Documentary, Bloody Trophy- 2025
"Bloody Trophy" is a 2023 documentary that investigates the illegal trade in rhino horns, focusing on international crime syndicates involved in the endangered species' plight. A journalist's investigation, which travels from Poland to the Vietnamese mafia's role in the trade, is central to the film. "Bloody Trophy"
Is there still hope in the fight to save endangered species? A journalist's investigation into the illegal rhino horn trade unexpectedly leads to Poland and the Czech Republic, uncovering a link between the Vietnamese mafia and local trophy hunters, whose trophies mysteriously never make it back home.
#BloodyTrophy #Documentary #BloodyTrophy #Documentary #CzechRepublic #rhino #SouthAfrica #Poland
"Bloody Trophy" is a 2023 documentary that investigates the illegal trade in rhino horns, focusing on international crime syndicates involved in the endangered species' plight. A journalist's investigation, which travels from Poland to the Vietnamese mafia's role in the trade, is central to the film. "Bloody Trophy"
Is there still hope in the fight to save endangered species? A journalist's investigation into the illegal rhino horn trade unexpectedly leads to Poland and the Czech Republic, uncovering a link between the Vietnamese mafia and local trophy hunters, whose trophies mysteriously never make it back home.
#BloodyTrophy #Documentary #BloodyTrophy #Documentary #CzechRepublic #rhino #SouthAfrica #Poland
Category
🐳
AnimalsTranscript
00:00This is just a souvenir that a hunter is taking back.
00:30If they look at that night in their house, they can then think back of what they have experienced.
00:46People are drawn to that, to hunt these dangerous animals.
00:52One of the most expensive hunts is to hunt a rhino.
01:04You knocked down the second one, like a pro.
01:09I aimed at the shoulder blade.
01:26Everyone knew that these hunters were just frontmen.
01:30Those officials put them up for the photos.
01:32Everyone knew that the horns weren't for them.
01:35They just had to sign the papers and not ask any questions.
01:39The price for rhino horn fluctuated around 13,000 to 27,000 US dollars per pound.
01:51I was intrigued about, you know, who are the people behind this?
01:53What was driving this?
01:55So that's what really pulled me into it.
01:59You see Chumlong Lemtong Thai over there, he's holding the rifle.
02:04Chumlong and obviously his boss were responsible for not one rhino, not 10 rhinos, but maybe hundreds
02:12of rhinos.
02:15They're pseudo-hunters, they're not real hunters.
02:19So the whole thing, everything about it was criminal, from start to finish.
02:28It's not just about a piece of horn, it's not just about, you know, the rhino's nose.
02:34I don't think this is about the rhino, I think for me the rhino is a symbol.
02:40Is it darting, Julian?
02:41Yeah, I'm darting.
02:42Okay.
02:43Rhino have been under threat, yeah, always.
03:01They're critically endangered.
03:04They're on the brink of extinction and are being completely persecuted and brutally attacked
03:12for their horns.
03:13It's just terrible.
03:14It's a heavy influence.
03:32I'll keep you in touch with me, but I'll keep you in touch with it.
03:43I've been a police officer since 1991 and experienced nearly every level within the force.
04:01I worked in the criminal investigation department of the Apolla Police Headquarters.
04:08My superior told me about the case.
04:10He came to me and said I would be leading an investigation on rhino horn smuggling, and I focused on the job.
04:21So we went to the county police headquarters and took over the investigation.
04:26At first it seemed it was something we could close within a month.
04:30However, it turned out the case wasn't that simple.
04:33The prosecutor and I decided to expand the investigation to the whole country, and the case started to grow.
04:43We noticed an alarming pattern.
04:54We realized that there was an exceptionally large number of Polish hunters that could afford to hunt for rhinos.
05:02The price of that is considerable.
05:07Annually, two Germans, one Spaniard, three Americans, one British, one Dane, and fifteen Poles can afford it.
05:22We started visiting hunters who were said to have such trophies in their homes.
05:27The first person we visited had original horns.
05:33Then we checked the trophies that other hunters had at their houses.
05:40It turned out that the horns they had on display were actually made out of styrofoam and covered in paint.
05:47They were light and often hollow inside.
05:49Most of the horns brought into the country as trophies, usually disappeared within days.
06:03We could be talking about tens of millions of Złotys that were fed into the black market.
