[00:00:00] Speaker A: Have you ever wondered what it takes to create a world where wild dogs and endangered carnivore species can not only survive, but thrive? How are conservationists making this dream a reality in an environment as tough as the Kalahari desert?
Welcome to rewildology, the nature show that explores the human side of conservation, travel, and rewilding the planet. I am your host, Brooke Mitchell, conservation biologist and adventure traveler.
Today we are traveling to Zimbabwe to meet an inspiring man, Wilton Insomngo, who is changing the future for wild dogs and children. After teaching in the country's education sector for 17 years, Wilton felt called to work in wildlife conservation and joined the painted dog conservation in 2004.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: All the way back then, PDC's mission.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: Is to create an environment where painted dogs can thrive. From the frontline antipoching unit tirelessly patrolling to the rehabilitation facility caring for injured and orphaned dogs, the organization's multifaceted efforts showcase a commitment to safeguarding the future of painted dog populations.
But PDC's impact doesn't end with wildlife alone. And you guessed it, this is where Wilton's expertise comes into play. PDC also has a robust education program that includes a children's bushcamp, a visitor center at the entrance to wingy National park, collaborative art projects, conservation clubs, and community gardens. All of this to improve wild dog survival and local communities quality of life. So whether you're a conservation educator, carnivore specialist, or just a wildlife enthusiast, as most of us are, join me as we explore the dynamic intersection of conservation education and community upliftment in this inspiring episode with Wilton Instamongo and the Painted Dog conservation team.
But really quickly, before I let you go, please be sure to rate and review this show through Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast app and share this episode with a friend.
Please tag us at rewildology to let us know your thoughts about today's conversation. I love hearing from you and reading everything that you put out there.
All right, everyone, please enjoy this heartwarming conversation with Wilton.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: Well, hi, Wilton. Thank you so much for sitting down with me today, all the way from Zimbabwe.
I love that country. I cannot wait to talk about one of my favorite predators of all time with you. But please, so that everybody can get to know you, introduce yourself. Who are you? What do you do? And then also tell us, where does your story begin?
[00:03:10] Speaker C: All right, thank you very much, Brooke. My name is Wilton Nsemango, born and bred in Zimbabwe. I work for painted dog conservation as education and community development programs manager at generally, you know, I'm a teacher by profession, and being a teacher, I was very much interested in environmental science subjects, which basically became my entry point to wildlife conservation.
I've worked with the minister of education for 17 years. Then I left and joined painted dog conservation. And I've been here for 19 years. So you can make up your mats and see how much I've worked with children.
That's the short and short story of myself.
[00:04:13] Speaker B: Wow.
I feel like that is way too short for that many years of doing what you do.
[00:04:20] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: I think one of my big questions is, after being a teacher for 17 years, you did that for so long, why did you feel the need to switch to wildlife conservation? I mean, they're related, but they're also not at the exact same time. So what made you feel like you needed to pursue this other career?
[00:04:46] Speaker C: There were two things, basically.
First of all, my passion for science was the driver behind everything that I did.
And the other thing is that the schools where I worked were in close proximity with wildlife. So the people around here survived on tourism, they survived on wildlife operations around their areas. So there was a lot of connection between humans and wildlife. Yet at the same time, there was an escalation of poaching activities that was going on which needed an abatement in one way or the other. Hence the establishment of an education program by paying the dog conservation, which would be a stopgap measure between human and wildlife conflict.
[00:05:53] Speaker B: So was it one of those, like, did you like your previous job, and then you saw this posting and you felt called to go be a part of the solution, essentially. Is that what happened?
[00:06:04] Speaker C: I've always liked working with children, turning children's minds upside down and make sure at the end of the day, they come up with something that they are proud of. So it was within those parameters that I felt I was going to be a best fit to actually inculcate positive attitude and behavior in the children that live in the peripheries of Wanga National park?
