Steve (2:25)

You know, ivory in my opinion was

Robbie (2:28)

the plastic of its age.

Don (2:29)

Okay.

Robbie (2:29)

The expenses were going up. It Goes a long way with families. We have families that do need it. Let me close this door because I have a little wiener dog. What you. Are you laughing because I said wiener?

Don (2:40)

I'm really glad you finished this. And it's out.

Robbie (2:44)

I'm sorry. The first.

Don (2:46)

What are we doing here today?

Robbie (2:48)

You're telling the whole world. I think one of the coolest things that I really enjoy about these podcasts is that truly random individuals come into your life, and they come into your life through an email. And I think a lot of the times people email me thinking, like, oh, I don't know if they're gonna. I'm actually gonna talk to Robbie, number one. And number two, we're gonna just hope and pray that, you know, we're gonna ask like, hey, can he help us? Can he do something? Can he give us a voice? And within 10 minutes, the response is like, yeah, absolutely. Come on our podcast. Happy to have you guys. You know, and that's what this. I think. Steve, you're the one who emailed me, right?

Steve (3:35)

Right. Yeah, that's.

Robbie (3:38)

Steve, this is. This is an audio medium, and so you have to talk.

Steve (3:41)

Yeah, okay.

Don (3:43)

It was actually a Sunday night. I. I saw one of your pleas on social media, and then I hit those things to Steve and said, here's an opportunity, reach out. And that's obviously what he did on the. On the. Monday. I think it was that Monday.

Robbie (3:57)

What was the plea that you heard that you saw, Don?

Don (4:01)

No, I. I just liked your language when you were explaining what Origins was about and that conservation needs to be seen as massive picture. It can't just be a single track thought. And I think it was you explaining putting value into conservation and the South African model that's going out there. And, yeah, that's where we're going to get into where we fit. And yeah, realizing if we don't have conservation, we don't have jobs, we don't have tourism, we've got all sorts of problems coming.

Robbie (4:26)

Yeah, 100%. Steve, do you agree with that?

Steve (4:29)

100%. And Robbie, thank you again with where you launched from there is that. Yes, I did reach out upon Don suggestion, and I was quite blown away by how rapid your response was and the warm welcome which it presented of. Yes, come along. We'd love to chat with you. So thank you.

Robbie (4:47)

Well, I think you guys just brought a different perspective. Right, I'm going to get into this. You obviously represent an organization called the battleus. And for the rest of the world that doesn't understand what a battle is. Don What's a batler?

Don (5:01)

It's an eagle that tends to fly along and when it does, it's always looking down at the earth. And that's the nature of what we like to give a conservation from a view from above.

Robbie (5:11)

Which entails what, Steve, it entails giving

Steve (5:15)

an aerial perspective to conservationists and environmentalists. The aerial perspective in particular being for an environmentalist who might have an interest in safeguarding or monitoring a wetland, for example. And people say these days you'd rather hug a wetland than a lion cub. It's that much more important. Be that as it may, we'll take a researcher along. We might do a game census, an anti poaching patrol. All of those essentially will fit into that aerial perspective bracket. But then again, we provide aerial support services to conservationists of the movement of animals, whether those are rescues or relocations. So the work is extremely diverse. We've done well over a thousand missions in our 28 years and all of it done by a volunteer board of directors and volunteer pilots. And it's a really great.

Robbie (6:03)

So you're talking about planes. You're talking about planes and helicopters and stuff like that. I thought you guys were like swimming around in the air, like looking at or putting cameras on battle eagles.

Steve (6:13)

Trust me, this is all done with airplanes. And we have pilots who, if I spot a pilot who will hang a binocular around his neck and take his holiday in the game reserve, well, hello, there's a battleer pilot for you and they generally love it. I'll share with you later on as we get into it, what we refer to as the hangar Talk.

Robbie (6:32)

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Steve (8:45)

Well, our founder was a Nora Kreia and it was exactly that long ago. Yes. And there was a dune mining occurring on the coasts of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa.

Robbie (8:57)

Is that in the St Lucia area?

Steve (8:59)

Precisely, Robbie.

Robbie (9:00)

Yeah, I did a big conservation project. Well, really, I didn't do the conservation project, but I did. There was a lot of. We did like a research thesis when I was at Wits University. I don't know if you guys know this or not, but I got my Bachelor of science, my honors and my masters out of WITS in Johannesburg. And we got heavily, heavily, heavily involved in the sort of case study of the dune mining occurring at St. Lucia and what actually sort of restituted restoration versus non restoration.