06:09We were terrified by the possible scale of these practices.
06:13Illegal rhino horn trade in Poland, which at first seemed most improbable, turned out to be true.
06:24Police have made another breakthrough in their war against the illegal rhino horn trade.
06:41Officers have seized more than 30 pieces of rhino horn at O.R.Tambo International Airport.
06:48Police seized over 40 kilograms of rhino horn.
06:52Two Vietnamese men were arrested.
06:55Rhino poaching often involves both local poachers and international criminal syndicates
07:00who smuggle the horns across borders.
07:03Last year, 499 rhinos were killed across South Africa.
07:16Rhino horn's been prized in Southeast Asia and China for centuries.
07:21You've seen rhino populations, for instance, in China, along the Yangtze River, which were wiped out because of demand for horn.
07:32Much of the horn was going to Vietnam.
07:34Why Vietnam?
07:35This was a country that had picked itself up from the incredible damage wrought by the Vietnam War
07:41and had rebuilt itself into a rising economic powerhouse.
07:45You know, there were people with money that could be spent.
07:50You had, for instance, a story starting to do the rounds in Hanoi that a senior Communist Party official had been diagnosed with cancer.
08:00He'd begun taking a mixture of ground, rhino horn, and rice wine, and immediately his condition was reversed.
08:08And that story took on different forms, depending on who you're speaking to.
08:11Sometimes it was an army general.
08:13Sometimes it was a retired prime minister.
08:15But it was always a senior official who'd been cured.
08:20Our understanding, rhino horn is made out of the exact same material as your fingernails and your hair.
08:27So, yeah, we would believe that eating our nails would keep us healthy.
08:33That's what created the big problem for South Africa.
08:37We had this massive exponential growth in the illegal value of rhino horn.
08:43That obviously stimulated a huge demand for poachers to kill these horns
08:48and for these horns to then go through organized criminal networks back into the markets in Southeast Asia.
08:55I was a journalist, an investigative journalist.
09:03I'd also then delved into organized crime.
09:08Around that time that the rhino poaching crisis was really taking off in South Africa.
09:13In some ways at the time, you know, the prices are being paid more than gold, more than cocaine.
09:19I was intrigued about, you know, who are the people behind this?
09:21What was driving this?
09:22So that's what really pulled me into it.
09:31One of the most destructive networks that emerged at that time
09:34was a network called the Saisavang Network.
09:40The mastermind was a guy called Vishay Kiesavang.
09:43He lived in Laos.
09:45He'd served in the military himself at a senior level.
09:48He had ties to military intelligence in Laos and also in Vietnam.
09:52He sent a group of people to South Africa
09:56that they were offered the opportunity to hunt rhinos,
10:01legally shoot an animal, get the permits, get everything there,
10:04to take the trophies back to Laos and Vietnam and Thailand.
10:08And that would give them the opportunity to sell this on the black market.
10:10And that operation was led by someone called Chamlong Lemtong Thai.
10:19He'd grown up fairly poor in Bangkok.
10:21He'd found work in the wildlife trade.
10:24He was regarded as pretty reliable, but he also had very expensive tastes.
10:32You know, this was someone who liked drinking cognac, smoking imported cigars.
10:37He liked collecting these pistols that he'd sort of play with in front of his webcam in Bangkok.
10:44He'd sort of strike gangster poses with these colored pistols.
10:47What the Thai network initially did was they'd fly hunters in from Thailand,
10:57people that they sometimes recruited off the streets.
10:59But by and large, they'd bring over men.
11:01And the customs authority became suspicious of these groups of Thai men that were coming through.
11:07It also cost money.
11:08One of the people in the Saisavang network found what he thought was the perfect plan.
11:15So he was cruising around to strip clubs and massage parlours and brothels
11:22where very often young Thai women had been trafficked from Thailand
11:26to come and work in the sex industry in South Africa.
11:29All I need is your passport.
11:31If you give me your passport, you know, you can go.
11:33And we'll even pay a couple of hundred rand, a couple of thousand rand here and there.
11:36So they took the passports and those passports were used to apply for hunting permits.
11:44You see these photographs of, you know, these young women in white sports shoes
11:49with pink jerseys on, bright red clothing,
11:53standing there with rifles that almost dwarfed them in size, a 375 hunting rifle.
