciating itchy bites on our ankles from nastypinhead-sized insects called pepper ticks that no repellentcould prevent. After suffering an allergic reaction to insectbites, I began to duct-tape my pant legs to my boots. Thatresulted in some odd looks from the trainees and rangers,who laughed at my desperate efforts to keep the bugs out.It was exhausting work both mentally and physically inthe rough, unfamiliar terrain.

In addition, we soon learned that we faced more urgenttraining and environmental issues. The grass was so highthat the trainees had trouble seeing the dogs ahead ofthem on a 20-foot line. Consequently, it was difficult tolearn to read the dog’s body language, which is a criticalskill all handlers must learn in order to work the dogeffectively. With only two dogs for eight men, it waschallenging for each trainee to get the line time required tolearn the skills without exhausting the dogs.

To resolve those problems, we split the men into twoteams of four and assigned each group to one dog. Thetrainees were to remain with the same dog throughouttraining process. To solve the line-time problem, we alwaystook two handlers on one trail, switching them out halfwaythrough the track.

After working the dogs, the trainees continued to traineach day during K-9 downtime on what we call line drills.We placed them in teams of two and had them clip the lineto each other so they could get the feel of how to work aline when there was movement on the other end. Thosedrills helped the trainees immensely with their line skills

and coordination without having to expose the dogs tounnecessary pulling and jerking, and kept the dogs frombeing overworked. To remedy the problem of being unableto read their dogs, we eventually moved to a location wherethe grass was shorter.

Training Around Distractions When we thought the teams were ready, we handed overthe lines. After the trainees had been working the dogs forfive or six days and we were satisfied that they were able toread some K-9 body language, we used an Astro 220 K9GPS tracking collar almost exclusively to assist us inrunning unmarked tracks over long distances. The apparatusincluded two tracking collars and a handheld reader unitdesigned to allow hunting dog handlers to track their dogsremotely. We used it differently, having a tracklayer carrythe collar along the trail being laid. It was simple to use andvery accurate. The device mapped the exact track for us andwas accurate to within five feet of trail. Thus we could stillcontrol the training session and correct errors if necessary, aswell as work longer trails without using visual markers.

Our trainees progressedfaster than we expected giventhe difficult conditions,showing a natural ability towork the line and read thedogs’ behavior. In all ouryears of training students, wehave seldom had the privilegeof working with suchnaturally gifted andmotivated individuals.

Then it was time to moveto a new training location.We asked to be taken to anarea that had shorter grass,where the trainees could seethe dogs better and could runlonger, more complicatedtrails. The sergeant assured usthat he knew of a good loca-

tion near the Tanzanian border where the wildlife had eatenthe grass down to knee height. We were encouraged by thatnews but later learned that the location had otherdifficulties.

When we arrived at the site, we were greeted by a prideof lions that had staked out a buffalo kill and were reluctantto share the area. We drove another kilometer or so acrossthe grassy plains and settled on a spot where the grass wasconsiderably shorter and we could see for some distance. Wewere amazed by the abundance of wildlife including zebras,giraffe, topi, antelope, gazelle, eland, and mongoose. Asbeautiful as the animals were, they posed yet another hugetraining distraction for the dogs, not to mention us havingto run trails on foot right through herds of wild animals.That concept didn’t seem to bother the rangers, so we

! Above: K-9 Unit Leader Olongui Sabaya Shadrack withK-9 Morani.


It wasexhaustingwork bothmentally andphysically inthe rough,unfamiliarterrain.

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it of any threats. When the area was secure, we laid out twolong training tracks opposite each other. My team could seeJohn and his team from our vantage point. I could also see

two huge male cape buffalo stand up inthe head-high grass 50 yards from thetracklayers. We could not use a radioto warn the team without riskingalerting the buffalo. They were tooclose. This was the nightmare scenariowe had been trying to avoid. Capebuffalo are extremely dangerous,especially lone bulls grazing away froma herd. “They are headed right for thebuffalo!” the sergeant exclaimed. Heswung his rifle off his back and wasgetting into firing position when John’steam spotted the bulls.

