Episode 628 - Carlo and Hugo Engelbrecht || Rhino Wars

Summary

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The Origins Foundation Podcast

Episode 628 – Carlo and Hugo Engelbrecht || Rhino Wars

Date: March 10, 2026
Host: Robbie (The Origins Foundation)
Guests: Carlo and Hugo Engelbrecht

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Episode Overview

This episode inaugurates the Rhino Wars podcast series, a storytelling-driven exploration of the harsh realities facing rhino conservation in southern Africa. The host, Robbie, sits down with Carlo and Hugo Engelbrecht—5th and 6th generation farmer-game owners from KwaZulu Natal, South Africa—to give listeners a candid, on-the-ground perspective of the war against rhino poaching. Through the Engelbrecht family’s experience, the discussion uncovers the escalating threats to rhinos, the challenges faced by those trying to protect them, frustrations with ineffective legal systems and NGOs, and what the global community needs to understand about sustainable conservation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Backgrounds and Family Legacy

• Carlo Engelbrecht shares his heritage in northern KwaZulu Natal, deep roots in the German settler community, and a progression from traditional farming to a career in nature conservation and safari hunting.
  • “I’m the fifth generation in that spot there...grew up there on a cattle, maize, timber farm. After school, went to study nature conservation in Pretoria.” (04:18)
• Hugo Engelbrecht describes growing up immersed in the bush; his unique childhood only became apparent when classmates questioned his hunting stories.
  • “The only way I realized it’s not the normal way of growing up is going to school in the first grade...For example, we hunted an elephant now and then they would start phoning my parents because they think I’m a liar.” (10:52)

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2. The Importance of Hunting in Conservation

• Both guests and the host reflect on how sustainable hunting has funded conservation, opened up the wild, and shaped their lives.
  • “The hunting business was really good for me. Made some really incredible people, met some people that really supported me...I was able to live my dream.” —Carlo (09:58)
  • “It’s not about physically killing the animal...Harvesting the animal is just the cherry on top.” —Carlo (13:02)
• They challenge misconceptions about hunting, emphasizing its critical (if unpopular) role in supporting conservation infrastructure.

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3. Peak and Decline of Private Rhino Ownership

• Carlo details the golden era of the Natal Parks Board’s rhino restoration—moving rhinos to private lands and exponentially growing populations (16:44).
• The mood has shifted dramatically:
  • Excessive risk, cost, and burden for private rhino owners have caused a severe decline in rhino numbers on private land.
    • “From that whole road...300 km from Ladysmith right through to Pongola...I think it’s four farms left that have rhinos. That’s it.” (47:01)
  • Rhino prices have plummeted as ownership liabilities soar; a fourfold drop in value since 2010 (50:33).

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4. The Poaching Crisis: Current Realities

• Poaching has intensified beyond local law enforcement or owner capacity to contain:
  • Security now requires 24/7 armed guards, thermal imaging, drones, and informants—all at immense cost (19:50, 31:08).
  • Poachers are increasingly audacious and violent, utilizing advanced tech, and will attack guards or owners directly (23:59).
  • “Poachers came in, held the guards at gunpoint and shot the rhino right in front of the shed.” —Carlo (22:35)
• Criminal impunity is rife:
  • Cases stall for years, punishments are lenient, and the danger to human life is escalating (34:10–36:22).
  • “You will end up losing more than the rhinos. You might lose your life and you, or you might lose your family to say, listen, you’re crazy.” —Carlo (30:24)

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5. Criticism of NGOs and Funding Disconnect

• Carlo expresses frustration with high-profile rhino NGOs, claiming minimal tangible support for on-the-ground needs:
  • “I can’t see it. I don’t know where this money is going...Most of the funding in the donations that they get go towards administrative fees...We need feet on the ground. That’s bottom line.” (24:42)
• Public campaigns (e.g., “buy a fluffy toy to save the rhino”) are called out as ineffective for actual conservation.

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6. Legal and Economic Solutions—Proposals and Obstacles

• Exporting Rhino Horn & Sustainable Use:
  • Carlo proposes legalizing and regulating rhino horn trade as a means to finance security, education, and conservation efforts.
  • “If I can have armed guards on my property 24 hours a day...for every cow that you save is a potential another in her lifetime, another 10 calves...The rhino gets more valuable alive than dead.” (36:26, 39:40)
• Systemic Legal Reform:
  • The justice system requires overhaul—a specialized, fast-track prosecution model for rhino poaching (32:22).

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7. Social Perceptions, Anti-Hunters, and the Need for Open Debate

• Conflict with anti-hunting activists is frequent, particularly in Europe, but guests invite critics to propose alternate solutions:
  • “I’m not arguing with you, I’m asking you for a solution. Why don’t you take your money, buy a farm in Africa and prove it to me that your way of thinking is working?” —Carlo (43:49, 41:15)
  • Often, critics cannot present viable alternatives and ultimately concede some understanding, even if not full agreement.

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8. The Emotional Weight and Future of Rhino Conservation

• Both Carlo and Hugo grapple with the emotional and financial toll of maintaining rhinos, the risks to family, and the question of whether to persist.
  • “At the end of the day, you know, you must ask yourself, put aside the emotional part ... isn’t it better to just sell off the rhinos to whoever wants them and rather concentrate on other game or livestock or plant timber?” —Carlo (29:20)
• Yet hope persists with each new calf and the ongoing effort to create new hubs for rhino conservation—potentially using sustainable hunting and sales revenue as the financial backbone (51:49).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the relentless setbacks in conservation:
  • “It’s like snakes and ladders. You guys are climbing the ladder and then somebody does something stupid and you just slide down.” —Carlo (02:03)
• The global challenge of poaching enforcement:
  • “In America...only picking up 6% of poaching incidences...In Oregon...all they do is prosecute poaching. That to me is a great step forward from a justice system perspective.” —Robbie (32:22)
• The dangerous inversion of value:
  • “Right now...a rhino is worth more dead than alive.” —Robbie (39:40)
  • “Correct. 100%.” —Carlo & Hugo (39:49)
• A call for pragmatic, transparent conservation:
  • “If it pays, it stays. There’s just no other way around it.” —Carlo (51:49)
  • “I don’t like hunting, but I get it. I don’t like hunting, but I see the benefit. I don’t like hunting, but I see people benefiting.” —Robbie (45:35)