11:59And it's pretty clear they are not capable of carrying out these hunts.
12:06In rare cases, they actually shot the animals themselves,
12:25pretty much every single one of the Saisavang cases.
12:28The rhino would be shot by a professional hunter.
12:32Yeah.
12:34So this is the video of the hunt, the Saisavang that was carried out by the Saisavang network.
12:41So you see Chumlong Lemtongtai over there.
12:43He's holding the rifle.
12:46Then he hands the rifle to someone.
12:49We don't know who that is yet.
12:51That's Harry, the professional hunter and a tracker on the phone.
12:58It's the tracker.
13:02It's very clear.
13:04You know, the person who was issued the permit that day to carry out the hunt
13:07at no stage holds a rifle nor does he fire a shot.
13:11The hunting register was later signed by the person whose name the permit was issued,
13:17but, you know, he wasn't part of that hunt.
13:19So that's, again, part of the fraud.
13:27And then the first shot.
13:31That's the rhino that's been hit.
13:35Another shot.
13:36I think what really shocks people about this video is just...
13:54This is butchery.
13:57It's not hunting.
14:00This is how a hunt could be carried out.
14:02You know, the aim is to minimise suffering.
14:07The aim is to, you know, get the kill done as quickly as possible.
14:17Man shoots him at point blank.
14:23Still alive.
14:27I ain't alive.
14:28Is that one too low, he asks.
14:32No, he says he's gone.
14:39Except the rhino wasn't gone.
14:49Are you at that?
14:52He asks, is he dead?
14:54It's pretty clear he's not dead.
14:56You can see there's still...
14:58breathing.
15:00Breathing.
15:02And then he turns, and there you see,
15:19that's the guy who's meant to be the hunter.
15:21I mean,
15:22there's Chun Long,
15:24smiling and laughing.
15:25He's...
15:26He's...
15:27I hate this video.
15:40I mean, I've seen it so many times,
15:41but it's just, yeah,
15:42it's not...
15:43It's not the easiest thing to watch.
15:45Because it's just so pointless.
15:47What's it ultimately all about?
15:49You know,
15:49it's about a fraud,
15:50supplying rhino horn to this network,
15:53and supplying as many of these animals
15:55that they can line up to shoot them?
15:56I don't know.
16:26My name is Dr. William Foles.
16:34I work as a wildlife veterinarian in the Eastern Cape of South Africa.
16:41We will bring in a team of veterinarians who are here learning about conservation but
16:46also contributing towards conservation.
16:50The purpose of the exercise today is to change or fit a new collar, Natalie.
16:54We're fitting a new tracking device on a male white rhino, just tell us about him.
16:59Yeah, he's about eight years old.
17:01He actually lost his collar a few months ago.
17:05It just ripped off.
17:06We think he was fighting with another young bull, so we just want to refit it on him.
17:12Scott gets the best job.
17:13He's got fecal samples.
17:15Pawe's going to do blood samples, please.
17:18Christy's going to wake up.
17:20Buddy, you're going to do multivitamins.
17:22Okay.
17:23I think it covers most of those jobs.
17:25I'm going to be doing the collar with Natalie and obviously monitoring the anesthetic and
17:32Courtney and I will just keep tabs on temperature, pulse respiration and then we'll get information
17:38from KME on the quality of the anesthetic.
17:42Okay.
17:43I think we are good to go.
17:44As soon as the chopper gets here, we're on our way.
17:46Okay.
17:47Ready in the back.
17:48Okay.
17:49Yeah.
18:14My family have been on this land for five generations.
18:18When I was born here in the 1970s, there were no rhino left.
18:22And so growing up as a child here, there was no opportunity to see rhino, let alone work
18:28with rhino.
18:48My name is Lindy Sutherland and I'm one of the family owners of Karika Game Reserve.
19:05Karika Game Reserve was started by my father 35 years ago.
19:1123 different farms have come together to create an 11,500 hectare wilderness.
19:17We've reintroduced all the wild animals.
19:24We brought back giraffe and zebra and buffalo and amazing animals, but there was something
19:31different about bringing back the dinosaurs.
19:34These prehistoric creatures that really made our old farms feel like we were really rewilding.
19:44And so they have an incredible presence on the landscape, but they also have an ecological role.
19:50When you spend time with rhino in their natural environments, you learn what dedicated mothers they are.
