Bloody Trophy (2025)

[bunniefuu]

This movie contains scenes that may be

considered drastic to same viewers.

[ominous ambient tones]

[man] This is just a souvenir

that a hunter is taking back.

[footsteps on dry grass]

If they look at that in their house,

they can then think back of what

they have experienced.

People are drawn to that,

to hunt these dangerous animals.

One of the most expensive hunts

is to hunt the rhino.

[intense rhythmic music builds]

[g*nsh*t]

[male hunter 1] You knocked down

the second one like a pro!

[male hunter 2]

I aimed at the shoulder blade.

[Karol Wolnicki] Among EU countries,

Poland was the leading country

in terms of rhinoceros hunting

in South Africa.

[Krzysztof Ziewiecki] Everybody knew

these hunters were just frontmen.

Those officials put them up

for the photos.

They knew the horns were not for them.

They just had to sign the papers

and not ask any questions.

[Julian Rademeyer]

The price for rhino horn

fluctuated around USD 30,000

to 60,000 for a kilogram.

I was intrigued about

who were the people behind this.

What was driving this.

That's what really pulled me into this.

You see Chumlong Lemtongthai.

He's holding a r*fle.

[William Fowlds]

Chumlong and his boss

were responsible

for not one rhino, not ten rhinos,

but, maybe, hundreds of rhinos.

[Paul O'Sullivan] These pseudo-hunters,

they're not real hunters.

So the whole thing,

everything about it, was criminal,

from start to finish.

It's not just about a piece of horn.

It's not just about the rhino's nose.

I don't think this is about the rhino.

For me, the rhino is a symbol.

- Is the dart in, Julian?

- [over radio] Yeah, dart's in.

[helicopter blades whirring overhead]

[intense rhythmic music continues]

[Lindy Sutherland]

Rhino have been under threat always.

They're critically endangered.

They're on the brink of extinction.

And are being completely persecuted

and brutally attacked for their horns.

It's just terrible.

[music ends abruptly]

[silent g*nsh*t]

BLOODY TROPHY

THE ill*gal RHINO HORN TRADE

[gentle instrumental music]

GRABICE, POLAND

[Krzysztof Ziewiecki]

I've been a police officer since 1991.

I've been practically

through all the levels on the force.

I worked in

the criminal investigation department

of the Opole Provincial Police HQ.

My superior told me about the case.

He said I would be

leading an investigation

on rhino horn smuggling.

INVESTIGATIVE POLICE OFFICER

And I focused on the job.

We went to the county police HQ

and took over the investigation.

At first it seemed it was something

we could close within a month.

It turned out, the case wasn't so simple.

With the prosecutor we decided to expand

the investigation over the whole country,

and the case started to grow.

[Andrzej Kepel]

We noticed an alarming regularity.

An exceptionally large number

of Polish hunters

could afford to hunt for rhinos.

The price of that is considerable.

ENDANGERED SPECIES EXPERAnnually, two Germans, one Spaniard,

three Americans, one Britisher,

one Dane, and 15 Poles can afford it.

[subtle, mysterious music]

[Krzysztof Ziewiecki]

We started visiting hunters

who were said to have such trophies

in their places of residence.

The first one we visited

had original horns.

Then we checked the trophies of others

at their places of residence.

It turned out that the horns

they had on display

were made out of Styrofoam

covered in paint.

They were light, often hollow inside.

Most of the horns

brought into the country as trophies

usually disappeared within days.

[Karol Wolnicki]

We could be talking about

tens of millions of zlotys

that were fed into the black market.

We were terrified by the possible scale

of these practices.

ill*gal rhino horn trade in Poland...

MINISTRY OF CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENwhich at first seemed implausible,

turned out to be true.

[slow, ominous music]

JOHANNESBURG

REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

[male presenter 1]

Police have made another breakthrough

in their w*r against

the ill*gal rhino horn trade.

Officers have seized

more than 30 pieces of rhino horn

at O.R. Tambo International Airport.

[female presenter 1] Police seized

over 40 kilograms of rhino horn.

Two Vietnamese men were arrested.

[male presenter 2] Rhino poaching

often involves local poachers

and international criminal syndicates,

who smuggle the horns across borders.

[female presenter 2] Last year, 499 rhinos

were k*lled across South Africa.

[footsteps]

Rhino horn has been prized in

Southeast Asia and China for centuries.

INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISYou've seen rhino populations in China,

along the Yangtze River,

which were wiped out

because of demand for horn.

Much of the horn was going to Vietnam.

Why Vietnam?

This was a country

that had picked itself up

from the incredible damage

wrought by the Vietnam w*r,

and had rebuilt itself

into a rising economic powerhouse.

There were people with money

that could be spent.

You had, for instance, a story

starting to do the rounds in Hanoi,

that a senior Communist Party official

had been diagnosed with cancer.

He'd begun taking a mixture of

ground rhino horn and rice wine,

and immediately

his condition was reversed.

And that story took on different forms.

Sometimes, it was an army general,

sometimes, a retired Prime Minister,

but it was always a senior official,

who'd been cured.

[ominous music intensifies]

In our understanding, rhino horn

is made out of the same material

as your fingernails and hair.

We would believe that

eating our nails would keep us healthy.

[William Fowlds] That's what created

the big problem for South Africa.

We had this massive exponential growth

in the ill*gal value of rhino horn

that obviously stimulated a huge demand

for poachers to k*ll these horns,

and for these horns to then go through

organised criminal networks,

back into the markets in Southeast Asia.

[Julian Rademayer]

I was an investigative journalist.

I'd also then delved into organised crime.

Around that time

that the rhino poaching crisis

was taking off in South Africa,

in some ways, at the time,

the prices that were being paid...

more than gold, more than cocaine.

I was intrigued about who were the people

behind this, what was driving this.

It pulled me into it.

[ominous music continues]

One of the most destructive networks

that emerged at that time

was a network called

the Xaysavang Network.

The mastermind was a guy called

Vixay Keosavang who lived in Laos.

He'd served in the military

at a senior level.

He had ties to military intelligence

in Laos and also in Vietnam.

He sent a group of people to South Africa.

They were offered

the opportunity to hunt rhinos.

Legally sh**t an animal,

get the permits, get everything there.

To take the trophies back to Laos,

Vietnam, and Thailand.

That would give them the opportunity

to sell this on the black market.

That operation was led by someone

called Chumlong Lemtongthai.

He'd grown up fairly poor in Bangkok.

He'd found work in the wildlife trade.

He was regarded as reliable,

but he also had expensive taste.

This was someone who liked

drinking Hennessy cognac,

smoking imported cigars.

He liked collecting these pistols

that he'd play with

in front of his webcam in Bangkok.

He'd strike gangster poses

with these coloured pistols.

What the Thai network initially did,

was they'd fly hunters in from Thailand.

People they recruited off the streets.

By and large, they'd bring over men.

The Customs Authority became suspicious

of these groups of Thai men

that were coming through.

It also cost money.

One of the people

in the Xaysavang Network found

what he thought was the perfect plan.

So he was cruising around to strip clubs,

massage parlours and brothels

where very often young Thai women

had been trafficked from Thailand

to work in the sex industry

in South Africa.

"All I need is your passport.

Give me your passport, you can go.

We'll pay you a couple of hundred grand,

a couple of thousand grand."

They took the passports,

and those passports were used

to apply for hunting permits.

You see these photographs of young women

in white sports shoes,

with pink jerseys on, bright-red clothing,

standing there with r*fles

that almost dwarfed them in size.

A .375 hunting r*fle.

And it's pretty clear that they are

not capable of carrying out these hunts.

In rare cases, they actually

shot the animals themselves.

In pretty much every single one

of the Xaysavang cases

the rhino would be shot

by a professional hunter.

This is the video of the pseudo-hunt that

was carried out by the Xaysavang Network.

You see Chumlong Lemtongthai there.

He's holding the r*fle.

Then he hands the r*fle to someone.

We don't know who it is yet.

That's Harry C... [beep], a professional

hunter and the tracker on the farm.

He's the tracker.

It's very clear.

The person who was

issued the permit that day

to carry out the hunt

at no stage holds a r*fle,

nor does he fire a shot.

The hunting register was later signed

by the person to whose name

the permit was issued,

but he wasn't part of that hunt.

So, that's again part of the fraud.

[loud g*nsh*t]

And then the first shot.

[rhino whimpering]

That's the rhino that's been hit.

Another shot.

I think what really shocks people

about this video is just...

This is butchery, it's not hunting.

This is how a hunt

could be carried out, you know...

The aim is to minimise suffering,

the aim is to...

get the k*ll done as quickly as possible.