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Key Timestamps

• 05:00–10:00 – Engelbrechts’ backgrounds, childhood in the bush, evolution into conservation and hunting
• 16:30–19:50 – The Natal Parks Board’s historical rhino successes and today’s poaching imperative
• 22:30–26:00 – Shocking poacher violence; lack of state support and the financial burden on private owners
• 29:00–31:00 – The emotional and practical costs of staying in the rhino business
• 32:22–36:22 – Poaching rates worldwide and failures in the legal system
• 36:26–41:00 – Carlo’s economic argument for legalized horn trade; how “if it pays, it stays”
• 47:01–48:23 – The catastrophic reduction in private rhino populations in their home region
• 50:07–51:49 – The collapse of rhino market value and the economic impossibility of current models
• 54:16–55:37 – Why photographic tourism can’t replace the economic role of hunting in conservation
• 56:44–58:16 – The need for global education and for decision-makers to bear the consequences of conservation policy

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Concluding Note

The Engelbrechts’ experience illustrates the brutal reality: anti-poaching is no longer sustainable for private rhino owners without new models of funding and legal protection. Emotional devotion is tested by relentless violence and economic hardship. The solution, they argue, lies not just in passion, but in pragmatic, market-driven conservation that values wildlife alive, funds protective measures, and ultimately secures a future for rhinos—not just as icons, but as thriving, viable game on African land.

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Summary Table

| Topic | Key Points / Quotes | Timestamps | |---------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------|----------------| | Family Legacy | 5th & 6th gen in KZN, German heritage, safari/hunting | 04:18–10:00 | | Hunting & Conservation | “Harvesting is just the cherry on top” | 09:58–13:02 | | Rise & Fall of Private Rhino Ownership | From growth to decline, market collapse, few remain | 16:44–47:01 | | Poaching Crisis | Poacher violence, “full-fledged war”, tech arms race | 19:50–24:00 | | Funding Disconnect with NGOs | “I can’t see it...We need feet on the ground.” | 24:42–26:00 | | Legal and Economic Solutions | Reform, horn trade, “if it pays, it stays” | 32:22–41:00 | | Conflict with Anti-Hunters | “Prove it to me your way is working” | 41:15–45:35 | | Emotional and Financial Toll | Risks to family, question of persistence | 29:20–30:56 | | Hope and the Future | Calves born, plans for new conservation hubs | 59:18–59:56 |

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For full effect, this episode is best experienced firsthand. But through Carlo and Hugo Engelbrecht’s stories, listeners gain an essential, unfiltered look at the challenges and potential paths forward in the fight for rhinos on Africa’s front lines.

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Transcript

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[Robbie]

Hugo and Carlo Engelbrecht are 5th and 6th generation farmers game owners in Kazulu, Natal, South Africa. Hugo and Carlo kick off for the very first time our Rhino wars podcast series. The Rhino wars podcast series is a podcast series that aims to show the reality of rhino conservation on the ground in Southern Africa. If you're not staying up with the news, rhino conservation is in trouble. The poaching crisis has elevated to unprecedented heights with no end in sight. So we wanted to show the reality on the ground through a podcast series to really introduce people to the people that are dealing with this daily. Face to face, face to face with the gore, face to face with the violence, face to face with the impacts, not only on rhinos, but on the people that strive every single day to protect them. So five years ago, there was a reason why I started this movement. And the truth then is the truth now that we need to champion our narrative. We need to champion the truth around what we do and who we are.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

There's a sweet spot where they got,

[Robbie]

you know, too heavy and it's a burden to walk with.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Too light and you whipping it.

[Robbie]

Why is the project so important to the hunting community? It's, it's a. I think it's not only important, I think it's. I think it's vital.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

I think it's.

[Robbie]

It's just in time.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

It's like snakes and ladders. You guys are climbing the ladder and

[Robbie]

then somebody does something stupid and you just slide down. That is such an amazing analogy. Snakes and ladders. Yeah. You know, ivory, in my opinion, was the plastic of its age. Okay.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

The expenses are going up. It goes a long way with families.

[Robbie]

We have families that do need it. Let me close this door because I have a little weiner dog. What are you laughing? Because I said wiener. I'm really glad you finished the sentence out.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

I'm sorry the first happened. What are we doing here today?

[Robbie]

You're telling the whole world. No, they Always start. Whenever I've had podcasts with South Africa, it's always 5:00 in the morning, 5:00 in the morning, 1:00 clock your time, 2:00 clock your time. Works perfectly. I'm a 4:30 awake kind of guy and 8:50 in the bed, 9:02 asleep kind of guy.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Yeah. You have children?

[Robbie]

Yeah, I have children. 14 year old boy and a 12 year old boy. And they are used to it. They are in the bed with us watching their Goldberg's YouTube video, whatever it is, and dad turns his light out and turns over and poof, I'm out.

[Hugo Engelbrecht]

Okay, perfect. Definitely did something right.

[Robbie]

Well, Carla, Hugo, I'm super happy to have you here. Obviously not happy about the circumstances of why you're here, but this is the point. The reason why we have you here is to create an amplification, hopefully of your voice and other people's voices in the same world that you live in. So welcome, welcome to the Origins foundation podcast. I'm super grateful to have you both here.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Thank you very much.

[Robbie]

Carla, why don't you start? I want to know a little bit about you. I want to know who you are, where you are, what you do.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Okay. No, Robbie, thanks. Yeah. Just to give you a short background, I grew up in the northern natal Parts of KwaZulu Natal Province, South Africa, on the east coast near a small town called Paul Petersburg.