Steve (9:33)

Absolutely. Okay, we needn't go into that in detail because you've got it all and probably with more knowledge than we have. Basically this brings up the subject of the fact that we are the provider of aviation support to the conservationists or the environmentalist. We aren't the conservationists themselves or on the front line. So like I said, you'll know a lot more about it than we do. Nevertheless, the late and great Dr. Ian Player, who was the chief conservative for the Zuland area at the time, he identified the fact that if these great big dunes get turned over, then the Capillary structure of aquifers, as he called them, veins of water that run through the dunes from every morning's capture of the droplets of the, of the sea air coming in the, the, the, the sea breeze in the mornings that it would kill animals in their thousands and destroy the wetland. And it so happened that one year there was a drying up of the Umi Neuzi rivers, so there was no freshwater input coming into this ordinarily saline lake system. And he quickly needed a flight in order to show what was happening. And he got hold of Nora, our founder, who simply happened to be one of those Goto people, a close friend of Ian Players, but a lady based in Johannesburg, where Ian was sitting in the bush in Zulu land. And he basically put out the plea for help. Nora got going and she wrestled together a suitable aircraft on which were people from the Department of Fisheries, Forestry and Environment, along with even the then general manager of the Richards Bay Mineral Mining Company. Nevertheless, they had this assortment of influential people on board and they were able to see that the hippos and the crocodiles were gathering in their hundreds at where these aquifers vented into the, into the lake system. And Ian Player kind of said, well, there you have it. If you now upset and turn these dunes over, irrespective of what you say you're going to rehabilitate in the wake of your mining, then the animals are going to die here, not in their hundreds, but in their thousands. And that apparently. And you can tell me if I'm right or wrong, Robbie. But that apparently was like the last straw, the final ticking of the boxes that had a St. Lucia wetland transform itself into the World Heritage site of Issimangaliso as we know it today. And basically Nora went home and said, oh my word. If this is the power of the aerial perspective, then let's make it work ongoing. And no need for getting into detail. She made it happen. And we are now over 210 pilots countrywide.

Robbie (12:00)

So Don, a thousand missions in 28 years. Do you do everything? Like what?

Don (12:07)

Yeah, I mean, we've had from the smallest little bug wetlands, as Steve said, to the biggest, you know, in the last two weeks we moved a male line of 262kg. And the coming week we can move in another set of wild dogs across the country. And that, that's to me the, the pleasure of it. The call outs we get are things that we don't think of. You know, we were involved with the oxpecker helping redistribute them across the Country Steve did a flight of looking for wattle crane nests. We've done bait balls for jackals, for rabies. It was an experiment with Honest Aput where they dropped fish balls over a big distance to try and get rabies vaccine into jackals. And I guess that's. We don't know what the next mission's gonna be because they've been so varied. Vulture survey, which we did recently, it's a bird that everyone goes, oh, it's so ugly. But it's so critical in the chain of conservation. So literally tracking every vulture nest and going back and putting trackers onto vultures. So yeah, the diversity just keeps on rolling and we keep on learning. There was a recent mission we couldn't fulfill, but it was just very interesting. That endangered wildlife trust carried on looking for a very unique dung beetle that we all learned about that belongs to the Cape above a certain altitude and they're worried that the Cape fires had taken him out and they trained a dog to go and sniff out that beetle. So things like that is like what, read the script and you have never heard of that. And that's just your incredible things to learn.

Robbie (13:38)

So as an organization, the Battlers organization, Steve, are you guys formed in as a charity, you are a nonprofit in South Africa?

Steve (13:49)

Yeah, Robbie, we are a registered, not for profit organization, a registered ngo. And we have certain parameters within which we can work. Of course we have to abide by air law, navigation regulations, and we're not allowed to take money for the flying that we do. Otherwise that would render us a charter operation and along with it a myriad of bureaucratic difficulties. So we basically.

Robbie (14:15)

Nobody can give you money to pay for your flights. How does that work? You're a flight, you're, you're a flight providing ngo. How does that work?

Steve (14:24)

Well, Robbie, there's several factors at play here. One of which is that most conservation bodies, entities, organizations are really resource trapped. They really are. And what might have resembled government funding of yesteryear has withered away to next to nothing. And yet conservation still has to go on. So for a start, if those conservation organizations were quoted and billed at the going rate for an air charter, they'd run away with their tail between their legs.

Robbie (14:54)

I know already. I moved 17 cheetah last year. I don't know if you know this or not, but I did the world's largest cheetah relocation project last year.

Steve (15:02)

Wow.

Robbie (15:02)

We moved 17 cheetah from South Africa to Mozambique and we wanted to, we wanted to get, we want to move all 17 at once. And as you can imagine, you guys are the experts here. There is no plane big enough to move 17 crates of cheetah except a buffalo. And the buffalo could handle it all. But the buffalo I think was like for a two hour flight was like US$95,000 easy.

Don (15:34)

Yeah, yeah.

Robbie (15:35)

So nearly 2 million rand.