20:08They care for their young so attentively.
20:14And more than that, they're incredibly social.
20:17They love each other's company.
20:19The sounds they make, the way they call each other.
20:31It's this gentle meowing almost when they are looking for each other in the wild.
20:37They're protective.
20:40When you're working on a rhino and you're working on maybe a younger rhino,
20:48a three-year-old, and you have to dart that three-year-old, and the mother is in the vicinity,
20:53she will not leave that site.
20:55She will move around in a circle.
20:58But there's also a knowing in that mother that we're helping that child.
21:02She's not aggressive to us at all.
21:04She's just there.
21:12There's just a knowing.
21:13There's a wisdom.
21:14There's an intelligence that we as humans will never understand.
21:17You can liken it to whales, to dolphins, to elephants.
21:21Rhino fill that same space.
21:33In the early days of rewilding here, we had an amazing almost ten years of just no poaching, no risk.
21:40We weren't spending any money on security because they were safe.
21:44There was no one coming to kill them.
21:52Rhino were first introduced to Karika Game Reserve in 2004.
21:55And if you think about it, five years later, we were suddenly under attack.
22:01We didn't have advanced anti-poaching technology, so we were like lambs at the slaughter.
22:09We've lost a significant amount of rhino, and our rhino populations are in decline, especially white rhino.
22:19And in some parts of the country, they're actually becoming almost exterminated now.
22:23We came to a crescendo on the 2nd of March 2012.
22:35Poachers came onto the reserve, and they took three rhino in one night.
22:39And we called the vet, Dr. Will Foulds, to the scene.
22:43Will, who's a friend of mine, was driving out here expecting to euthanise the animals.
22:48But he gave them the antidote first.
22:50It was an absolutely horrific scene to come across.
23:11You could see all of them had their faces hacked while they were still alive,
23:21by all the blood and the carnage in that area.
23:26We tried to save Tundi and Timber.
23:28We poured everything that we knew, and we got colleagues from around the country to help us.
23:41We tried to save Tundi and Timber.
23:42We tried to save Tundi.
23:43We tried to save Tundi.
23:44We tried to save Tundi.
23:45We tried to save Tundi.
23:46We tried to save Tundi.
23:47We tried to save Tundi.
23:48We tried to save Tundi.
23:49We tried to save Tundi.
23:50We tried to save Tundi.
23:51We tried to save Tundi.
23:52We tried to save Tundi.
23:53We tried to save Tundi.
23:54We tried to save Tundi.
23:55We tried to save Tundi.
23:56We tried to save Tundi.
23:57We tried to save Tundi.
23:58We tried to save Tundi.
23:59We tried to save Tundi.
24:00We tried to save Tundi.
24:01We tried to save Tundi.
24:02That's good, that's good, that's good, that's good boy, that's good.
24:21After 24 days we lost Timber and you know that was probably the darkest day of my life.
24:27Incredibly tragic event.
24:32Sadly for most Rana there is no happy ending.
24:43But Tandi somehow managed to pull through against all odds and she survived.
24:53She had significant internal trauma, not just her facial trauma that she had to recover from.
24:59We ended up losing up to 1200 Rhino per year.
25:10Those are the ones we counted.
25:13There are many hundreds if not thousands of Rhino that we have, that are just missing, they're just gone.
25:21We've never counted them, we've never found them.
25:24We've never counted them, we've never found them.
25:27Copy.
25:28Copy.
25:29Copy.
25:30Copy.
25:31Copy.
25:32Copy.
25:33Copy.
25:34Copy.
25:35Copy.
25:36Copy.
25:37Copy.
25:38Copy.
25:39Copy.
25:40Copy.
25:41Copy.
25:42Copy.
25:43We're going to wait for you guys before we put the dock in.
25:47So you guys need to move speed.
25:49Copy.
26:13OK.
26:14Let's keep you down.
26:15Let's keep you down.
26:16There we go.
26:17Right one.
26:18Can we get the pulse oxy on here as quick as possible?
26:19Try and see if we can use that bottom.
26:20Obviously he'll run a long way, so we're going to put water on him to cool him down.
26:43Yeah, let's go.
26:48One, two, three.
26:51One, two, three.
26:52Let's go.
26:53A bit more push here.
26:54One, two, three.
26:56OK.