[Robbie]

Where is Paul Petersburg? Where is that in relation to anything else?

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

All right, if you would take Swaziland. Yeah, the southern part of Swaziland, you, you will find the small town Pungola.

[Robbie]

Yeah.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

And just, just to the west of that, on the, on, on the highlands, you get Paul Petersburg, Freiheit, Dundee, that small settlement there, that is mainly German settlement. Our ancestors moved there. I'm the fifth generation in that spot there. And you find a lot of German congregations there, church congregations there named after German cities where those missionaries came from, you know, Braunschweig, Wittenberg, Luneburg, Augsburg and so and so forth. So yeah, I grew up there on a cattle maize timber farm. After school, went to study nature conservation in Pretoria. Did my time, my practical in the old Natal park sport. The npb, worked in various reserves there, the reserve Nkusi, Ozabeni down on the coast and so forth. And then, yeah, I was never, ever really had it in mind to start a safari business with hunting. And so I liked hunting. I did hunting as a child, but then I went to work in Namibia for a year and on my way there met my wife on the Bus trip there. So that's where my shit started. And then yeah, came back and I guided a couple of guys there on this farm in Namibia and then suddenly just escalated, you know, those guys phoned me back the year after when I was back and said, listen, can't you organize something for us in South Africa? And that's, that was nearly 30 years ago now. So it then it just went on rolling from there, you know, having a single Isuzu camp pickup had a plastic covering on the back and the client sat on the mattress with a dog and the tracker in the back of the vehicle with a bag of salt.

[Robbie]

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[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Good luck with some beers and a cool box full of meat. And that's how we went hunting. And yeah, it evolved from there. And yeah, building the first guest room and up to now having two game farms with lodges on it. So it evolved and the hunting business was really good for me. Made some really incredible people, met some people that really supported me, made some incredible friends and yeah, it was. I. I was able to live my dream.

[Robbie]

Amazing. Amazing. And obviously you've had some kids, Hugo being one of them. Any other kids?

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Yeah, two. Two daughters younger than Hugo. Who was the oldest? Mia. She just finished school. Now she, she's 18. And then Zoe, she's. She's turning 60.

[Robbie]

Amazing. Hugo, you've. You've grown up in the bush, essentially.

[Hugo Engelbrecht]

Yeah. So I, that's basically the only thing I've known my whole life. The only way I realized it's not the normal way of growing up is going to school in the first grade. And everyone would start talking about their school holidays, going to the beach and whatever. And then I would say, for example, we hunted an elephant now and then they would start phoning my parents and said they'd worried about me because they think I'm a liar. And then my parents would say, why?

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

No, he said he hunted buffalo with

[Hugo Engelbrecht]

this guy and xxx and they're like, it's true. So no I've was very privileged growing up the way I did, and I think only at a later stage did I really start appreciating it.

[Robbie]

You know, it's funny, Carlos, you know, growing up, when a young man grows up in South Africa, I've said this a lot. You know, you want to be like everybody else. You want to be a policeman, you want to be a fireman, you want to be whatever. But young men in South Africa want to be game rangers. They want to. They want to look after the bush, right?

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

No, definitely. You know, but it's, it's. I think it's the whole environment that shapes you. You know, I've always. We have the saying boss in. In South Africa, you bush mad. And yeah, it's, it's. For me, it was park sport. You know, those green pickup trucks with, with the guys getting out with. Out there with the, with the cocky uniforms, with the green epilets. That was my everything. And I wanted to do that. Chase poachers around in the fever tree forest of Ndumo forest and the catch game, you know, if you, if you grow up in the, in that thing and. But yeah, like I say, hunting the safari, because there's really opened up a lot of doors enough. I'm very privileged to have been, you know, hunting all over Europe and, and seeing so many different places and. And that's what so many people just can't understand. You know, if. If you, if you practice hunting, you get to see so many places that, that the normal guy would only dream of getting to see. And like I said, yeah, I went. One of my biggest dreams was to hunt a bear. And I went this year I went to Romania and hunted a brown bear. Then. Yeah, it's, you know, you get to forest parts or mountain ranges where the normal person will never, ever set foot. And that, that was. Makes it so special. And then. And that's also always my argument. It's not about physically killing the animal. It's, you know, the whole intake that you get around that whole trip, you know, the looking forward to it, making your way to get to that spot and getting yourself into that position to be able to harvest that animal is the biggest plus point in the whole thing. Harvesting the animal is just the cherry on top. But it has nothing to do with killing or something like that. It's just being there and having the privilege to be able to do that.

[Robbie]

Yeah, you're making a great point. It's funny. I grew up in South Africa. I left when I was 24. So I spent half my life in South Africa, half my life here in the States. And now I get to come back to South Africa twice a year. At least two or three times a year, I get to see parts of South Africa that very, very few South Africans get to see. And they're exceptional. Like the, the place that you guys live, the Makuzi area, Makuzi Game Reserve, Pongola area. I don't think many South Africans realize it's almost wild Africa. It's like you can take, put yourself, drop somebody in the middle of Mikuzi Falls and, and I was there with Gary Kelly in April. I was in Mikuzi Falls Impelor. Oh, I keep messing up the other, the other place's name just down the road, it doesn't matter. But you drop something private that lives in South Africa. No, Somkanda. Some kinda. That's it. And you drop somebody in those places and you say, okay, where are you? It could be in the wilds of Mozambique or the wilds of Zambia, the wilds of Zimbabwe, those, those places in, in, in really in Zululand that are proper wild.

[Hugo Engelbrecht]

Yeah, I always think the same like you said. Now I think there's very few places, for example in South Africa that still have free range wild dogs. I mean you'll hear normal game farmers complained the wild dogs were on their side again. And I mean, for instance, now there's a case where, you know, lion went over a cattle farmer's farm and, you know, there's a lion. I think there's very few places in South Africa where instances like that still happen. And it's almost quite normal to people.