[00:06:35] Speaker B: So cool. It's so special to sit down with a child educator. I really haven't had many on the show before, so, yeah, get ready for lots of questions about all the things, because I have.
Okay, great.
So now you're at painted dog conservation 19 years ago.
Maybe let's have a little context about what these animals are. So why wild dogs? Why did you feel like you wanted to help conserve this particular species?
[00:07:11] Speaker C: Let me begin from when I was still a teacher.
It so happened that on my first trip into Wange National Park, I came across a pack of dogs with puppies, and I was so fascinated by the playing, the running around. I had never seen dogs before. It was my first time, so I fell in love with them, and I was like, wow, there's a lot of stories about dogs, meats and all the kind. But here I am right in front of the painted dogs that I have always had stories about, and I had never seen them before. So I definitely said to myself one day, I would want to work with these animals. And it so happened that I think it was probably the following year that painted dog conservation flighted an advert that they wanted an environmental education officer to actually design and establish an education program that would turn around the communities and become the best friends of wildlife. Then I said, this is my job.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: Wow. You manifested it like you had this moment, and then it just became real. That is amazing. So I think right now will be a really great time. Let's talk about these dogs for a second.
[00:08:44] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:08:45] Speaker B: What are painted dogs? Why are they so unique and so special? And then also maybe could you also explain why are they having such a hard time right now? So all of those things right now just give us, like, a mini lecture on dogs.
[00:09:00] Speaker C: Okay.
All right. Painted dog.
It's got many names. Some people call it african wild dog. Some people call them painted wolf and all that kind. Some call them painted hunting dogs. African painted hunting, all those names. But the correct scientific name is lichen pictures.
Because of the multicolors.
It's a protected species right now in Zimbabwe.
It's one of the unique animals that are found in, well, not many parts of Zimbabwe, probably a few national parks, conorejo, manapoles, Wange National park, and some pockets of the country here and there. But generally, painted dogs are those kind of species that have a unique family structure.
They live in families, they look after each other. And the most important thing is that one member of the painted dog pack has its own unique responsibility in the pack, besides having its own pattern, different from everybody else. But they have a role to play, which if one of them dies either in a snare or in a roadkill, that responsibility has to be shouldered by somebody else in the pack, and that becomes a difficult task for everybody to survive.
At the present moment, we have six and a half to 7000 dogs left in the wild, and they are only found in Africa and nowhere else in the wild.
We are probably hoping that by the interventions in the next five, six years, ten years, 20 years, the pec sizes will probably improve and probably the population as well, will also increase. But at the moment, that's the numbers that we have.
Looking at the threat in Zimbabwe, generally, the identified threat is poaching.
People set snares in the bush, not for dogs, but they set snares for antelopes, kudos, impalas, dikers and all the like. And that's the same prey species that dogs continue to hunt day in, day out. And by virtue of them being territorial, they happen to go into snares. They become more vulnerable to snares than the impalas and kudos themselves. So that's one of the biggest threats that we have identified.
The other one is roadkills. We have a lot of territories, painted dog territories that are either between communities or there's a road that passes right in the middle of the park, and it's a highway, kind of hard road, speeding cars and all the like. So we have lost quite a number of dogs in road kills. And the other threat is habitat loss.
When people take over wildlife territories or areas to recycle communities, the dogs lose their place, their habitat, and that reduction means reduction even in their prey species and all that kind. So it's one of those threats. But if you look at everything, most of the threats are human induced.
It's only disease that is natural, which is not very much, although at some point we had an issue with distemper and rabies, but we always try to contain those kind of threats. But poaching and roadkills are coming, tops. So those are some of the threats.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's a lot. And so let's then talk about some of the solutions, and maybe could you give a little backstory about how painted dog conservation came to be, and then we'll go into how you all are working into solving it. But, yeah, maybe give us a little bit of context. So clearly there was an obvious need. These predators are incredible. They're filling a complete different niche in these ecosystems, and they're living with lions and leopards and all of these other big predators that they're competing with, but they're doing what they do so uniquely, and it's very important that we keep them. So. Okay, great. There was a need identified. Why did painted dog conservation get started? How and why, maybe even when too. So maybe a little bit of history on that too, will really help paint this picture.