26:57Just back a little bit, please.
26:58Back a bit.
26:59Back a bit.
27:00OK, there we go.
27:01Now we can push all the way.
27:02Fix that back leg.
27:03Yeah, the back leg is.
27:06The importance of these devices is that they, for the first time, have given us information
27:12immediately, 24-7, on what is happening to this animal.
27:16It's extremely important for anti-poaching measures that we have a way to know if he's
27:23in trouble.
27:24We call these Apple Watches for Rhino because they really do watch over them and give us
27:29immediate information about their behavior and their safety.
27:34So obviously it's Rhino 44.
27:36Diane, we need the machine on, please.
27:38I think you use that ear there.
27:40OK, give it a good rub, please.
27:43Do they need to be crowned?
27:44I don't think it is.
27:45No.
27:46Just double-check heart rate?
27:47Yeah.
27:48Right, so we should see a change.
27:49120.
27:50Do they need to be crowned?
27:51See how this horn wobbles on their faces?
27:53Yes.
27:54Because there's no bone in here attaching it to the skull.
27:56It's sitting on a pad of fibrous connective tissue.
28:01And when they poach these animals, they cut them here.
28:06Their whole face comes off here.
28:08It's just horrific.
28:09We're happy with his temperature.
28:11His blood color has been good all the way through.
28:14We've fitted the collar.
28:15Just confirmed we've done vitamins.
28:17We've treated both darts.
28:18We've taken blood samples.
28:19We've taken fecal samples.
28:28So as soon as you had this high-value demand for the product, the money started to corrupt
28:36other systems.
28:38But this high value meant that people who wanted to turn a legitimate hunting system into a
28:46highly profitable crown, they now had that opportunity to do that.
28:58The legislation means that a person can hunt a rhino in South Africa.
29:05But can only do it once a year.
29:08You can only hunt once.
29:09You can't come in and get a permit for 10 rhinos.
29:13Otherwise, there'd be no rhinos left.
29:18Shimlong and obviously his boss were responsible for not one rhino, not 10 rhinos, but maybe hundreds of rhinos.
29:28They opened up a door that I think not just they were involved in, but other people started to follow.
29:37It's this pseudo-hunters.
29:47They're not real hunters.
29:48So the whole thing, everything about it was criminal.
29:53From start to finish, I probably spent two years investigating all of this.
30:02In one of the letters that Shimlong Lentong Tai sent, he wants to shoot 15 rhinos a month.
30:12I will pay this and this and this.
30:15And he signs it.
30:16Hello.
30:17You know, so that was also his very incriminating evidence.
30:23He was selling this stuff for maybe $40,000 a kilo.
30:30So he was making a big fat profit.
30:33He lived in this bit of a fantasy world where he saw himself as, you know, kind of international criminal mastermind,
30:41which he wasn't because he made the fatal flaw of documenting each and every single one of the criminal transactions they did with the camera and by keeping the documents.
30:50So he did what no criminal in their right mind should ever do and took pictures of every single crime they committed.
30:57It was when Shimlong came back to South Africa.
31:06They were waiting for him at the airport.
31:08They detained him.
31:09They took the laptop away from him.
31:11And then they began analyzing that evidence.
31:13And there were literally thousands of pictures.
31:15Every hunt, every permit issued.
31:18There were emails on the Gmail account, which was sent with the passports of people that they were using as hunters.
31:26I don't see any difference from what the accused has done to an action of an approach.
31:43Which was not for trophy hunting, but specifically for to be involved in horn trading.
31:51I don't want to see a situation where my grandchildren will actually only be able to see a rhino in the newspaper or on the photo without being able to go to a park or a zoo to touch a rhino.
32:06But I think it's time that the Asian bloc people should actually get a clear message that the South Africans are not going to allow such particular things.
32:18Sentence altogether is about 40 years.
32:21The accuser said by sentence to undergo 40 years in Brisbane.
32:25The South African authorities at that stage didn't have a centralized permit database, so they couldn't track the issuing of rhino hunting permits in real time.
32:46And that allowed these hunts to continue for the better part of a decade.
32:51And at the end of that decade, they implemented effectively a ban on hunters from Vietnam, from Thailand, from China and various other places.
33:01But what they didn't think is that the syndicates keep evolving.
33:04So the next thing you start seeing fluctuation in hunters from the Czech Republic, from Poland.
