Hero Pup Helping to Stop Poaching in Africa

This two-year-old superhero pup named Indy is helping the battle against poaching and wildlife crimes. Dogs 4 Wildlife first prepared the spaniel as a Bush Meat Detection dog.

In Africa, poachers kill large numbers of endangered animals consistently. Rhinos, for example, are poached at a rate of one every 12 hours, and it’s on track to likely increase by 356% by the year 2030. Additionally, poachers kill 96 elephants in Africa every day.

That’s where our hero comes in. Indy has now been sent to Mankwe Wildlife Reserve in South Africa to find and indicate stored shrubbery meat and animal carcasses.

The number of poached rhinos in Africa arrived at an all-time high in 2015 when poachers killed 1,349 rhinos. Last year, 451 rhinos were poached in South Africa; 327 were within the government reserves and 124 on private property.

Anti-poaching canines are helping to curve poaching occurrences by as much as 70%! There is a dramatic decrease that’s over half that Indy and pups like him are assisting with. They play a vital part in the preservation of rhinos and Mankwe’s residents by lessening poaching incidents.

The non-profit association Dogs 4 Wildlife expects to give both quality, profoundly trained pups, and specialized ranger training for the development against poaching and to protect endangered natural life. In addition, through successful and determined education, they expect to rouse and inspire the upcoming generation of wildlife protectors.

Indy, a two-year-old open search dog is helping the fight against poaching and wildlife crimes in #SouthAfrica https://t.co/UA2m1oOWLN#DogLovers pic.twitter.com/ZboBbyk0X7

— Good News Shared ツ (@GoodNews_Shared) May 19, 2022

Darren Priddle, Founder of Dogs 4 Wildlife and Extremus Dog Training said: “Indy, an English Springer Spaniel, is currently 2 years old and has now been deployed to the superbly diverse Mankwe Wildlife Reserve in South Africa. Tasked with working alongside the reserve current Anti-Poaching K9 unit covering some 5000 hectares, Indy’s role is to locate and indicate on cached bush meat/animal carcasses hidden by the poachers who trespass onto Mankwe to kill their precious wildlife,” He continued. “Once she has located the recently hidden caches the units tracking dogs can then follow the scent left by the poachers to arrest them and bring them to justice hopefully. Indy has a vital role to play in supporting Mankwe’s efforts in protecting their wildlife. Indy was bred and trained by the team at Dogs 4 Wildlife in the UK, where all of our dogs first start their journey to protect and conserve Africa’s wildlife.”

Sending anti-poaching canines and K9 units is a critical piece of protection efforts in Africa. With a drawn-out committed view to aiding the security and continuation of endangered species, Dogs 4 Wildlife is a profoundly experienced group of proficient, devoted animal lovers committed to natural life conservation.

With 12 functional cabins across four Southern African nations, The Dogs 4 Wildlife K9s assist with accomplishing up to a 75% decrease in poaching numbers.

Dogs 4 Wildlife collaborated with Endangered Rhino Conservation to assist in facilitating Project Indy. In addition, they would like to thank Andy Ardle of Berretta vale Detection Dogs for rearing and preparing Indy before her deployment.

It’s great to see Indy playing such an essential part in this conservation endeavor. It also makes sense why they chose this breed. In addition to Indy’s training, all English Springer Spaniels have a natural sense of hunting. Specifically, they were used to chase birds into flight so that hunters would find them easier and take their shot. They also can retrieve game and are very energetic.