[00:14:33] Speaker C: All right.
Painted dog conservation was basically started, I think, in 1998, around that time when somebody, I think came all the way from United Kingdom, if my memory serves me well, to do a research on these african wild dogs. And hence when know doctorate student left, we decided that something has to be done.
And painted dog conservation started at that particular point. But mainly what was identified during that research was more of the threats that I've just mentioned. It was more about animal behavior. How do dogs behave? How do they look after each other?
In each peg there is an alpha male, there's an alpha female.
The other PEC members just assist in upbringing of the rest of the puppies and all that kind. So that's how most of the activities that we are doing today started. But most importantly, the threats themselves have kind of been the leading vision behind everything.
We painted dog conservation, we thrive. We want to create a conducive environment where painted dogs can thrive. That's our mission.
And how do we do it? We do it through action and education.
The action part refers to the research work that is done monitoring of pecs in Wanga National park and outside Wanga National park. We also have a rehabilitation center nearby where in the event that we find injured dog or sick dogs, we bring them to the rehabilitation center, engage veterinary doctors from the local government doctors or even private doctors here. And then we make sure that that dog is released back into the wild. And a good story around that is that we have one of the alpha females that was brought into the rehab and was released back many years back. And when we try to trace, we are probably looking at more than 130 something dogs that came offsprings from that particular dog. So if we had not rehabilitated that dog, we would have lost all those 137 dogs that have been offsprings from Vasile.
The other action is the antipoching unit where we have rangers that patrol every day trying to remove snares from the bush and making sure that the environment where dogs hunt and everything is conducive for their survivor. And that's part of one of the action.
And then the education part, that's my baby. That's where I come in.
It's the institute conservation education program that we designed for local school children.
We actually have a four days camp free of charge for the children. They don't pay anything.
And we bring them into camp and teach them conservation concepts, wildlife concepts, nature, everything that has to do with their surrounding, because they live just adjacent to the national park. So it's a very important aspect for them to understand how to coexist.
So that's a program that normally takes us the whole year because we don't leave any school behind. We make sure that all the primary schools that surround Wanganesa park, they come into the camp, and at the moment, as I speak, we probably have taken 13,000 plus children into the amazing. Yeah. Since we started. So that's what we have covered in terms of the local population.
And just that makes us so proud of what we have been doing. And of late, the most interesting part of it is that the children that are coming to the bush camp now, their parents came to the bush camp when they were grade sixes.
So now the generation gap, we're closing it. We are almost there.
We also have conservation clubs. When the children go back to school, we don't just say, okay, you're done with the education program. Bye bye. No, we follow them up, and then we have activities that they undertake back at school.
And those are some of the activities that include competitions.
They have other environmental friendly activities like tree planting, gallery reclamation, cleanup campaigns, all those kind of activities that engage them with the nature that they live around.
And we also have community meetings. We do conduct community meetings where we meet traditional leaders, engage them, show them how best it is to live, to coexist with wildlife, because in a way, we always make sure that people understand that they are not going to move to any other place besides where they are, and the animals are not going to move to any other place besides where they are. So the only thing is to coexist, understand behavior of these animals, understand how best we can engage each other, the animals and the people.
Okay.
[00:21:44] Speaker B: Wow.
Oh, my gosh. That's incredible. You're doing so many amazing things, and I love that. How you said, these people are going to live here, the wildlife is going to live here. So we got to be good neighbors somehow.
[00:21:58] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:22:02] Speaker B: Okay.
I want to go way back in time. I want to go back to when you first came to painted out conservation.
Do you remember what were the shortcomings of the education program at that time, and how did you decide to tackle those?