[Robbie]

No, you absolutely, yeah, you're absolutely nailing it. Carlo, tell me a little bit about when did you enter into the cause, into the National Natal Parks board?

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

This was 96, 96, 97.

[Robbie]

So tell me, because you're coming into the Natal Parks Board on sort of the back end of the rhino restoration period. Right. The rhino relocation period. The really the, the upselling of rhinos, getting rhinos back into the landscape. What was the. Give me a little bit of insight into the feelings of the Mattel Parksport at the time around rhinos. What was going on?

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Yeah, you see, if you, you must even take it like you correct there, the back end. If you take back 20 years prior to that, we didn't tell Parks what was famous for, it's always still was famous for is rhino protection and building up the numbers again where, you know, rhinos were sent on and were given away to, to private Farm owners. If you, if you had the land for it and you. You had the right fencing for it, Parksmith would give to you a population of rhinos. And that's, that's what, at the end of the day, saved the rhino. Because you had these pockets of different herds of rhino all over the place, and they were not concentrated. And if, if I remember in the early 1990s, you know, the park sport auction, the. The annual game auction that they had there, you know, Blaisbach was, was. There might have been 10 Blessbuck there, but there was like 150, 200 rhinos to be sold.

[Robbie]

Wow.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

And that's how. How, how parks put. Really was putting on the map. And they just. Rhinos were, were sold all over South Africa. And the sad thing about it is, if you go now where that auction was, a whole festival starting on the Friday, and they had all those boma systems with rhinos standing on bomas, black and white rhinos and everything. The auction these days is an online auction where they sell 40 Blesbach and 100 Wildebeest and maybe one rhino or two rhinos that are on auction. And it's scary to think about it, you know, that the population has gone down so badly. And the second thing is no one wants those rhinos really, you know, because you buying yourself trouble. So, Carlo, that's the sad part of it.

[Robbie]

Carlo, for somebody who's listening to this podcast, is completely naive to why nobody wants rhinos. Can you just paint the picture? Because obviously you are a rhino owner. Paint a picture for why somebody doesn't want rhinos today?

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Yeah, if I can just. Just backtrack a little bit. You know, my biggest reason for, for having rhino on my property or one of the main reasons I had is, was I wanted to prove to the outside world I'm not just harvesting rhino. I wanted to give something back. So I made a loan. My wife nearly shot me for it. But anyway, I made a loan at the bank and I bought my first two rhinos on auction. A bull and a cow.

[Robbie]

Now, Carlo, just so I know, when you bought those two original rhino, did you have the intent in the future to potentially hunt these rhinos?

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Yeah, for sure. I wanted to. That was part of my management plan. As soon as that bull got too old or the female would get too old, I would. I would harvest that female to, to. To.

[Robbie]

To.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

To subsidize the rest. And through hunting, that's how I built up my herd. The cow gave a calf. It was a hea calf. So I sold the bull again, got him to, I took that money and bought another two. And that's how I just carried on building up these numbers. So basically Hunter's dollars funded my project. And we, we in the whole of South Africa, the bulls are always excessive. You know, you can't keep on smaller properties. More than one or two bulls, they, they will kill one another. So especially if, if you put females in between them. So that was my whole plan, my management plan. Through hunting, through subsidies, through people that are prepared to pay for a rhino trophy, I could use that money again. Buy another two, buy another two. That's how I just built up this whole thing. But it got to that point now, I would say the last 10 years, where the whole system, the justice system, the policing system is just overwhelmed with crime. In South Africa there have been special units, Rhino 9 unit and Rhino units that have been put in place, but there's just no funding. You know, there's more human crime that's more important at the moment for, for the government to attend, you know, the normal murders in the Cape Flats or violence against women and things like that. So it's not a priority anymore. Yes, they say rhino poaching is a priority and there are really some good cops out there and there are some, some people, judges that do their part in convicting people in, in the courts. But you know, we, our local guy that deals with rhino poaching, he's got a stack like that of, of, of dockets that are not resolved and there's just no manpower, there's no money to do it. And at the end of the day, it is a financial burden even for me. Years ago I didn't have a security guard on the property. I had one guy checking the fences every day or just walking through the property. But these guys, it's a full fledged war. It costs you a lot of money because if you sleep, one evening they come in and they're hitting us from all sides. And you know, even it was on a full moon phase was always the danger part between 6 o' clock and 8 o' clock the evening. But these days the poachers have the same technology that we have. They have thermos, they have high powered rifles that are sickened. They have drones. We even get it now that people, they fly with drones over your property to, to, to pinpoint the rhino where they are. So it's not being a case of, of checking the rhinos in the morning and counting them in the evenings. It's, it's basically you'll you're going to have to have a guard on the rhino's ass 24 hours a day. That's, that's where, where we're getting to. Or we're going to have to remove them out of natural areas like where you've been down there in Zululand, put them on a flat open area like in the Free State, where you can have a fence around them and you can monitor the fence the whole time. And that's where it's getting down to. And the second thing is, why are people scared to have them? You know, these poachers are getting. The demand is so high that they will end up attacking you on your property if they know you have some dehorned horn in your house. Or we had an instance now about six months ago with a farm not too far away from me where she has a three hectare camp where she feeds her herd of rhinos. And they come in the evening, she closes the gate and the guards sit there and the rhinos sleep in front of the guards. And the poachers came in, held the guards at gunpoint and shot the rhino right in front of the shed.

[Robbie]

Geez.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

It's crazy. So they really getting arrogant.

[Robbie]

Yeah, there's no, as you said, there's, it's tough for a rhino landowner to actually look after their rhinos wherein there's no help. Right. Who's helping you, caller?

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

No, it's all private funding that you have to pull out of your own pockets. It's your other industries, your timber and your cattle money that you push in there.

[Robbie]

Huge rhino NGOs out there. Save the Rhino International, Save the Rhino. Are they not giving you money?

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Don't get me started on that.