33:10They put énșor aan aan aan aan aan aan aan aan aan aan aan aan aan aan aan aan aan aan aan aan aan aan aan afsiundur
33:29In terms of illegal rhino-horn trade, we were alarmed by an error in veterinary records...
33:38records. Instead of indicating Czech Republic, the perps put down the actual
33:44country of destination, Vietnam.
33:48There was a ban on rhino horn imports from South Africa in force in Vietnam, so
33:57they used Czech Republic as a transit country.
34:03Perpetrators usually involved a pseudo-hunter who was offered a free trip to
34:08South Africa. Most of these people had no hunting experience.
34:16We strived to expose how the criminal group operated. Specifically, it was a
34:23group of Vietnamese nationals who were functioning in the local Vietnamese market.
34:32It's a fascinating phenomenon. It's like a little Vietnam. We call that place
34:37little Hanoi.
34:39There are around 10,000 Vietnamese traders there. They have Vietnamese schools,
34:46kindergartens and hospitals. It's like one country within another country. All sorts
34:52of companies there organize the transport of goods to Vietnam. This channel was
34:57often used for smuggling contraband.
35:03We first discovered a group of pseudo-hunters whose names were used in import operations.
35:10The storage space was rented by a Czech woman from Duby in the Teplice district in northern
35:15Czechia. A Vietnamese trader managed the operation. People subject to debt enforcement proceedings
35:22don't really go hunting in South Africa. We screened all of these hunters, a total of 75 people. Three
35:34out of four of them no longer had the horns. We later tried to convince our colleagues from Slovakia,
35:44Poland and other European countries to screen hunters among their citizens and find all those who had hunted rhinos.
35:58Notifications from the neighboring Czechia drove us to look into the matter here. We gathered all the information that we had. We directed the case to the police headquarters with a request to verify if there had been any illegal rhino horn.
36:05trade taking place.
36:30When we started asking around what happened to the horns that were brought into Poland, it turned out that they were disappearing.
36:44We started visiting the hunters one by one. Wherever we checked, we practically hit the jackpot. The horns were gone and the guy couldn't talk straight.
36:59All of that showed me that I was going in the right direction. We reached this guy who doesn't have the horns. So he starts explaining to us what had happened to them, who took them over.
37:18That's how we found the main perpetrator.
37:23That's how we found the main perpetrator, Xiegosz Pi.
37:31For many years he was in charge of managing a hunting office. He also prepared hunting trophies. And he organized trips to Africa to hunt for various animals.
37:45As he explained to us, the first persons he went hunting with were people from his immediate surroundings.
37:54These people had never before participated in hunting trips to Africa and probably couldn't even afford them.
38:03He personally paid for their trips. Once they were there, he even shot for some of them.
38:10He was a very proud of them. He was a very proud of them.
38:16The redmond and the redmond of police around the world.
38:21The redmond of police around the world.
38:26In those years, about 60 Polish hunters participated in rhino hunts.
38:33This could mean about 120 rhino horns were brought into our country.
38:39The price for rhino horn fluctuated around 13,000 to 27,000 US dollars per pound.
38:45Tens of millions of zlotes could have been pumped this way into black markets.
38:5734 people were under investigation, most of them hunters.
39:05The group also included Vietnamese nationals who initiated the criminal activity.
39:10They organized everything, and facilitated sales of these trophies in the black market.
39:29Do you know what this is about?
39:31Yes, a rhino.
39:33Pacek offered me participation in a rhino hunt at a bargain price.
39:44He mentioned there would be about a 50% discount.
39:50The price was still high, though.
39:53It was supposed to be around $35,000.
39:56Shortly before the trip, he said that the price could be even lower than that.
40:01The condition was that he would keep the rhino horn, and I could keep the hide.
40:09That's basically what happened.
40:11I never expected to have such problems because of this.
40:15What were you supposed to get?
40:16The original horn or some copy?
40:19What were the specifics?
40:22I was supposed to get a copy.
40:25That's why I didn't have to pay for the hunting of the rhino.
40:31Mr. Pacek took the original horn with him, and he gave the hunters plastic ones instead.
40:40An entire display piece.
40:44I have it at home.
40:47It doesn't have the original horn.
40:49Only a plastic one.
40:51It makes no difference to me.
40:57I don't need the real thing.