[00:22:20] Speaker C: That's a very interesting question.
When I came in, there had been attempts to design the education program the way that it is today.
There were bigger percentage of the design and crafting of the program had already been done. But when I got to take up the position of environmental education officer, the first thing that I identified was the language barrier.
The design was in English.
The lessons were going to be conducted in English.
Yet the local people, the local students, had a difficulty in comprehending the english language. So I said, there is no way we can spend four days trying to teach a concept in a language that the children are not going to understand at the end of the four days, they will go back home blank without any understanding. Then we started to redo the program in the local language.
So we have kind of become the crazy people that teach science in local language, and we have managed to do it.
That's the highlight of what happened when I came in. And furthermore, there were some activities that really were not aligned to the national curriculum of environmental science. So I brought them in in place of others that I thought were kind of too alien because the person who was really in charge of the Design and everything was an american.
And when I came in, I'm like, okay, this will work in America. It can, but here it will need to be designed this way, this way, this way. And we agreed, and this is the education program that we are still using today.
The achievements that we have seen within that is that now painted dog conservation has a deliberate policy to employ only those that have gone through the education program.
So if there is one position at it's, we first of all look for former Bushcamp students, then we give them that job if they qualify.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: That's so cool. Okay, great. Yeah, I can definitely see how everything that you said, it would take somebody like you to identify that. So just how special that you came.
One of the main reasons why I want to go through all of this is because designing a proper education program, especially about carnivores, is not easy. And there might be someone listening that has.
They're trying to do that, or maybe someone listening is trying to think of a different way. How do I approach this? How do I make people care? And to hear how you came in and you did this, and you've been doing this for two decades now. So I think it's so powerful and so impactful. And one of my next questions that is related to that.
How do you talk about the dogs? What is the language that you use that I don't know if you find a way to connect the kids with them, or just maybe could you go a little bit into that? How do you refer to them? Because I'm a scientist, so sometimes I can be very science heavy, and that's not always the best way to do it, or vice versa, or it could be, too. There's not enough science. So, yeah. How do you approach that actual description of the dogs and how do we understand them?
[00:26:34] Speaker C: All right, like I said, I've been in education for quite some time.
I know how the best approaches that the children will understand even better.
And it's always about taking everything to the level of the children. Themselves.
We actually have activities that engage them quite a lot. They see dogs when they are here. We talk about dogs when they are really looking at the dogs that we have at the rear. So we are not talking about something that is not there. When we talk about camouflage, we talk about the big ears, we talk about the white tail and all that kind. They are looking at the species. It's different than when they talk about these animals from a picture at school. Here, it's more practical.
We also take the children into the park. We drive them. We have got a safari bus that we take the students into the bus, drive them into the park. They go and see animals in a different perspective. Normally, they would come across these animals confrontationally.
Crop raiding elephants, lion predation. That's the only way they see and come across these animals. But here is an opportunity where they actually see the animals themselves in their own habitat, and they change totally the way they look at things. And we also use drama.
We give them a script before they come and they try to memorize it. And then they come and act it in front of others at the camp. And that's an exciting moment for them. And they love it so much. So it's one of the ways it's different methodology that we use to approach each and every lesson. And we make sure it's captivating. It keeps them on their toes. It makes sure that the children understand the main concepts in a simpler manner.
We don't dictate things to them. For example, our children are not very much used to computers, but here at the bush camp we have computers. They use them in a very simple manner. They go through the whole exercise at two and a half hours, going through some activities using the click and track only on the computers. And they love it. You can actually give them a lesson. And once they are engaged, you can leave them for an hour. They won't realize you are not there.
[00:29:47] Speaker B: Wow. That's absolutely incredible. I think it just makes sense then.
So take me through the itinerary. So this four day bush camp. So what exactly does that look like? You've given me a really great smattering of the activities and everything, but maybe put the whole program together that you've built. When the kids show up, what happens next?