[Robbie]

I want to hear it.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Yeah, it is crazy. You saw that video that I posted about the two females that, that got, got hit and, and, and that guy that made that video, he, he really climbed in and did some investigation and he, he comes across about three,

[Robbie]

I

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

think he said something like $3 million that he can pick up from some NGOs that have been donated to South Africa towards a rhino conservation. And even like yesterday I saw on Facebook there was buy a fluffy toy to save the rhino and stuff like that. And, but I can't see it. I don't know where this money is going. Honestly, I can't see. You cannot knock on any door. I don't know. There's no address on these NGOs, you know, where you can say, phone me if you need help or something there. I can't see it. I Don't know who's pocketing the money, but we all know the history of NTOs. There might be some NGOs that are doing their job, but the, most of the funding in the donations that they get go towards administrative fees, you know, keeping the, this, this company alive. So I don't know, but we need feet on the ground. That's, that's bottom line.

[Robbie]

So right now what is your. Give us a little sense of an understanding of what your security is for your rhinos. Obviously you've had rhinos, so you've already alluded to the fact there's videos that we, we've, we've created. We actually took this big video that Carlo's discussing and knocked it down to a couple of short form reels that you'll, you'd be able to see car. You just hadn't. Obviously. Let's just, let's just address the, the, the elephant or rhino in the room essentially that you've got two rhinos lately that got knocked down by poachers. Both of them were pregnant. Oh, but those are, those are one, those are two of 12 that you've lost over the last 18 months.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Yeah, I would. In the last 18 months I lost the 10. Okay. Plus the two. Let's make it 12 then with the bigger ones. And in 2018 I lost two. So. And it was since 2018, I didn't have a problem with the rhinos. But then suddenly, since they've started dehorning rhinos all over the place in all the national parks and stuff like that. It is, they, they just looking for anything that has not been dehorned. And I've dehorned some of my animals, but the bulls, for example, I do not dehorn because I feel the bull needs that horn to dominate the female. And at the end of the day, the lifespan of that bull is only for a couple years before he can, he will start covering his own offspring. So you have to then hunt him out. So you will devaluate that, that rhino if you dehorn it. But they even going for the smallest, you know, those last cows that they shot, they were previously dehorned and they, they, they, they didn't have massive horns on them. It's. So it's really, it's where they would, would shoot a, a not dehorned cow that has five kilograms that will shoot now five, that and add up the, the knobs that they get or to get 5kg. So yeah, it's, it's crazy. It's. The best would be to numb the, you know, get, get the calf and to numb that growth of that horn completely, that it never grows a horn that at the end of the day that would be the, the, the ultimate solution if you want to have a breeding, a breeding herd of rhinos.

[Robbie]

Hugo, you're a young guy coming into this world and it seems very bleak for rhinos. Why are you even bothering?

[Hugo Engelbrecht]

The thing is Robbie, I mean I grew up with him. I've, I've known, you know, the rhino my whole life and I, I just think the big thing is even friends of mine in school that their parents had rhinos and now they're all gone, you know, and I just think as long as we can try not to get rid of them, you know, because I don't want to be able to tell my kids here were rhino on the, on this property, I would love them to also see the rhino.

[Robbie]

Hey, but it comes with lots of risk, comes with lots of liabilities.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

No, for sure. And at the end of the day, you know, you must ask yourself, put aside the emotional part of the rhino and the passion or whatever like that. But I think in the whole world at the moment there's a financial crunch going around everywhere. You can feel it even in Europe and so forth. So it's a big investment that you do make. And like I mentioned in that thing is I'm not a Bill Gates or I'm not a Microsoft billionaire or so you know, it's, this is hard earned money at the end of the day. And if you're going to start looking at safety of your family and looking at that kind of picture, the financial picture about that, you know, isn't it better to just sell off the rhinos to whoever wants them and rather concentrate on other game or livestock or plant timber? At the end of the day I need to get his ass through university or his sister. So and if, if, if everything dies off and what you build up, you know, I'm, I'm, I just turned 50 now, so I'm not old, I'm not young. But you know, you get to that point in life where, where you think, you know, another 10 years, I'm 60, another 10, I'm 70. So what am I leaving behind, you know, my stubborn ass to, to, to think, you know, I'm going to push this through. I'm going to save the rhino, I'm going to put my, my family to, to danger. You, you might end up losing more than the, the rhinos. You might lose your life and you, or you might lose your Family to say, listen, you're crazy

[Robbie]

right now. What is your, if you want to say, obviously we know that this is very, a very public forum. What kind of anti poaching measures do you have in place right now, Carlo?

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

We have, we have a foot guards that, that go out in the mornings and the evenings and, and they make different time schedules to watch them at night. I've purchased some, some thermo objects, binos and stuff like that that we're looking after them and spending some money trying to pay informers to gather information and to just to be preventive to get the guys to stop the guys before they get into the property. Like you all know, you know, once the bullet has left the, the barrel, you can't stop it. So we need to try and stop these guys before. But what you, what just makes it difficult is once again I'm getting back to the legal aspects of this thing. You know, you know, people getting arrested with, with an illegal firearm with rhino horn in their possession and they get a slap on the wrist and they walk out of jail. And that just makes you frustrated. You know, you're doing all this effort, you're spending money on the informers, you doing all of that. And yeah, it's, yeah, the system is failing.