Man shoots at point blank.

Still alive.

[man speaking in Thai]

"Is that one too low?," he asks.

No, he says, he's gone.

Except the rhino wasn't gone.

[man speaking Thai]

He asks, "Is he dead?"

It's pretty clear he's not dead.

You can see he's still breathing.

[grunts]

Yeah.

Then he turns and there you see that's

the guy who's meant to be the hunter.

There's Chumlong, smiling and laughing.

I hate this video,

I mean I've seen it so many times,

but it's not the easiest thing to watch.

Because it's just so pointless.

What's it ultimately all about?

It's about a fraud

supplying rhino horn to this network.

Supplying as many of these animals

they can line up to sh**t them.

[distant g*nshots

overlapping with shutter clicks]

[ominous music neds]

EASTERN CAPE

REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

My name is Dr William Fowlds.

I work as a wildlife veterinarian

in the Eastern Cape of South Africa.

[indistinct conversation]

We will bring in a team of veterinarians

who are here learning about conservation,

but also contributing

towards conservation.

The purpose of the exercise today

is to change or fit a new collar. Natalie?

We're fitting a new tracking device

on a male white rhino.

- Tell us about him.

- [Natalie] He's about eight.

He actually lost his collar

a few months ago.

It just ripped off. We think he was

fighting with another young bull.

We just want to refit it on him.

Scott gets the best job.

He's got faecal samples.

Parva's going to do

blood samples, please.

Christy's going to wake up.

Buddy, you're going to do multivitamins.

I think that covers most of those jobs.

I'm going to be doing

the collar with Natalie.

Um... And obviously,

monitoring the anaesthetic.

Courtney and I will just keep tabs on

temperature, pulse, respiration,

and then we'll get information from KME

on the quality of the anaesthetic.

Okay, as soon as the chopper gets here,

we're on our way.

[indistinct radio chatter]

[gentle instrumental music]

[radio chatter continues]

[William Fowlds] My family have been

on this land for five generations.

When I was born here in the 1970s,

there were no rhino left.

So growing up as a child here,

there was no opportunity to see rhino,

let alone work with rhino.

KARIEGA RESERVE

REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

[slow tribal-inspired music]

My name is Lindy Sutherland,

and I'm one of the family owners

of Kariega Game Reserve.

Kariega Game Reserve was started

by my father 35 years ago.

Twenty three different farms

have come together

to create an 11,500-hectare wilderness.

We've reintroduced all the wild animals.

[distant bird calls]

[William Fowlds] We brought back giraffe,

zebra, buffalo, and amazing animals,

but there was something different

about bringing back the dinosaurs.

These prehistoric creatures

that really made our old farms

feel like we were really rewilding.

They have an incredible presence

on the landscape,

but they also have an ecological role.

[Lindy Sutherland] When you spend time

with rhino in their natural environment,

you learn what dedicated mothers they are.

They care for their young so attentively,

and more than that,

they're incredibly social.

They love each other's company.

The sounds they make,

the way they call each other,

it's this gentle meowing almost,

when they are looking for each other

in the wild.

They're protective.

When you're working on, maybe,

a younger rhino, a three-year-old,

you have to dart that three-year-old,

and the mother's in the vicinity,

she will not leave that site.

She will move around in a circle.

But there's also a knowing in that mother

that we're helping that child.

CEO OF THE KARIEGA FOUNDATION

She's not aggressive, she's just there.

There's just a wisdom and an intelligence,

that we as humans will never understand.

You can liken it to whales,

to dolphins, to elephants.

Rhino fill that same space.

[William Fowlds]

In the early days of rewilding,

we had an amazing almost

ten years of just no poaching, no risk.

VETERINARIAN

We weren't spending on security because

there was no one coming to k*ll them.

[Lindy Sutherland] Rhino were first

introduced to Kariega in 2004.

And if you think about it,

five years later,

we were suddenly under attack.

[scoffs]

We didn't have advanced

anti-poaching technology,

so we were like lambs at the slaughter.

[William Fowlds]

We've lost a significant amount of rhino,

and our rhino populations are in decline,

especially white rhino.

In some parts of the country,

they're actually becoming

almost exterminated now.

[slow, ominous music]

[Lindy Sutherland] It came to a crescendo

on the 2nd of March 2012.

Poachers came onto the reserve

and they took three rhino in one night.

And we called the vet,

Dr. Will Fowlds, to the scene.