[00:30:09] Speaker C: All right, actually, when they don't show up, we go and pick them from the school.
We drive to the school, pick the whole class, whether it's 45 children, we bring all of them to camp. And when they get to camp, the first activity is orientation.
We take them around first of all, we break them into smaller groups, and we call the groups packs.
So in each pack, they have one teacher, our own teachers, our own teachers that we have trained to take charge of the lessons. And then we go through an orientation. And the orientation involves these students. Remember, some of them, they have never been away from home.
It's their first time to be on a trip, kind of. They've never been away from home. They have never slept on a bed.
Some of them, they've never been with friends in the same room. So we kind of take them through. This is how you make a bed. This is your room. This is the mosquito net.
The camp looks like this. The ablutions are this part, and so on and so on. So that becomes the first activity for everybody.
Then when we have broken them into packs now, then they do different activities, which include dogs. They learn about painted dogs through the computer program. They also go to the rehabilitation center where they see dogs for the first time. They go into the park to see animals, different species. There's lots of animals in Wanga National park. They also do tree adaptations, tick, woodland scavenger hunt. Also, they do research. So we literally try to cover everything that has to do with dogs. Dogs feed on kudos. And impalas. And impalas and kudos. They need plants to survive. So we teach a wholesome kind of program. So mainly that's what goes around the whole four days when they're at camp.
[00:32:33] Speaker B: Wow, I wish I had that experience as a kid. This sounds like the coolest camp.
[00:32:39] Speaker C: Everybody wants to be a child one time or the other.
[00:32:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
So let's also talk about this big picture for a second. So what is your greater goal of doing this and specifically focusing on the children aspect of this, especially now that also you've come full circle and you're seeing the next generation? What has come of this? Of educating the kids for the past two decades?
[00:33:07] Speaker C: Yes. Thank you very much for the question. First of all, the children are the future.
They are the custodians of future, the nature that they are living with. They are the custodians of the tradition and the culture and everything. So bringing them along and making sure they understand the concepts around nature conservation becomes a paramount importance.
It is the reason why we brought in the students at an age which is 1112, at an age that we feel is attitudinally soft enough to change from the original or traditional behavior, because our aim is to inculcate positive attitude and behavior towards wildlife conservation. That's all what we do is to make sure when they go back, their attitude has literally a spark that says, we need these animals, we need these trees, we need this grass. These forests are important. We harvest things from them. We need them for our future. And that's what we want the children to go back home with in their minds. And it is along those lines that we have kept the camps going, we have kept the students going. And back to your question of the impact.
We have quite a number of stories that we can tell.
We have had poachers arrested because children did not tolerate the snares that they found in the bush.
[00:35:12] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:35:13] Speaker C: They reported snares that they found in the bush, and straight away a poacher was arrested.
We have had students that have come to the bush camp and they have identified dogs, painted dogs in their community, and they have made reports, something that they would not have done if they had not come to the bush camp.
Even the communities themselves, the communities, the adults, they have changed their behavior in attitude, as far as we can observe, because the reaction of the local communities, if ever there, is wide, maybe livestock tradition or something, their reaction is different than what they would have been before because they understand that they need to coexist with these animals.
We have other organizations, other stakeholders around here that actually are teaching people how to deal with human wildlife conflict. We have lion research people.
They are actually teaching people how to head their kecking so that when keckle are headed by somebody, wild animals will not attack them.
And we have different ways that are kind of interventions which we see in the local communities. And we complement that by making sure the children take part as well in those activities.
[00:36:59] Speaker B: Wow. So cool. Again, I was wondering more of the long term things. So you are actually starting to see real concrete changes from this in the local communities?
[00:37:13] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:37:14] Speaker B: That's incredible.
No, go ahead.
[00:37:18] Speaker C: We have seen quite some changes. Definitely.
[00:37:21] Speaker B: Are dogs increasing in the area around.