[Robbie]

Yeah. You know, and I absolutely understand the frustration and hear the frustration. I think it's, it's a worldwide issue. And I tell, and I say that because we just had the, the chair of the Boone and Crockett Club here in, in America on and they've got a program that they just put in place called the poachers pay program. And what they did was a five year investigation on the rate of poaching in America. Everyone thinks Africa is the poaching like Mecca, the dark number that is the number that goes undetected in America is 94%. Yeah, Hugo, exactly. Yeah. They are only picking up 6% of poaching incidences in America. Okay. And the best place that they're picking up, and I can't even remember what their percentage was, I think it was in the mid-20s, 20s or 30s, was in Oregon, where Carlo, to your point, they have a dedicated prosecution task force that all they do is prosecute poaching. So that to me is a great step forward from a justice system perspective. Right. In each province they allocate a prosecution team and an investigative team that all you do, let's even get more specific. In South Africa, all they do is rhinos. And when they catch someone, it's not like it sits for 10, 12, 18 months. They've got a, they've got a court, they've got a justice, they've got somebody sitting there that. All that person does is his hear cases around rhino poaching. That's it.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Yeah, Robbie, that's, that's just the system that I'm, that I'm talking about, you know, just to, to, to, to name an example in 2018, when I had my first poaching incident on my property, we caught those guys and they went over, got arrested, went to jail. That case is still not closed.

[Robbie]

Wow.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

They are still being detained, but they have not been, been, been, been served with the sentence. Now there was four guys that sat in jail and the fourth guy, according to information that it, that we, that we got, he died or he got murdered or he got slashed in jail. Now for the last seven or eight years, these four guys couldn't remember who was the guilty party. But since this fourth guy died now, now all of a sudden everybody remembers who it was, it was the guy that died. So this, this, this case is going to most probably be kicked out of, out of court because the government will have a conviction. There's three witnesses that say it was the fourth guy and they will walk. It's crazy. No. And, and the other heartbreaking thing about is I know you can't, you know, if one, one person does one thing bad, you can't fight it with bad. But like I, I say, I just feel you are on a rugby game or you're on a, on, on some kind of sports event and you, you have to adhere to the rules. You get the red cards if you slap someone, but he can walk into your property anytime and shoot around her. You know, he didn't ask you to enter your property, but if you just lift your hand and you for sure, you get frustrated or something like that. And that is the worrying factor that my wife also says, you know, at the end of the day, these rhinos will put you in jail because you will end up shooting someone because you're going to be angry or you're going to react in a way that, that you shouldn't have and you will be investigated until the day you die. That's the problem.

[Robbie]

Carlo, you're a rhino owner on the ground.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

What's the solution here? All right, I think it's first of all, like you said, the point that the legal system has to be jacked up. The investigating officers have to have more power or manpower to, to, to do that. And we all, even if Africa doesn't have the money we need, we need funding. But I'm still standing on that point. Yes, it's all fine. There's some willing companies that will spend money and, and, and, and, and sponsor money for, for, for, or protection project. But we need to make it last. And you know, funds dry up, people stop spending and things like that. So why can't we at this point use the rhino's horn that is on demand and put it on the market, sell it, get the funding, prepare yourself. Because there will be an onslaught of poaching, you know, once you open the market, that's for sure. You know, because the criminal ways of exporting and smuggling the horn will just be too easy for these guys because there's a lot of legal horn then on its way between countries. But at least take that money, prepare yourself physically with technology and everything, so if that wave of poaching comes, you're ready. And use that money for education, use that money for doing that. But it's no use. These horns, these tons and tons. Look, look at John Hume, the story with John Hume. Look at the tons that he has in a safe. Go to all the different park sports. You know, I don't say flood the market. I would just say just put the demand there and crush the middleman. Because once you, once they can't pay someone to do the job, you know, their whole structure falls apart. But if I can have armed guards on my property 24 hours a day and I can have my thermal cameras and I install all of that, make it merely impossible for them to enter your property. You know, for every rhino, like I said, also for every cow that you save is a potential another in her lifetime, another 10 calves. And that's what I just say, you know, even Robin. And it's a very easy mathematical question. The park foot did it those days. They, they expanded the habitat or they expanded the population of rhino by giving farmers rhinos. And it is very easy to say if you make that just a plain calculation. If I would give you 10% interest on your investment and we would drop down the rhino value to a kilo, at the moment it stands at 70, 80,000 US dollars a kilo. Drop it down to $20,000 a kilo. And if I would say I'll give you 10% on your investment, that means that cow must be 10%, $200,000 worth, because she produces about a kilo a year, she grows it back. So if you make the only that calculation, that rhino gets more valuable alive

[Robbie]

than dead, isn't that the key is the key right now. A rhino is worth more dead than alive.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Correct.

[Hugo Engelbrecht]

100%.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

So more people. If you, if you think about it, at this moment, we need to boom the numbers again, like parks would it in those days. So if you get people the incentive to farm the rhino and really build up the stocks, you know, if you, if you can get investment like that, I will chop down 3 hectares of timber and plant grass there and keep a rhino because it will be more valuable than three hectares of a monoculture eucalyptus trees. I would restore nature again to keep rhinos because it's lucrative business. Yes, I know it's a. People say wildlife shouldn't be a commodity, it shouldn't be traded. But I think we get to that point, we need to build up numbers again to secure the species.

[Robbie]

But aren't we doing that already with all the other species? No.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Sure.

[Robbie]

Aren't we game farming impala and bless buck and giraffe and waterbuck and all that kind of stuff? Yeah, yeah.

[Hugo Engelbrecht]

I always tell clients, you know, it's, it's always funny for them, they'll say, oh, shooting a rhino is nasty or is not right or something, while there's an impala on the back. And I always say, you know, let's look at the born tobock, the blackfellow beast, everything that gets conserved. But at what stage does it then lose its, you know, leash to it? You know, when is it not nice anymore because something else is more threatened?