I watched the scene unfold as if inslow motion. The team came to anabrupt halt. A ranger with themsignaled the men to get down, bequiet, and back up slowly as hepointed his antique rifle at one of theanimals. We waited, afraid to evenbreathe, watching them carefully

attempt their silent retreat. As the men backed away, thebuffalo stood there relaxed and unmoving. The team’s scentwas blowing in the opposite direction and the buffalo did


scenarios involving multiple tracks leaving an area thatwere typical of fleeing poachers. We also trained other ran-gers stationed at different locations to assist the dog teams ascover officers and perimeter control. We introduced basictactical tracking formations to all of the rangers and traineedog handlers.

While at the outpost we never had an opportunity todeploy. But we managed to complete the training despitedifficult conditions. On graduation day there was a hugecelebration. Families from local villages as well as MaraConservancy staff celebrated the creation of the new dogunit. Eight men now had jobs and the Mara Conservancyhad two working Bloodhounds.

We spent our last evening trying to identify the soundsoutside our tent, a hippo munching on grass under thecover of darkness a few feet from our door and the deepecho of a lion’s roar from somewhere close by. We wouldmiss Africa and the people we had come to know andrespect. John and I both enthusiastically agreed to comeback for a follow-up training session in the summer of 2010.

Return to AfricaOur return to Africa came much sooner than anticipated. Sixweeks later we found ourselves back in the Mara Triangledriving down the bumpy road leading to the outpost. The

not see or smell them. The team was able to escape andreturn safely to the car. We surrendered our training areathat day to the buffalo.

It was rare for the rangers to miss spotting animals. Butthe trailing conditions were extreme, it was impossible tosee all the wildlife, and some encounters were unavoidable.

When we were stationed at Ngiro-are outpost, the CEOasked whether we would run the dogs on a real poachingdeployment. My husband had 35 years of experiencerunning dogs on criminal pursuits for the Colorado Depart-ment of Corrections, and I had 13 years of K-9 law-enforcement experience. It was an opportunity to combineour training and experience and test the dogs in a realdeployment situation.

It was not quite poaching season. However, the wilde-beest were starting to migrate to our location, and poacherswhere beginning to filter into the park. We began to trainfor night deployments and poacher ambushes. All ourcombined training and experience did not completelyprepare us for an actual night ambush on a poaching camp.Poachers tended to hide out in deep dark thickets to avoiddetection. As the days passed, we waited for a chance todeploy. Meanwhile, the teams’ confidence and skill im-proved and they began creating their own trainingscenarios. We introduced more difficult deployment

Protecting the Masai MaraThe Masai Mara Game Reserve is one of the few remaining places on earth where hugevarieties of wildlife can still be viewed up close. One can see prides of lions, leopards,cheetahs, herds of elephant, rhinos, hyenas, zebras, wildebeests, giraffes, hippos, andcrocodiles among many others. The Mara Conservancy struggles to maintain the delicatebalance of the ecosystem while still permitting tourists to access the area. Poaching inthe triangle is at an all-time low due to the diligent efforts of the park management andits rangers.

Snares used by poachers are indiscriminate and catch, kill, or maim many species ofanimals, large and small. Most of the poaching in the Mara Triangle is carried out by aspecific native tribe, many of whom cross the border into the park from Tanzania. Thepoached bush meat is then sold for income or used to feed their families.

Currently, poaching eradication in the Mara Triangle consists of heavy patrol presence,ambush tactics, and daily snare collections. The introduction of tracking dogs to the anti-poaching unit will ultimately reduce the number of poachers that are able to evadecapture and prosecution by running away or simply hiding. Thus far the Bloodhoundsalso have proven to be a powerful deterrent, and plans to expand the K-9 program areunder way.

Although the concept of using tracking dogs is still new, the rangers and handlerscontinue to learn, train, deploy, and implement the changes necessary to make the K9unit a success. Since June 2009, the Bloodhound teams have tracked and apprehended17 poachers and recovered valuable property from a lodge robbery.

To read more about the Mara Game Reserve and its K-9 program, or to donate to theproject, visit www.maratriangle.com.


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thicket on foot to look for the poachers’ camp.As we walked deeper into the thicket the ground became

squashy and sticky under our feet. The smell of deathcaught in my nose and made me feel nauseated. I shone myflashlight on the ground to see what was causing the strangetransformation of the terrain underfoot and the awful smell.I realized I was walking on top of rows of half-dried animalmeat laid out on top of fresh leaves.