[00:37:24] Speaker C: All of a sudden, we have new packs in the area, really, which we did not know about, which we did not have in the past ten years or so. But all of a sudden, we are beginning to have new pecs.
We just get a report that may have dogs at such a point. We rush there, go and check, look for the dogs, only to find it's a peck, but none of them has a collar because most of our pecs, we put collars on them.
And if you find a peck without a collar, it's unknown to us. We have those kind of pecs that we are seeing in the area now.
[00:38:11] Speaker B: Wow, that's incredible. Yeah, that's amazing. So you're actually starting to see an increase in dogs in the past ten years, and now that all this work has been going on. And that's great you answered the adult part, because that's also one of the big questions, is I know that focus, like environmental science, focusing on children, has a great impact.
And it sounds like maybe then a lot of the adult education piece is coming from a lot of ngos that you work with, like lions and other human wildlife coexistence. So that's fantastic. So that answered that question for me.
This next question, let's talk about maybe the difficult side of this. What are some of the lessons that you've had to learn, maybe the hard way about carnivore conservation and communities and education, pretty much just doing what you do.
What were some of the hard lessons that really you walked away from? Better educated, but it was not fun to experience at the time.
[00:39:16] Speaker C: Okay. Yeah, we do have quite some experiences of resistance to change, although it's usually in the new communities that we are beginning to engage. That's where we come across a lot of hostility. At one time, a pack of dogs encroached into a community and they denned there.
And you can imagine when dogs den in the communities, eventually they start feeding on people's goats.
And that becomes a big challenge, because how do you manage to convince people that they actually can coexist with a pack of dogs that is denned behind someone's village? It was a very difficult part, but eventually we managed to talk to the people and we quickly took up an initiative to actually translocate the dogs from the communities.
We had to dig up the den, remove, capture the dogs and dig up the den, pick up the pups, and we took all of them to the rehabilitation center.
That was a big challenge.
And even up to today, that community is very much appreciative of the action that we took because they did not know what to do.
They knew that dogs were endangered species. They couldn't kill them, but here the dogs killing their goats every day. So it was really a difficult one. But we managed to work around that and we removed the dogs from the people, and that was a big challenge, but we did the best that we could.
[00:41:34] Speaker B: And were you able to release them later when they grew up or what was the story with them?
[00:41:40] Speaker C: We brought them into the rehabilitation center and after some time, we actually flew them some 900 km away.
[00:41:52] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:41:54] Speaker C: To a place that has a lot of prey species such that they wouldn't go back in, start marauding communities out there. So, yeah, we had to fly them away.
[00:42:16] Speaker B: That's a fantastic story. I love stories like that. Super. Just real impactful. Like a real big issue, like, how are we going to solve this? And you came in and made it happen. I mean, I completely empathize with that community. Like, what do you do? There's this species that is killing your food, like your livelihood, and logically, you would get rid of them. And so it's very amazing that you guys had the resources to step in and help that pack in that community. And I'm sure, like you said, it sounds like that had a great impact.
[00:42:48] Speaker C: And we were lucky that the traditional leadership was on our side.
[00:42:53] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:42:54] Speaker C: They understood what we were trying to do. They tolerated the dogs for some time, but the most important thing is that they took up the issue of heading their goats. So they were looking after their goats to make sure the dogs don't get near them, because painted dogs normally will not attack humans. They will run away from a human being. If you're heading your goats, the dogs will not snatch a goat from your head of goats in the world.
[00:43:35] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:43:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:43:36] Speaker B: So it was a double positive.
It's like, we took care of the dogs, and you're actually going to start saving your goats from all the other things that want to kill them.
[00:43:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:43:48] Speaker B: So I also want to go back next to the person that is working with children or doing some sort of conservation education program.