Will, a friend of mine,

was driving out here expecting

to euthanize the animals.

But he gave them the antidote first.

[William Fowlds] It was an absolutely

horrific scene to come across.

You could see all of them had their faces

hacked while they were still alive

by all the blood

and the carnage in that area.

We tried to save Thandi and Temba.

We pulled everything that we knew.

We got colleagues

from around the country to help us.

- It's okay. Can I come closer?

- [rhino growling]

Okay, okay. There we go, very good.

That's good!

[William Fowlds]

After 24 days we lost Temba.

And that was probably

the darkest day of my life.

Incredibly tragic event.

Sadly, for most rhino,

there is no happy ending.

But Thandi, somehow, managed to

pull through against all odds

and she survived.

She had significant internal trauma,

not just her facial trauma,

that she had to recover from.

[sad, melancholic music]

[William Fowlds] We ended up

losing up to 1200 rhino per year.

Those are the ones we counted.

There are many hundreds if not thousands

of rhino that are just missing.

They're just gone.

We've never counted them,

we've never found them.

[indistinct radio chatter]

[woman] We're going to wait for you before

we put the dart in, so please move.

Copy.

[slow tribal-inspired music]

[indistinct conversation]

[William Fowlds] Okay.

Let's keep you down.

Can we get the pulse oxygen on?

See if you can use that bottom.

He's run a long way so we're going

to put water on him to cool him down.

- [William Fowlds] One, two, three.

- [people grunting]

[William Fowlds] One, two, three.

A bit more push. One, two, three. Okay.

Back a little bit, please.

Back a bit.

Okay, there we go.

Now we can push all the way.

[Natalie] Yeah, back legs.

[William Fowlds]

The importance of these devices

is that they, for the first time,

have given us information immediately,

24-7, on what is happening to this animal.

It's extremely important

for anti-poaching measures

that we have a way to know

if he is in trouble.

We call these "Apple Watches for Rhino"

because they really do watch over them

and give us immediate information

about their behaviour and their safety.

So obviously it's Rhino 44.

Diane, we need the machine on, please.

Use that ear there.

Give it a good rub, please.

I don't think it is.

Just double check heart rate?

Right, so we should see a change.

See how this horn wobbles on their faces?

There's no bone in here

attaching it to the skull.

It's sitting on a pad

of fibrous connective tissue.

When they poach these animals,

they cut them here.

Their whole face comes off.

It's just horrific.

We're happy with his temperature.

His blood colour has been good.

We've fitted the collar.

Just confirmed we've done vitamins.

We've treated both darts. We've taken

blood samples. We've taken faecal samples.

[William Fowlds] So as soon as you had

this high value demand for the product,

the money started

to corrupt other systems.

But this high value meant that

people who wanted to turn

a legitimate hunting system

into a highly profitable crime,

they now had that opportunity to do that.

[ominous ambient tones]

[Paul O'Sullivan] The legislation means

that a person can hunt a rhino

in South Africa,

but can only do it once a year.

You can only hunt one.

RETIRED POLICE OFFICER

DETECTIVE

You can't get a permit for ten rhinos.

There'd be no rhinos left.

[William Fowlds]

Chumlong, and obviously his boss,

were responsible

for not one rhino, not ten rhinos,

but maybe hundreds of rhinos.

They opened up a door

that I think not just

they were involved in,

but other people started to follow.

[slow, ominous music]

[Paul O'Sullivan] These pseudo-hunters,

they're not real hunters.

So the whole thing,

everything about it was criminal.

From start to finish.

I probably spent two years

investigating all of this.

In one of the letters

that Chumlong Lemtongthai sent,

he wants to sh**t 15 rhinos a month.

"I will pay this and this and this."

And he signs it. Hello!

So that was also

his very incriminating evidence.

He was selling this stuff

for maybe USD 40,000 a kilo.

So he was making a big fat profit.

[music intensifies]

[Julian Rademeyer]

He lived in this fantasy world

where he saw himself as kind of

international criminal mastermind.

Which he wasn't

because he made the fatal flaw

of documenting every one

of the criminal transactions they did

with a camera

and by keeping the documents.

He did what no criminal

in their right mind should ever do

and took pictures

of every single crime they committed.

When Chumlong

came back to South Africa,

they were waiting for him

at the airport, they detained him.

They took the laptop away from him.

Then they began analysing that evidence.