As I shone my light around, I saw freshly carved upcarcasses of zebra, wildebeest, and warthog hanging frombranches and scattered on the ground. We found backpacksmade of goatskin, packed with the meat of the freshlyslaughtered animals. The dog was leery of the smell andhesitant to move between the carcasses. Because it wasdark, the rangers decided it would be prudent to leave thecamp and return in daylight to search for evidence and burnthe remaining meat. We wholeheartedly agreed. We couldhear the hyenas and who knows what else moving towardour location for a free meal and definitely didn’t want to bepart of that action.

In the hours that followed, we briefed handlers andrangers on proper K-9 tracking protocol, the importance ofkeeping areas as free from contamination as possible, settingup proper perimeters, and allowing the dog teams to movein first rather than as a last resort. It is difficult to introduce

a whole new way of capturing poachers and change thethinking and traditions of experienced bush rangers. Thatwas not going to happen overnight. The program wouldtake time and patience to implement properly.

Tactical ManeuversOver the next three days, we returned several times to thepoacher camp to run training trails and acclimate the dogsto the strong smells associated with poachers and rottingcarcasses. Next we focused on night ambushes. An ambushis an effective way to catch poachers at night while they areout collecting animals trapped in their snares.

It is not easy to ambush a poacher. Most poachers havespent years hunting in the bush. They are wary and evasive,they know ranger tactics, and they have a keen sense of theenvironment. They quickly become aware of anything outof place in the bush by listening to the animal warningsounds. Ambushing requires a lot of patience, a good know-ledge of poacher practices, and the courage to walk throughthe bush at night without a light.

We crossed the Tanzanian border one evening just beforedark in two patrol vehicles, driving to our stakeout locationwithout any headlights and with our tail lights covered bytree branches. When we reached the ambush location, it wasdark except for the full moon rising over the Serengeti plains.


landscape had literally beentransformed — it wasblanketed by migratingwildebeest and zebra. Thechest-high grass that hadhidden its hazards andinhabitants so well was nowgone, eaten by the herds ofmigrating animals. We couldnow see the bare, rockyground and, thankfully, thewarthog holes, dead tree limbs, and rocks that had left us facedown on the ground so many times before. Smaller creaturessuch as snakes, warthogs, and mongoose that had goneunnoticed were now easily spotted. Wilde-beest and zebrafilled every corner of what used to be tall grasslands stretchingto the Serengeti border and beyond. We drove by a pride oflions lounging on their backs beneath a shady acacia tree,their bellies fat and their appetites satisfied from the plentifulfood sources.

Life for the Mara predators had been renewed with thegreat migration in full swing. It was the peak of poachingseason. Along with the great migration came recordnumbers of poachers with thousands of deadly snares, spears,and bows and arrows. The new dog handlers were a littleoverwhelmed and not yet comfortable with the dauntingtask of conducting actual K-9 deployments, so we returnedto Africa to assist them.

At first we focused on remedial training. Within a fewdays, we left for the Tanzania border with one dog, fourhandlers, and an entourage of rangers, and began searchingfor poachers and snares. As we drove along the bottom ofthe escarpment, we could see poachers midway up the hill.We stopped and began scouting the area for snares. Therangers were experts at spotting the thin wire snares hang-ing in the brush. We could hear poachers on the hill yellingat us to leave the snares alone. They were too far away tochase, and they had an advantage. They were armed withlong handmade metal spears and bows and arrows that they

could easily throw or shoot at us from their position on thehill, and they were deadly accurate with those weapons. Weturned our attention back to collecting as many snares aspossible. We kept up our patrol and collected snares daily,releasing live trapped animals and hoping for a chance totrack some poachers. That opportunity came late oneafternoon less than a week later.

We were heading in from our patrol duties when a callcame over the radio in Swahili. Our translator said that atourist in the game reserve had spotted some men runningon foot into a heavy thicket about 5 kilometers from ourlocation. We drove at breakneck speed over the roughterrain and arrived within minutes. The rangers went intothe thicket before the dogs and handlers to try to flush thepoachers out. Thirty minutes later, we heard yelling andgunfire coming from the thicket. We received a radio reportthat the rangers had captured four poachers in the thicketand that three others were on the run.