What is some advice or what is some tips that you would like to give that particular person, especially somebody that is maybe educating about carnivores, how should they maybe approach their work? What are some good things that you have learned along the way that they should consider? They should include or maybe not include or words or anything. So since you've developed these programs and have had great success, what should that person take away from your knowledge?
[00:44:29] Speaker C: All right, first and foremost, it is very important to understand the culture of that particular community visa vis the wildlife species that are around them.
Once the people know about animals, they are very interested to learn about them. But then if you relate them to their own cultural stories, like I said earlier on, there was a lot of stories about dogs before dogs were considered very vicious.
They would bring down an animal and eat it while still alive. But people did not know that that fast eating habit came about because they are running away from the enemies. They have to eat fast, otherwise they won't eat anything. So it is those stories that you can capture from the local community. Right, in relation to carnivals. If it's tigers, if it's mountain gorillas or that kind of thing. It's all about what is it that people know about these animals, then? What is it that you bring to them which will capture their attention?
And again, you need to know some of the socioeconomic shortcomings of the community. And if you are able to intervene in any small way, people will appreciate what you are doing.
Painted dog conservation has built a clinic.
We have built classrooms.
We have established boreholes.
We have assisted communities with veterinary services. So they associate dogs with assistance relating to their livelihoods. So that's an entry point which we discovered was very effective. Hence we are good friends with the communities. They understand why they should live with dogs.
They find importance in making sure that the dogs continue to exist within their communities because they have a benefit that's important.
Then the other thing is, if you're going to establish an education program, go to the curriculum itself, look for the concepts that have something to do with wildlife conservation, something to do with that particular species, and align your programs with what they already do at school so that they don't feel like they are wasting time or they have just come for a tour. They understand that this is part of the learning, but we are doing it in a different way. We are doing it away from the normal forward classroom. That way you win everybody.
[00:48:12] Speaker B: That's such great advice. I was actually just writing down a whole bunch of notes about everything you just said, which is awesome. And I hope anyone listening can really take that away. That is such fantastic advice. I know teachers in a formal setting, a classroom setting, I know teachers in an informal setting that work at zoos. I know teachers are guides. I work in conservation tourism. And so guiding is a form of really important form, actually, of wildlife conservation education. So taking these snippets are really important and how we can make the most impact when we have a captive audience, essentially, like you have this opportunity, how do we use it to the fullest? And to come back to you for a moment, what is your bigger goal of all of this? What keeps you going and waking up every day and coming to work and going to the office? If you could see something in the future, what is that? What is the bigger, why here?
[00:49:14] Speaker C: Okay.
Mainly I love children.
I've worked with them for quite some time, and just seeing the achievement around children's performance is what I love the most. And the most important thing is when I see children relating their life with the lessons that we teach, it's great. When I see the gloomy faces of the students, they sing all the way from their school up to the bush camp. They love it. And I almost shed a tear when the children come all the way singing happy. And I make sure that when they are at the camp, they are taken care of the best way that we can.
It's all about making sure that they go back with that positiveness in them without necessarily disturbing anything around what their lives are all about. We don't change them, but we just add something to their lives that means a lot.
Some of them will never move away from these communities. They will live here forever. So once they get that concept in their minds, in their hearts, then we know that we have a future.
A conservation conscious generation.
That's the main thing.
[00:51:01] Speaker B: Wow, that was so strong. Yes, I completely agree with you. That's amazing. Yeah, that's a big why. That is a beautiful reason to get up every single day and do what you do and work through the hard times, because I know there's definitely been some hard days because none of us in wildlife conservation has had an easy road. That is one thing that I've learned. Speaking to so many people around the world, traveling to so many places and meeting incredible people. It's hard to get up some days, but when you keep your why in front of you, it keeps you going, because sometimes that's the only thing we have.
So let's go back to story time, because I love stories and everyone that I sit down with, and I'm sure you have incredible stories to share with us. Is there, like, a child that you really connected with and that has crazy story or anything like that?