There were thousands of pictures.

Every hunt, every permit issued.

There were emails on the Gmail account

which were sent with the passports

of people they were using as hunters.

[shutter clicks]

[judge] I don't see any difference

from what the accused has done

to an action of a poacher.

sh**ting was not for trophy hunting,

but specifically

to be involved in horn trading.

I don't want to see a situation

where my grandchildren

will actually only be able to see a rhino

in the newspaper or on a photo,

without being able to go to a park

or a zoo to touch a rhino.

But I think it's time

that the Asian people

should actually get a clear message

that the South Africans are not going to

allow such particular things to happen.

Sentence altogether is about 40 years.

The accused is hereby sentenced

to undergo 40 years in prison.

[male assistant] All rise!

[Julian Rademeyer]

The authorities at that stage

didn't have a centralized permit database.

They couldn't track the issuing

of rhino hunting permits in real time.

That allowed these hunts to continue

for the better part of a decade.

And at the end of that decade

they implemented, effectively, a ban

on hunters from Vietnam, Thailand,

China, and various other places.

Um... But syndicates keep evolving.

The next thing,

you start seeing fluctuation in hunters

from the Czech Republic, from Poland.

[slow, ominous music]

PRAGUE

THE CZECH REPUBLIC

[indistinct airport PA message]

[Pavel Kuchynka]

In terms of ill*gal rhino horn trade,

we were alarmed by an error

in veterinary records.

Instead of indicating Czechia,

the perps put down the actual

country of destination - Vietnam.

There was a ban on rhino horn imports

from South Africa in force in Vietnam,

so they used Czech Republic

as a transit country.

They usually involved a pseudo-hunter,

who was offered

a free trip to South Africa.

Most of these people

had no hunting experience.

We strived to expose

how the criminal group operated.

It was a group of Vietnamese nationals

functioning in the local

Vietnamese market.

[Pavla hov] An interesting phenomenon.

It's like little Vietnam.

We call that place "Little Hanoi."

There are around

10,000 Vietnamese traders there.

They have Vietnamese schools,

kindergartens, and hospitals.

It's like a country within a country.

All sorts of companies there organise

the transport of goods to Vietnam.

This channel was often used

for smuggling contraband.

We first discovered

a group of pseudo-hunters,

whose names were used

in import operations.

The storage space was rented a Czech woman

from Dub in northern Czechia.

A Vietnamese trader managed the operation.

People subject

to debt enforcement proceedings

don't really go hunting in South Africa.

We screened all these hunters.

There were 75 of them.

More than three-fourths of them

no longer had the horns.

We later tried to convince

our colleagues from Slovakia, Poland,

and other European countries

to screen hunters among their citizens,

and find all those who had hunted rhinos.

WARSAW

POLAND

[Karol Wolnicki] Notifications

from the neighbouring Czechia

drove us to look into the matter here.

We gathered all the information we had.

We directed the case

to the Police Headquarters,

with a request to verify

if there had been

any ill*gal rhino horn trade taking place.

[slow, ominous music]

[Andrzej Kepel] When we started asking

what happened to the horns

that were brought into Poland,

it turned out that they were disappearing.

[Krzysztof Ziewiecki] We 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.

All of that showed me

that I was going in the right direction.

We reach this guy

who doesn't have the horns.

He starts explaining what had happened

to them and who took them over.

[ominous ambient tones]

That's how we found

the main perpetrator, Grzegorz P.

He managed a hunting office for years.

He also prepared hunting trophies.

And he organised trips to Africa

to hunt for various animals.

As he explained to us,

the first persons he went hunting with

were people

from his immediate surroundings.

These people never before

participated in hunting trips to Africa,

and probably couldn't even afford that.

He personally paid for their trips.

Once they were there,

he even shot for some of them.

Grzegorz P. admitted to

organizing 23 pseudo-hunts.

He is waiting to be sentenced.

The prosecution estimated

that the black market value

of the 125 kilograms

of rhino horns he obtained

was nearly 25 million zoty.

In those years,

about 60 Polish hunters

participated in rhino hunts.

This could mean about 120 rhino horns

were brought into our country.

The price for rhino horn fluctuated

around USD 13,000

to USD 27,000 per pound.

Tens of millions of zlotys

could have been pumped this way

into black markets.

Thirty-four people were

under investigation.

DISTRICT PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE

IN OPOLE

Most of them hunters.