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Yeah. And just to, yeah, just to get back to that whole. If I take. My father. My father grew up on a cattle farm, sheep, maize and timber. And when I told my father I want to start the hunting business, my father just turned 91 now, you know, he's one of the stubborn old hardcore guys. And he, he asked me, said, just tell me who's going to be so stupid to travel 10,000km from Germany to come here to shoot a bloody blessbuck? That was his, his question to me said, who, who does something like that, who wastes that money to come shoot a blessbuck? I said, dad, there are people like that. And it took me a good 25 years. And until then, you as a man also, you know how proud you are if your dad pats you on your back. And he says, yeah, 100. You made it, you did it. And he told me a couple years ago, I never thought this shit would work. And, you know, and I proved it to him, you know, and there are a lot of people in that sense, you know, I understand people that Have I showed that video to a friend of ours last night at o' Brien and he was, you know, his mouth was hanging open. But it's even people in South Africa, you know, living in a bubble, having jobs in Cape Town or working in Johannesburg that have no idea about this. You know, they are just not confronted with this. And that's why I understand the green people or the anti hunters. I understand them completely. And every time I have arguments with them on the European shows, I tell, I'm not arguing with you, I'm asking you for a solution. Why don't you take your money, buy a farm in Africa and prove it to me that your way of thinking is working? I said, then the proof is in the pudding. Just put your money where your mouth is. You know, is it easy as that? Don't argue with me as my system is working at the moment. If you think you have a better one, prove it to me. Don't give me a farmville computer game to say this is how it would work. I said, because the animal doesn't think like that. You can't copy and paste the animal into a camp. It just doesn't work like that.

[Robbie]

Colin, those interactions with people, what are, what are they saying is the solution? I'm assuming these, these people, these people are the same kind of people that are saying, no, do not legalize the horn trade.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Yeah, it's, it's, you know, you have, I don't know how, I've never been to the shows in the States, but in Europe, especially in the central part of Germany, Dortmund and those places, you find a lot of people demonstrating and then they come into the hall and the animal activists and things like that. And first of all, hunting is totally off limits for them. It just, we as people in the modern age don't need that anymore. We don't need to hunt. It's a bloody sport activity that people that want to prove something to the society are doing. You know, all these sayings that people have and, but if I asked them, I said, give me a solution. You know, it's like asking a child to hand you a crayon. I don't know, you just don't get the right response. And they just have no idea, you know, And I have a lot of video clips on social media as well, where the guys were filmed. I've invited these anti hunters and the anti cruelty people from Germany and they've come to my property. I think we've had four or five crews already coming there. I said, I'm going To do this, I'm going to sponsor your accommodation, your food and everything. But at the end of the day, you must be man enough to tell me if you could not prove me wrong. There's not one show where they could say I was wrong. And most of them ended up saying yes. I'm not approving what you do, but I can't fog you against.

[Robbie]

Well, that's what we want at the end of the day, right? We want someone to say, I don't like hunting, but I get it. I don't like hunting, but I understand it. I don't like hunting, but I see the benefit of it. I don't like hunting, but I see people benefiting from it.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Yeah, but they are not willing to put their necks out to say, all right, I want to prove to you there is other way. You know, they're all these like we call them keyboard warriors or emoji throwers or whatever like that. It's, it's just amazing that every year when you go to the shows, there's a new group of anti cruelty people. They just, they keep on breeding. I don't know where they're coming from. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm really trying. You think you're sorting out in area or city or something like that. The next year there's a new group there. I don't know that way. We need to put some, some scissors and

[Robbie]

Carlo, in terms of the future, what is, what is rhino conservation like right now on the market? Like are people, I think you mentioned earlier in, in that video, like there's half the rhino owners today that there was 10 years ago, 15 years ago, even less.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

If I just take, and you know that area roughly. If you go from the Free State, if you start in Ladysmith, you travel down to Newcastle, Dundee, Freya towards Pungola. If I just look at that whole system there, every second farm had a bunch of rhinos there a couple years ago, there were three, there were five, there were eight. And 80% of that population is gone. People sold them off, they just didn't want them anymore. They were hammered by poaching. So the pressure is getting more severe as time goes on. For every farm owner that gets rid of his rhino, the pressure moves to the next farm. And from that whole road there, that whole 300km from Ladysmith right through to Pangola, we are, I think it's four farms left that have rhinos. That's it.

[Robbie]

And how many do you think were there 15 years ago?

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

You had a population about of 200. Just over 200 rhinos. 250 rhinos. And I think if you take that stretch now, there's just over 50, between 50 and 60 left.

[Robbie]

All because they have no value.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Yeah. And all because the risk is too high. People just don't want to spend that money. It's just not viable anymore.

[Robbie]

Yeah, it's just not viable anymore.

[Hugo Engelbrecht]

I mean there was that farm outside of Pangola. They had what, 62 Rana, 68 runner. And the pressure just got too bad and he sold off all of his rhino. That's 70 rhino out of our system in our area.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

That's very sad. Yeah, that's just Pongola area. That's not even counting, you know, the high lying areas.

[Robbie]

Carla, you've been in, you've been in the rhino selling game for a while. Tell me about. So the guy that just sold his 62 rhinos, what kind of value is he getting on those rhinos? I assume not much.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

No, it, this was a, this was, it's out of. This was a couple years ago when, when he sold it and the rhino prices were lingering, you know, for, for, for a whole bunch of rhinos was about US$25,000 ahead. Okay. But if you go now, if you look back to it and, and at auctions now, I think there was on, on Sand Park's auction in the, in the beginning of, of the year they had black rhino bulls for sale. No one wanted them. The Highest offer was $4,000.

[Robbie]

Can you, could you track, if I say to you Carlo, can you tell me remember, maybe you have some receipts, maybe you got, you know, just maybe it's based on memory what white rhino and black rhino prices were in say 2010 to today?

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

2010, let's say. Yeah, about 2010. I remember clearly I purchased a rhino female with a female calf and I paid for her at that time converted into dollars today about $45,000.

[Robbie]

Okay.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

For that female calf package.

[Robbie]

Okay.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

And if I would sell that now or try to sell that now, you might, if you're lucky get 10,000 for that

[Robbie]

four time drop in value.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Yeah. So if, if we, if, if, if you just. My calculation is like this, if you take per thousand hees, you, you would need about a staff or just, just guys boots on the ground. You would need about six guards and that alone would, would cost you about 150,000 rand, let's say seven, seven thousand dollars a month.

[Robbie]

Per thousand hectares.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

For, per thousand hectares. So you, you're looking already at $80,000 for a year to Protect a thousand hectares. Let's say it was the population of 20 rhinos on, on there that would be able, sustainable. So there you go. You already, you stuffed the equation.