We went to a location where a ranger said he’d seenpoachers running into the brush. Upon arrival, we realizedthat a group of rangers from another station had runthrough the area, thus contaminating any tracks we couldhave followed with a dog. Feeling a little frustrated by thesituation we received another radio call from the MaraConservancy CEO. He requested a dog team for a differentlocation. We could only understand a few words of Swahilibut recognized the urgency in his voice. He had seen apoacher running through the brush.

When we arrived at the CEO’s location, once again wefound that anxious rangers had contaminated the site,making it impossible for a dog to track. While we waitedfor another chance, the perimeter teams caught two morepoachers running through a thicket opposite our location.

It was growing darker by the minute, and the team wasstill missing one suspect. We decided to start a dog on somepossible poachers’ foot tracks we’d found by the edge of athicket. The dog followed the track for a half-mile aroundthe brush without results. As darkness fell and the coolnight air settled in, we ventured into the center of the

! Above and right: A poacher’scache of meat, spread on leavesto dry. The meat is sold for cashor used to feed the poachers’families.


Life for the Marapredators hadbeen renewedwith the greatmigration infull swing.

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www.petworldindustry.com Tel. 001-772-209-2502/1-772-285-438458 Police K-9 Magazine SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

The light from the moon silhouetted the twisted acacia treesand we watched in silence as a lone bull elephant drifted byus — a dark, silent shadow across the landscape.

We parked our Land Rover behind a heavy thicket andsome of the rangers went into the bush to scout forpoachers. We stayed behind with one dog and two menwaiting for the rangers to flush out any poachers. We satdown on a fat log just outside the thicket and waited. Twohours passed before the silence was broken by the radiocalling for us to come quickly. At that moment, we heardrangers’ voices yelling in the darkness as we loaded into thecar and drove frantically toward the sounds. The terrain wasrough and rocky. We tore through the bushes, swerving toavoid trees and an occasional zebra or wildebeest that wasdis-oriented by our headlights. When we broke out into theopen, we saw chaos unfold before us. Dust was flying andarmed rangers were running in every direction searching forthe fleeing poachers.

It is a common tactic for poachers to stop running anddrop into the tall grass. Sometimes they discard theirclothing and cover themselves with mud and grass to avoiddetection, making it nearly impossible for rangers to spotthem. That’s a perfect scenario for a K-9 deployment, butalso makes it easy to run them over in a vehicle.

We continued to search in our vehicle, however, whilefoot patrols searched around us. In spite of what appeared tobe chaos, the rangers managed to apprehend a poacher.After another 30 minutes of searching, one of the K-9handlers, Mohammad, managed to capture anotherpoacher. The poacher had planted his spear in the groundfacing backward in the hope that his pursuer would fall on

it. We later recoveredseveral handmade spearsand bows and arrows, alongwith some snares.

The rangers advised usnot to touch the arrows orspear tips. Poacherscommonly cover the tipswith a poisonous substancemade from a combination ofcobra venom and toxicplants. An accidental cutcould kill a person inminutes.

The poachers that wereapprehended were filthy andcovered in animal blood.Their clothing was tatteredand torn. They had been inthe bush for days, killing andskinning animals trapped intheir snares. Because thesuspects were apprehendedbefore we had the oppor-tunity to deploy the dog, therangers escorted the suspectson several short trails for thedogs to practice on. Thattraining was quite useful.The poachers smelled sostrongly of animal blood andadrenaline that the young,inexperienced dogs hesitatedto approach them at first.We continued that trainingfor several days, using thepoachers’ clothing to maketrails so that the dogs couldget used to the strong smells.

Although training con-tinued, we did not haveanother opportunity to usethe dogs on an actual

deployment while my husband and I were there. As ourtime in Kenya again came to a close, we found ourselvesheaded down the dusty road winding across the Mara, backto Nairobi and home. We drove slowly, enjoying a finalview of the landscape and its inhabitants, and I wonderedwhen or if we would be able to return to this place. I hopedso. !

Linda Porter and John Lutenberg are former law-enforcementofficers and K-9 handlers who now specialize in training trailingdogs. They currently own and operate the Canine Training Academy(www.caninetrainingacademy.com), a tracking and trailing dogschool for law-enforcement officers.

! Above: Night tracking in the tall grass and brush was extremelydangerous.


We torethrough thebushes,swerving toavoid treesand anoccasionalzebra orwildebeest.

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