[00:52:00] Speaker C: The child that I always talk about is a girl called Belinda.
Belinda came to the push camp in 2006, and she went back home on a Friday.
On Saturday, Belinda and her friend, they went to collect firewood from a nearby forest, and they came across a barricade of snares.
And straight away they stopped collecting firewood and they went back home.
And they demanded from the parents to mobilize the community so that they would go and remove the snares from the booth.
And they did not barge.
They made sure that that is happening. And it happened.
The parents talked to their neighbors and they went to the place and they found the snares. And the lucky part of it is that there was a live kudu.
In one of the snares, there was a live kudu, and they removed the kudu from the snare. And I always say to myself, what would have happened if these people had found the kudu and the Belinda had not been to the bush camp to make sure that the kudu is removed alive.
So she served that kudu, and what the community did was they laid an ambush the following morning and two poachers were arrested.
[00:54:02] Speaker B: What? That's crazy.
[00:54:05] Speaker C: And that was way back in 2006 when she did that.
Then we followed her after high school to find out if she was doing anything, and we brought her to painted dog conservation. As one of the first female antiporting unit members at PDC, she's now working at painted dog conservation.
[00:54:38] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. I'm sure your heart just swells with.
[00:54:41] Speaker C: That story a lot.
Yeah.
[00:54:47] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. Wilton, the work you're doing is so amazing and so important and so impactful, and I'm so grateful for you taking the time to sit down with me today. And I'm sure that people listening would love to learn more and maybe follow painted dog conservation or see what you're up to, see what the organization is up to, and even everyone listening, you can go visit painted dog conservation in Huangi. So maybe just tell all of us, how can we follow the organization, follow what you're up to, and maybe even come visit if somebody's in the country?
[00:55:22] Speaker C: We have a website.
A website. WWP dog, something. I can't remember exactly from the top of my head, but we have a website where people can follow.
We post newsletters, all the stories that happen on a daily basis. We do put them through our website and it's accessible easily. And that's where people can donate, because all this, what we are doing here, is all about activities that require a lot of funding.
One example, every bush camp requires three to three and a half, $1,000 every camp. And we have 27 camps in one year.
[00:56:14] Speaker B: Wow, that's a lot.
[00:56:16] Speaker C: Yes. And all those things really need us to go out there and raise a lot of funds and the like. So our website has everything.
It tells you how much we need for one member of the antipoching team. It tells us how much it costs us to track a pack of dogs for one week and all those kind of things. It's there on our website. And it is our request that those people that will manage to go through the website, any donation is important to us.
Every cent count, even if you might feel like, oh, I only have $10. It has a lot to do because we can buy a day's ration for our antipaching team. So every dollar counts. And that's what we ask the world to do for us, to keep us going, to keep doing what we can and most importantly, to save this species from extinction.
[00:57:33] Speaker B: Absolutely.
And I will have all the relevant links in the show notes and well, and I will keep talking because we've already had some conversations about the wild source that I work for and maybe how we can include your work in our work, in our conservation tours and stuff, because what you do matters so much to the ethos of my professional life and then also my show here. So I know we'll continue talking. There is no doubt about that.
Just be sure to go to the show notes and I'll have everything there so you can follow Wilt and follow PDC and the like. And again, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Your story is amazing and I can't wait to share it with everybody.
[00:58:16] Speaker C: Thank you very much. Brooke thank you so much. I just want to also thank Dave Johnson for connecting.
Know we didn't know each other and thank you very much Dave. Let's hope this is going to work and we probably will know. Our fingers crossed that we get the support that we need and that will be great. Thank you very much for those that will watch this. And yeah, it's always the best thing that we do for the dogs.
[00:58:51] Speaker A: Thank you for joining me on this wild adventure today. I hope you've been inspired by the incredible stories, insights and knowledge shared in this episode. To learn more about what you heard, be sure to check out the show
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[00:59:24] Speaker B: Mean the world to me.
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