The group included Vietnamese nationals

who initiated the criminal activity.

They organised everything,

and facilitated sales of these trophies

in the black market.

The trial of some of the hunters

has been ongoing

in a Warsaw court since 2022.

[judge] Do you know what this is about?

[accused man] Yes. A rhino.

[judge] Rhinos.

Paszek offered me

participation in a rhino hunt

at a bargain price.

He mentioned there will be

about a 50% discount.

The price was still high, it was

supposed to be round 35,000 dollars.

Shortly before the trip he said

that the price would be even lower.

The condition was

that he would keep the rhino horn.

And I could keep the hide.

That's basically what happened.

- I never expected to have such problems.

- [judge] What were you supposed to get?

The original horn or some copy?

What were the specifics?

I was supposed to get a copy.

That's why I didn't have to pay

for the hunting of the rhino.

Mr Paszek took the original horn with him.

And gave the hunters plastic ones instead.

An entire display piece.

I have it at home.

It doesn't have the original horn,

only a plastic one.

It makes no difference to me.

I don't need the real thing.

The trophy looks great

with the plastic horn.

Most Polish hunters who illegally disposed

of trophies admitted guilt.

The courts conditionally discontinued

their cases and imposed fines.

As a result, the hunters

retained their firearm permits.

The worst punishment for them would be

to have their g*n licences revoked.

But that hasn't happened to this day yet.

Now, things are as they were,

and everyone's happy.

They keep going on hunting trips

and enjoying their hobby.

They're making their dream come true

by capturing the best possible trophy.

[onimous music with drums]

[g*nsh*t]

[footsteps]

[g*nsh*t]

[g*nsh*t]

[g*nshots]

[hunter 1] It was still standing

after the first shot.

[hunter 2] Great job!

[hunter 3] You knocked down

the second one lik a pro.

[hunter 2] I aimed at the shoulder blade.

[hunter 3] Just to be sure.

They're shaking hands, high-fiving...

I've actually never seen

footage like this.

It's...

[sighs]

It's devastating.

[Lindy Sutherland]

People just need to wake up.

Honestly, it just makes me so angry...

Just... Just be good! Just be kind!

Just make the right choice.

How hard is that?

To just be a decent person.

Surely, it should not be so hard

to just be a decent person.

[indistinct convsersation]

[Lindy Sutherland]

I hope that through this production

maybe this footage reaches some

of the people who participated in this

and they can just pause for a moment

and reflect, and maybe change.

Maybe just decide, "I made a mistake,

this is not who I want to be."

"Maybe this is not what I want to do."

"Maybe I'd like my legacy

to be something more positive."

Something that has contributed

to the planet, not just taken life.

- [slow, gentle music]

- [birds chirping]

[Lindy Sutherland] The video that we saw,

that was not an old animal.

That was an animal in his prime.

In my mind and my understanding,

when permits are issued

for ethical hunting,

you would need to select an animal

that is no longer reproductive,

whether a female or a male.

It would be an older rhino who's reaching

the end of their lifespan anyway.

And we've had the full benefits

of his or her reproductive years.

That would make sense to me.

I would have no ethical problem with that.

I mean, look,

I would still struggle with it,

but I wouldn't...

We have to accept that ethical hunting

is part of conservation.

That is not the crime.

The crime is taking the wrong animal

and then on selling the horn

into a consumptive market

that we're trying to change,

we're trying to stop.

That's k*lling an animal

and driving it towards extinction.

[slow tribal-inspired music]

EASTERN CAPE PROVINCE

REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

[Pelham Jones] Africa have a set of laws

that allow private people to own land

and to own wildlife.

What it has done

in a situation like South Africa,

it's grown our population of rhino,

so that more than 60%

of this country's rhino

now belong to private people.

The only reason why we own rhino

is because either

you're passionate in conservation

or you're absolutely crazy.

Because of the incredibly high risk

of the rhino being poached and k*lled.

We're not doing it for money

because it's impossible to make money

from rhino conservation

in South Africa today.

My name is Pelham Jones

and I've been involved with

rhino conservation for 30-35 years.

We have sadly lost two rhino

on this reserve.

In total, we've arrested 34 poachers.

These were armed gangs

coming in with the intention

to come and k*ll our rhino.

We have to not only be

rhino conservationists.

We also have to be soldiers.

Rhino soldiers.

[music ends]

Julian is right, sir.