40:59The trophy looks great with the plastic horn.
41:02The worst punishment for them would be to have their gun licenses revoked.
41:19But that hasn't happened to this day yet.
41:23Now things are as they were, and everyone's happy.
41:27They keep going on hunting trips and enjoying their hobby.
41:32They're making their dream come true by capturing the best possible trophy.
41:36They're making their dream come true.
41:41To save everybody.
41:47To save everybody.
41:55To save everybody.
41:56To save everybody.
42:04To save everybody.
42:04To save everybody.
42:05I don't know.
42:35So, let's go.
43:05It was still standing after the first shot.
43:10Great job.
43:11You knocked down the second one.
43:13Like a pro.
43:15I aimed at the shoulder blade.
43:23Just be sure.
43:27They're shaking hands, half-having.
43:35I've actually never seen a footage of this.
43:48It's, um...
43:50Steve is dating.
43:57You know, we just gotta wake up.
44:13People just need to wake up, honestly.
44:14It just makes me so angry.
44:15Um...
44:17Just...
44:20Just be good.
44:21Just be kind.
44:23Just make the right choice.
44:26You know, how hard is that?
44:27To just be a decent person.
44:33Surely it should not be so hard to just be a decent person.
44:36I hope that through this production,
44:48maybe this footage reaches some of the people who've participated in this
44:53and they can just pause for a moment and reflect and maybe change.
44:57Maybe just decide, maybe I made a mistake.
44:59Maybe this is not who I want to be.
45:00Maybe I'd like my legacy to be something more positive.
45:07You know, something that has contributed to the planet,
45:11not just taken life.
45:21The video that we saw,
45:23that was not an old animal.
45:27That was an animal in his prime.
45:29In my mind and my understanding,
45:32when permits are issued for ethical hunting,
45:35you would need to select an animal that is no longer reproductive,
45:39whether it's a female or a male.
45:42So it would be an older rhino
45:43who's reaching the end of their lifespan anyway,
45:46and we've had the full benefit of his or her reproductive years.
45:51That would make sense to me.
45:52I would have no ethical problem with that.
45:55I mean, look, I would still struggle with this,
45:58but I wouldn't, I wouldn't,
46:01like, we have to accept
46:02that ethical hunting is part of conservation.
46:05That is not the crime.
46:07The crime is taking the wrong animal
46:09and then on selling the horn
46:11into a consumptive market
46:13that we're trying to,
46:14that we're trying to change,
46:15we're trying to stop.
46:17That's killing an animal
46:17and driving it towards extinction.
46:20Africa have a set of laws
46:30that allow private people
46:32to own land and to own wildlife.
46:35What it has done
46:36in a situation like South Africa,
46:39it's grown our population of rhino
46:42so that more than 60% of this country's rhino
46:45now belong to private people.
46:46The only reason why we own rhino
46:53is because either you're passionate
46:54in conservation or you're absolutely crazy
46:57because of the incredibly high risk
47:01of the rhino being poached and killed.
47:05We're not doing it for money
47:06because it's impossible to make money
47:08from rhino conservation in South Africa today.
47:10My name is Pelham Jones
47:17and I've been involved
47:19with rhino conservation
47:20for 30, 35 years.
47:24We have sadly lost two rhino
47:27on this reserve.
47:29In total, we've arrested 34 poachers.
47:33These were armed gangs
47:34coming in with the intention
47:36to come and kill our rhino.
47:38So we have to not only be rhino conservationists,
47:43we also have to be soldiers,
47:45rhino soldiers.
47:50Julian is right, sir.
47:52If you are ready to go,
47:53then we can go for the first one or two animals.
47:56No problem, I'm ready to go.
47:57I don't know if Adams has briefed you,
48:00but there's some animals
48:01basically to the due north of us.
48:05Okay.
48:05And then Adams.
48:07Yeah, well, let's start.
48:07That's Adams.
48:26Okay.
48:27We're going to dart some rhino.
48:28Okay.
48:35All right, you guys, you're back.
48:41Okay, Julian, we copy.
48:43All right, we've got a rhino.
48:45You guys can head here towards the east.
48:49Okay, we're loading up.
48:51We're on our way.
48:57Come ahead.
48:58Frontier where we are now,
49:00there's a road that turns left.
49:01Okay, we copy that.
