The Final Run – By Raabia Hawa
The Final Run: A Conservationist’s Nightmare – Written by Raabia Hawa
Browsing peacefully in the Maasai steppe in Kenya under the light of the moon, this giraffe was suddenly ambushed by two men on a motorbike.
Scared, she ran as they chased her several hundred meters to the point of exhaustion. A machete was swiped across her back legs as the poachers caught up with her and got close enough. Her Achilles tendon was severed and she fell hard and fast to the ground.
The two jumped off the bike quickly, holding her down by her long graceful neck, and began their merciless slaughter.
Then one of them walked over to her head, working with a sharp knife to cut out her eyeball. But they weren’t very good at what they were doing, she began to kick, she was still alive!
They held her neck down again and sliced through it a second time. It was so messy. Finally, she was dead. Now they needed to work fast before first light brought in witnesses. They hacked through her legs and tore off her skin, revealing their bounty underneath. But there just wasn’t enough time, and she was such a huge animal, and- they couldn’t possibly carry all that meat away! So they cut up what they could manage to carry, less than a quarter of what she could offer them, loaded it onto their bike, and off they went.
We read their story in the sands the next day, the sands tell us so much when you understand their language. The language of struggle, footprints, tyre tread marks, and blood.
Some poachers believe that the animal they kill takes a photograph of them when they die, as the last thing the eyes have seen. They believe that if rangers find the carcass, they can take the eyes to a lab and extract the photos of the killers. So they cut out the eyes.
But they left something behind. Something that I found lying not too far away from this majestic being… Her eyelid. As I held her lashes in my hand, mine began to soak with tears. She couldn’t say a word, but I knew her entire story. I could do nothing to stop this brutality, to ease her pain, to break her fear. All I could do was stroke her gently, in all her lifelessness; and quietly say, “I’m sorry.”
😔💔
Raabia Hawa.
Some people have written to me asking how they can help. Firstly, many people don’t know about this practice, please help raise awareness by sharing. And secondly, we can only stop this horror by ensuring rangers are enabled to continue daily foot patrols. We rely 100% on donations, without which we can’t keep going 😔 please consider donating to our anti-poaching unit via the ‘get involved’ section of our website and encourage your friends and family to contribute. Together we can change this. Thank you.
With your help we can do this please consider supporting our cause and projects, visit www.walkwithrangers.org for more.