Called by the Wild - The Dogs Trained to Protect Wildlife

Barely out of his teens, one of Conraad’s first brushes with the reality of life at the frontline of conservation was when he shot the leader of a poaching gang during an ambush in Windy Ridge game reserve. The family of the dead man vowed to kill Conraad and so, for his own safety, he was moved off the reserve. His later work at Bongani Mountain Lodge led to his discovering a hundred new pieces of San rock art on the reserve. Much of Con’s work involving dogs is a continuous struggle against industrial scale bushmeat poachers, who strangle game in snares, an even greater threat to wildlife than rhino horn poachers as the over-burdened courts seem interested only in endangered species. He also works to catch poachers of critically endangered pangolins, the most trafficked animal in the world. Con decided to use his almost telepathic rapport with dogs to tackle the poaching crisis sweeping South Africa. His first anti-poaching dog, a Weimaraner named Zingela, became an inseparable companion. Zingela saved Conraad’s life on numerous occasions – once when Conraad was about to be assassinated by two fellow rangers hired by poachers; on another, by killing a puff adder just as Conraad was about to step on it. Zingela was tragically killed when hit by a car while Conraad was away in a nearby town. The only meagre consolation was that Con had kept Landa, one of the nine puppies that Zingela had sired. Landa followed his father’s footsteps as the alpha male of the canine anti-poaching team that is still operating today. Con’s story is an epic of modern-day African wildlife conservation, spiced with adventure, courage and romance.