If you are ready to go,

then we can go for the first one.

I don't know if Adams has briefed you,

but there's some animals

basically due north of us.

And then, Adams...

[rhythmic, mysterious music]

Good. Okay!

And we're going to dart some rhino!

- [Julian] All right, you guys hear me?

- Julian, we copy.

[Julian] We've got a rhino.

You guys can head here towards the east.

Okay, we're loading up, we're on our way.

I think there's some up ahead.

[indistinct radio chatter]

[indistinct radio chatter]

[indistinct radio chatter]

Okay, we copy that. We are mobile.

- Is the dart in, Julian?

- Yeah, dart's in.

[Julian] Y ou can come forward

and pull the next one that turns left.

[Pelham Jones] Copy.

[Julian] Pelham, just go forward.

[Pelham Jones]

His eye might be open on the other side.

[Pelham Jones] I need another mask.

[Julian] Okay.

The dart caught him in the fat,

so it takes longer for it to work.

There we go.

[Julian speaking Afrikaans]

[saw buzzing]

[Pelham Jones] By dehorning the rhino

we are reducing the amount of horn

available to the poachers.

The less amount of horn on the animal,

the less probability it is

that this animal is going to be poached.

For that reason, even though

it's a very small piece on this back horn,

we will still rather remove it.

[saw stops]

[Julian] Lift the head

and you can pull that out.

[Pelham Jones] Two, three.

And another two, three.

- Got it!

- Okay.

[Julian] Brilliant! Okay, guys!

Thanks, Pelham.

- Went well. Glad we could do this.

- I'm disappearing, now.

[Pelham Jones] Thank you.

[indistinct conversations]

[gentle music]

[Pelham Jones] The dead animal is worth

much more than when they are alive now.

And that equation will equal extinction.

It has to.

KARIEGA RESERVE

REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

[slow tribal-inspired music]

[William Fowlds] Today, we did go

have a look, see what we can find.

But it just got too overgrown.

I'm pretty sure she is there,

but we just don't know where.

Because the last was Reception Dam.

They tend to go down the valley

quite often.

We're hoping for the best.

Come on! Come on, Queen Thandi!

Grace us with your presence.

Three years after her poaching incident,

in January 2015,

she surprised the world

by giving birth to her first calf,

a little girl.

That was called Tembi in honour of Temba,

and as a beacon of hope for her species.

Her second calf was born

when my dad passed away.

And...

Sorry, it's always a little bit emotional.

We were gathered before his funeral.

I... I got a message

from the anti-poaching unit

to say Thandi's given birth.

We kind of looked at each other

and said, if it's a boy,

he's got to be called Colin,

which is my dad's name.

So, that was a moment

where everyone paused

and felt the sense of accomplishment

that saving just one rhino

had already brought two back.

And, since then, Thandi has given birth

to a calf every two years.

She's an incredible mother

and breeding cow.

She's now left a legacy of five rhino,

five calves and two grand calves.

- [Lindy] What's that?

- [Will] I see it. I'm just hoping.

- [Lindy] Is that not an anthill?

- [Will] I'm not sure.

[Lindy] It's not moving, but it does look

like a curve of a back.

[gentle, instrumental music]

[Lindy Sutherland]

Oh, my God. Such a star.

[William Fowlds] There's Thandi.

In the eastern part of the valley.

- [birds chirping]

- [Lindy Sutherland] She's just incredible.

Come on. Come on.

[gentle, uplifting music]

Oh, she's...

You can never get enough of seeing Thandi.

She likes voices.

We should talk and see if...

She's definitely curious.

She's turned around full circle

and she's still looking at us.

It's very difficult for us,

for ordinary people,

to talk about poaching

because it's just...

It's so horrific and gruesome,

you can't even go there.

But because she's had a happy ending...

She's been a huge spokesperson

for her species globally.

[William Fowlds]

We have a chance to turn this around.

We cannot do it alone.

We need the international community

to understand the mechanics of this crisis

and to help us

wherever they can to stop it.

Because if humans continue

to do these kind of things to animals

that are so important to our survival,

but also just so innocent

and so undeserving

of that kind of treatment,

it says a lot about

who we are as human beings,

and the pathway that we are taking

as a species on this planet.

[gentle, instrumental music]

There are

around 27,000 rhinos living on Earth.

Chumlong Lemtongthai has been released

from prison after serving 6 years.

Thandi became a mom again.