When you do something you love, life tends to start and stop with that thing. You can’t look beyond it and can’t imagine life without it.
This is true for Willy Bisaso, a wildlife ranger at Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary in Nakasongola district. When he hears of fights between Captain Roy Ziwa, the former owner of the sanctuary, and its new managers, the Rhino Fund Uganda under Angie Genade, it terrifies him.
What if the court ‘blunders’ and breaks up the sanctuary? What would be his next step? His worries are not so many because he would have lost a job, but more to do with his love for wildlife and the rhinos.
Bisaso, born in Nyakitoma village in Nakasongola district, joined Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary in 2010, after finishing his senior six. There was a job advertisement for rangers; he applied and emerged the best candidate. He was given the job. He knew nothing about wildlife, all the knowledge he has now was acquired on the job.
“I liked wild animals. I always wanted to know more about them. It was a dream come true when they gave me a job here at the sanctuary,” Bisaso says with a grin.
Day in life of a ranger
Before he rose through the ranks to become an assistant operations manager in charge of deployment, Bisaso was a ranger, deployed to monitor the daily activities of rhinos.
Ziwa rhino sanctuary is the only place outside Uganda Wildlife Education Center, where rhinos are found in Uganda. Due to political unrest in the country from the 1970s to 1980s, rhinos got extinct in the wild.
The last one ever recorded in the wild was in 1983. With 30 rhinos at Ziwa and two at UWEC, Uganda now boasts of 32 rhinos. They should have been 33; one has since died at Ziwa as a result of fights.
Therefore, there is a lot of security around rhinos so that they breed quickly and get reintroduced in the wild especially in the national parks where they once roamed. It’s this desire to protect them so that they reproduce without any dangers that has the sanctuary deploying rangers on a 24-hour surveillance.
Therefore, the life of a ranger begins and ends with keeping an eye on the rhinos.
“We used to be deployed for 12 hours in the bush to monitor the rhinos; we still do.
Every hour you note down their itinerary. What food are they eating? What time are they sleeping and are they taking water? Are they fighting or mating? Who are they mating with? All this helps us to understand their behavior. We can tell when they are sick so that a doctor comes in,” Bisaso says.
After every 12 hours, rangers are changed but the routine remains the same. No wonder Bisaso has become so attached to his charges. Away from the animals, some rangers are also deployed along the solar electric fence to monitor activities there so that the fence is not breached by either poachers or the rhinos themselves.
“The power on the fence can’t stop rhinos from exiting. If they come running, they will go through it or if they fight and one pushes the colleague on the fence, they will break it and exit. But if they come walking, they will be shocked and hence be pushed back,” Bisaso says.
On the side of poaching, the rhino horn is one of the most prized wildlife items. Currently, a kilo of the horn goes for about $45,000 (about Shs 166m) yet a mature horn can weigh up to seven kilos. Bisaso says his worst nightmare used to come with the rains that would render many parts of the park unnavigable.
“You might be deployed to monitor rhinos that move in the mud yet you have to follow them and stay there throughout the night. You can’t afford to abandon them because every hour you are called from the control room to give account of what’s happening with the group you are following. Currently we have 12 groups of rhinos,” Bisasos says.
With modern technology of chipping and microchipping, one would think it would not be necessary to physically monitor the animals. But Bisaso says, technology can be compromised.
“Due to modern poaching, we want to make sure that the rhinos are safe. If you tag the animal, it becomes very easy for the poacher to hack into the system and kill it. That’s why we guard them physically. Perhaps this explains why we have been successful because we have not lost any animal to poaching since 2005. There was an attempt in 2009 to poach them but it failed,” Bisaso says.
Asked about his main challenges associated with the job he has done for the last 10 years, Bisaso says working with people is not an easy thing. Some tourists have really a temper that dealing with them is a real job. However, like they say, in the problem, lies the solution.
“Because they are just tourists, after two to three days, they will be gone; so, you don’t have to put up with them for long. Tomorrow you will have another group who are the opposite of those throwing temper tantrums,” Bisaso says.
On the side of the rhinos, Bisaso says they are very friendly giant beasts that only become aggressive when provoked, especially when they are mating. A few times they have tried to charge at him although on all occasions, it has ended in a good laugh.
Friends with the community
Angie Genade, the executive director of Rhino Fund Uganda that currently runs the sanctuary, says they have managed to see the sanctuary grow from four rhinos to 30, because of the good working relationship they have with the community. For example, they have allowed cattle keepers to graze their animals, 3,000 of them, in the sanctuary.
“Rhinos and cattle have a symbiotic relationship; having cattle on the sanctuary as much as it’s assisting the community, it’s assisting us too in managing the biodiversity and the vegetation as well,” Genade says.
It’s also under this close relationship with the community that the sanctuary decided to employ 80 former fishermen to manage biodiversity. Using the UPDF, the government put a temporary ban on fishing on Lake Kyoga to allow fish to regenerate after years of extinctive fishing.
“The sanctuary is really [overgrown] with trees and invasive species such as lantana camara which are creating a situation where grass is not growing like it should be. To allow that growth, there is need to remove these invasive species and some of the smaller young trees and this is beneficial to both parties,” Genade says.
She adds that one of their funders was also looking for a community project to fund; therefore, it was important to assist the fishermen until the ban on fishing is lifted.
Not more than 50
Much as the sanctuary is big enough to accommodate as many as 150 rhinos, Genade says they can’t go beyond 50. She says they see the sanctuary as a breeding hub for rhinos that when they hit the 50 mark, they will have to send them to other sanctuaries or to national parks where they once existed.
“We would like to keep 40 or at the very most 50 rhinos, because it’s a tourism destination and the activity we offer tourists is on-the-foot rhino tracking. It’s safe enough to do that with the 30 rhinos that we have got; the moment you go way beyond that number, you’re creating a very dangerous situation for your tourists,” Genade says.
Currently Uganda has only Southern White rhinos, but Genade says there is a conversation to reintroduce the most endangered black rhinos, especially in their former habitats at Kidepo Valley national park and Pian Upe wildlife reserve.
Key to success in conservation
Genade says the key to success in wildlife conservation lies in knowing the animals you are working with and your staff having the patience for them.
“Then the community in which you are working. If you are at war with your community, you will not succeed. I’m not saying you give them whatever they are asking for but, rather, finding a healthy working environment with that community whereby both parties can benefit,” Genade says.
Relationship with UWA
Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), a government body with the mandate to manage all wildlife in Uganda, signed a memorandum of understanding with Rhino Fund Uganda to manage Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary on their behalf. They, however, provide them with rangers and a warden who helps in the management of the sanctuary.
“These animals belong to the people of Uganda, we are just custodians,” Genade says.
The biggest challenge, Genade says, was money to maintain the sanctuary. But this was turned around albeit not fully, the moment they opened up the sanctuary to tourism. They are currently grappling with poor roads that make navigation impossible especially when it rains like it is this season. They also have a problem of fixing the electric fence when it breaks down, which is quite often.
“These are challenges we can overcome, they are not pulling us down to the extent that we can’t operate.”