49:18We're on mobile.
49:19Is the darting, Julian?
49:37Yeah, I'm darting.
49:38Okay, you can go forward and pull the next road
49:49that turns left.
49:52Copy.
49:57And then just go forward,
49:59go forward, go forward.
50:00Go forward.
50:00Go forward, go forward, go forward.
50:30His eye might be open on the other side.
50:32Okay.
50:36Okay.
50:37I need to get another mask.
50:40Okay.
50:40The dart caught him in the fat,
50:58so it takes longer for it to work.
51:05There we go.
51:06The hornet.
51:06I think so big often is off, son.
51:18By dehorning the rhino,
51:20we are reducing the amount of horn available to the poachers.
51:24The less amount of horn on the animal,
51:34the less probability it is that this animal is going to be poached.
51:38So for that reason,
51:39even though it's a very small piece on this backhorn,
51:42we will still rather remove it.
51:44Lift the head a little bit, then you can pull that out.
52:03Two, three.
52:04And another two, three.
52:06There you go.
52:06Nice way.
52:07Okay.
52:07Brilliant.
52:08Okay, guys.
52:09Thanks, Pelham.
52:10It really went well.
52:11I'm glad we could do this.
52:12I'm disappearing now.
52:13Good, good.
52:24Want to be higher?
52:25At the moment,
52:48the dead animal is worth much more than when they are alive.
52:51And that equation will equal extinction.
52:55It has to.
52:56Yeah.
53:21Today we did go have a look,
53:23see what we can find.
53:25But it just got too overgrown.
53:27So I'm hoping,
53:27I'm pretty sure she is there,
53:29but we just don't know where.
53:32Because the last was Reception Dam,
53:34and they tend to go down Yati Valley quite often.
53:38So we're hoping for the best.
53:41Come on.
53:41Come on, Queen Tandi.
53:44Grace us with your presence.
53:45Three years after her poaching incident in January 2015,
53:54she surprised the world by giving birth to her first calf,
53:57a little girl that was called Tembi in honor of Temba
54:00and as a beacon of hope for her species.
54:03Her second calf was born when my dad passed away.
54:20And, sorry, it's always a little bit emotional.
54:24And we were gathered as a family before his funeral.
54:27I got a message on my phone from the anti-poaching unit
54:30to say, Tandi's given birth.
54:31And we kind of looked at each other and said,
54:34well, if it's a boy,
54:35obviously he's got to be called Colin,
54:37which is my dad's name.
54:38So that was just a moment where everyone paused
54:41and felt the sense of accomplishment
54:43that saving just one rhino
54:44had already brought two back.
54:48And since then,
54:50Tandi has given birth to a calf every two years.
54:52She's an incredible mother and breeding cow.
54:55And she's now left a legacy of five rhino,
54:58five calves and two grand calves.
55:01What's that?
55:02I see it.
55:03I'm just hoping.
55:04Is that not an anthill?
55:05That's what I'm not too sure.
55:07It's not moving.
55:08But it does look like a curve over the back.
55:10Oh, my God.
55:34You're such a star.
55:36I'm Laku of Tandi and Mapping Fund,
55:39eastern part of Nyaki Valley.
55:44She's just incredible.
55:47Come on.
55:49Come on.
55:49You can never get enough of seeing Tandi.
55:58She likes voices.
56:00Maybe we should talk a little bit and see if...
56:01She's definitely curious.
56:03She's definitely curious.
56:05She's standing there.
56:05She's turned around full circle
56:06and she's still looking at us.
56:07It's very difficult for us,
56:18for ordinary people,
56:19to talk about poaching
56:20because it's just...
56:21It's so horrific and so gruesome
56:23that you can't even go there.
56:25But because she's had a happy ending...
56:26She's been a huge spokesperson
56:34for her species globally.
56:40I still think we have a chance
56:42to turn this around.
56:43We cannot do it alone.
56:45We need the international community
56:46to understand the mechanics of this crisis
56:50and to help us wherever they can to stop it.
56:53Because if humans continue to do
56:58these kind of things
56:59to animals that are so important
57:02to our survival,
57:03but also just so innocent
57:05and so undeserving
57:07of that kind of treatment,
57:08it says a lot about
57:10who we are as human beings
57:11and the pathway that we are taking
57:13as a species on this planet.
57:23So,
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