[Robbie]

The equation's upside down. Yeah, no, yeah, so say that one more. Say that one more time. The, the, the rhino horn to cost.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Yeah. It's like if you, if you had had 20 rhinos on your property and you could harvest 10 kilos of those rhinos, the horn at $20,000 a kilo, you're on $200,000. So at the end of the day, you would even make a profit after deducting your security, you know, and if you take, take it at $20,000, $100,000 that you, that you have spare, you could even buy another 10 rhinos, you know, for people that don't want them at the given price that it is today. So suddenly just starts turning and we are busy looking at purchasing some more land in an area of Zululand where we, where we're looking at buying these excess rhinos that are from sand parks, these black rhino bulls and things like that and to stop making like a hub again for rhinos like Parksboro did, where you can breed and resell them, but with the main focus of sustainable hunting as well. Because I need, I think that is the crux of the whole thing. People need to understand that, you know, if it pays, it stays that that's just how it works. There's just no other way around it. And yeah, we busy working on a project like that and we will keep you posted. And you know, there is some, some people, investors that are looking in, in getting into work with us in that system. So. And it forms part of that, that guy that sold all his rhinos a couple years ago, you know, we want to incorporate that whole thing because it's a really good area for rhino, especially black rhino.

[Robbie]

Yeah, the. No, you're right. To me, I don't see outside of hunting, I don't see another mechanism right now, not photographics because people don't come, you know, unfortunately to see like specifically I'm going to pay big bucks to see a rhino. They're going to pay big bucks to get up close and personal with a lion and whatnot or elephant or whatnot. I don't see another mechanism that drives the value of rhino into those, you know, 30, 40, $50,000 range, even more sometimes perspective other than hunting from a rhino to rhino conservation right now.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Yeah. And Robbie, I think, I think what a lot of photographic people, not all photographic people are anti Hunters, some of them are, and some greenies are, but they, what people just don't understand is that a lot of these places where they do their photographic safaris are really indirectly funded by hunters. They pay the anti poaching, they pay the maintenance of the roads and stuff like that. And if you really want to just do it by photographic safaris, you will have to sell your bed night so expensively that the normal jack on the street will not be able to go and see a rhino.

[Robbie]

And you know, oh, that makes complete sense. If you, if you actually put the cost that it costs you to do your conservation as the cost of a tourist coming in for what you need to pay per night. You never get tourists.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

No. So you would only have a handful of people that can really afford this. But how many handfuls do we have? You know, there are just so many people that, that are willing to spend that kind of money. So the, the photographic guy must really say thank you to the hunter for supplementing his, his chance to go and go to a park. Basically what it comes down to.

[Robbie]

Yeah, yeah. 100%. 100%. Well, Hugo Carlo, I know that your time is precious. I really appreciate you guys. I, you know, we're in this with you and we want to show the world the situation that's happening on the ground with rhinos. We obviously are very disappointed in what happened in cop at the cities here in Uzbekistan. But in, in saying that I also understand why it didn't go through. And we've got some work to do in the next two and a half years to the next cop to make sure that we put things in place that give people that may not see it as black and white as we do the comfort to understand that, you know, there are, there is a legal mechanism here. We can put a regulatory trade mechanism in place and we can do this the right way. That at the end of the day benefits rhinos, which is all we want.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

100%. That is the, that is for sure. And I also feel with this whole voting thing, it's the same thing. If you would ask me what do I have to say about the wolf in Germany, you know, I can't say shit. You know, it's, it's, it's not, you know, I don't have first of all the knowledge about it and I'm not living there. You know. And the sad thing is, if you would really ask the people that, that are confronted with the daily problems, I think the voting would look totally different.

[Robbie]

No, completely. Right. But we've got to understand, unfortunately, that's just how it is. It's not going to change. So we have to bend to that system. And bending to that system requires us educating the Germans of the world, the Finlands of the world, the Australians of the world, the Americans of the world, about the reality on the ground that's happening with you. Introduce them to the situation, introduce them to the solution, Give them materials, give them data, give them, like you've just said, this 350 kilometer stretch where 10 years ago we had 50 rhino owners, today we have five.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Yeah.

[Robbie]

If we continue forward, there's going to be zero.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

It's just sad. Robbie, just to end it over or just on this point also is to, you know, there's just no consequence on their decision. Yeah. If you, if you vote no, then give me a solution. Just don't say no. You know, come with something. That's the super thing.

[Robbie]

I get it. No, no, I get it. You're voting no. We're proposing a solution for ourselves. You voting no. But, you know, what are you doing to help us? If you're voting no, what are you doing to help us?

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Yeah, yeah, there are definitely for sure.

[Robbie]

Well, chaps, the communication road is open, right. So you have my WhatsApp, you have my email. Please keep me in the loop of anything that happens on the ground at any time, any kind of content that you can do. This world with. The cell phone and the technology we have is something we have to absolutely capitalize on and use it to our advantage. Because there's no more powerful tool than you being in the field and something like this happens or even something like on the opposite side, amazing happens, right, that you have a baby born and you're like, look, look at the efforts.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

No, definitely, there's. Every single time there's a calf born. You know, that's why I think God created time and because time heals and he puts things in your pathway. You know, every single time you drive past that carcass or that skeleton that lies there, yes, you are reminded of that. But next year there will be a small calf there and then. And I think that's also nature's way of healing. You know, it's a new bundle of life and you think, I'm doing something right, you know, and then you get hope again. Exactly right.

[Robbie]

Exactly right. Well, gentlemen, thank you so much. I appreciate you both tremendously and look forward to what we can do in the future.

[Carlo Engelbrecht]

Great stuff. Definitely. Thanks, man. Well, that's it for today.

[Robbie]

Appreciate you listening as always. Leave a review share it with your friends. And most importantly, do what's right to convey the truth around hunting.