WATCH | Poachers no obstacle for Bullet and his ranger dogs
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They don’t call him Bullet for nothing.
The Addo Elephant National Park detection and controlled aggression specialist was put through his paces on Thursday to celebrate the park’s receipt of a custom-made ranger dog obstacle course and to welcome their new conservation manager, Cathy Dreyer.
Faced with a simulated escaping poacher situation, at a word from his handler Ismail Mathyse, 36, Bullet covered 50m in a flash, sprang and crunched his teeth into the left forearm of the hapless “suspect” (Mathyse’s colleague Thuthukani Gumede), dragging him to a halt and presenting him for arrest.
Earlier, he took less than a minute to sniff out two rounds of ammunition concealed in a bakkie, signalling his success with excited yelps.
The course, constructed by the Honorary Ranger corps in partnership with local sponsors, is aimed at keeping Bullet and Addo’s three other ranger dogs sharp and ready to contribute to the conservation mandate of the park, which is the third biggest in SA.
Dreyer began her career at Addo 20 years ago and returns after working for 12 years in SANParks’s game capture unit, managing the Great Fish Nature Reserve for the Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency, and then heading up SANParks’s black rhino surveillance unit in the Kruger National Park.
Joining in the applause for Bullet, she said she was excited about her new position.
“I feel incredibly privileged to be a part of such a passionate and committed team of rangers,” she said.