Steve (15:37)

Yep. Yeah. So as I was saying, the conservationists don't have those resources, simple as that. And yet there are demands within conservation for aviation. So what we do is we say to them, you got to do your work. It's often vital. We're going to give you the aviation. And where we are able to do that is with grateful thanks to our fantastic community spirited donors who support the battle years. And they do so for the greater good of conservation, for their corporate social investment and for their own reasons. We have a few philanthropists who might, you know, contribute occasionally, but we have operated for 28 years without being able to generate any income. And yet sustaining ourselves, we have run into occasional difficulties. You know, there's an ebb and a flow always with donor funding. And as Don puts it, you can run into donor fatigue easily in the modern world.

Robbie (16:31)

Listen, that's the general story of all nonprofits all around the world. Don, how does it work then? Because. Or you've got 200, what did you say? 213. 215 pilots.

Don (16:44)

Yeah. But remembering they spread across the country so they're not based anywhere generally. I'm also going to do some spooky maths. I'm actually an accountant by trade. Not a good one.

Steve (16:55)

Okay.

Don (16:55)

But the core normally comes out or conservationists will reach out. Steve receives those. He will write a bit of a summary and then it goes to the board which goes to a vote majority wins. The board is looking at all sorts of things. Who are the conservationists? As Steve always puts it, we can't be moving a line that's going to be can hunt. We have to know who is behind this. It can't be for commercial value.

Robbie (17:17)

Totally.

Don (17:18)

You know, a lot of these reserves, we all know, the good ones, have given up the animals to South Africa basically. So they know why you want to move a line. They don't say it's my line. They said that belongs to South Africa. So we go back and forth and we also with a recipe of trying to share the love. If we've moved too many lines, you go, whoa. Is going to be saying us coming up. We've got to be careful of it. So then the reality of it, it, the call out once it's accepted, goes out to the pilots. Steve does a good overview because, you know, our pilots do have to have a certain skill set. You know, some of these guys who call them the weekend warriors, they've only been flying around to go and get $1,000 burger. So you want to know, can the guy, has he landed on a dirt strip before? Does he have the hours to qualify? Basically landing on the dirt strip, being able to fill with a jerry can, does he understand, you know, the worst thing about an aircraft is to be slow and low and slow. So some of the missions require that and we'll make sure the guys have got the skill set. But basically that's the big give up from our pilots. And we, we, we, we always say, most charities, I think the, The Clinton Foundation, 5% of their money saw the beneficiaries. Red Cross, 15% of every dollar sees it. But you give us a dollar, we are basically putting $8 back if you take charter costs. So a very different charity in that sense.

Robbie (18:33)

So your pilots, what you're saying is your pilots, the fuel costs, the maintenance costs, the use of the aircraft is all pro bono.

Don (18:45)

Exactly. So what you find, remember, aircraft you have to maintain every year by law, or every hundred hours. Most guys aren't putting all that time in. So you also, a lot of them are looking at their wives or partners and having to justify, what is it? Why do we own this aircraft? So as soon as you give them that opportunity of purpose with the aircraft, they jump. And I mean, we've had people enlarge aircraft, you know, jet fuel burning aircraft, blowing 400,000 rand in a day, helping us out. And when any sort of contribution towards expenses is offered, they go, no, thanks. But.

Robbie (19:22)

So somebody could donate, though. They could donate instead of saying, and again, maybe this is semantics, okay? And maybe it's the way that you guys survive. I'll put myself in the situation because one of the reasons why I was so intrigued when you guys reached out, I was like, I know I'm going to have aviation needs in the future. I know even this year we're probably going to move, try and move three more cheetah this year. I was like, wow, I didn't know about you guys before I started. If I'd known, I would have, I would have definitely reached out to you

Don (19:58)

guys to say, hey, I have a buffalo.

Robbie (20:00)

I got. I know, I know we used a caravan. We used two caravans. But I guess somebody like, for instance, I'll put myself in the boat. And I guess this is where it Gets tricky because you, You. You put it to the board for a vote, right? If I knew that my costs. If I had done my charter costs kind of situation, I knew that my charter costs were $70,000. All right, I asked you guys, hey, would you guys do it? And your board votes, and the board says, yes, we'll do it. And I say, well, to say thank you, I'm going to give you a $10,000 donation.

Steve (20:46)

Bring it on.

Robbie (20:48)

Bring it on.

Don (20:52)

Because that helps me debate details now, Steve.

Robbie (20:55)

No, I just said. But I don't know. I guess that's a little bit of like getting around the system, but it also is finding a way to say, look, I'm a nonprofit. I need to use my funds as wisely as I possibly can. If there's an avenue with another nonprofit that's doing this work, why am I not partnering with this nonprofit to help us fulfill the mission of what we do? And at the same time, I can donate. Not as much as I would pay, because that's why I'm going to work with you guys. But it's a wonderful.

Don (21:28)

We know you've got $70,000 now, so be careful.

Robbie (21:31)

No, I don't. That was a lie.

Don (21:36)

I told you, as an accountant, I heard a number and I remembered it.

Steve (21:39)

Robbie, you nailed it with your summation there. You really did. Let me very quickly take Don's numbers and put them into practical terms. If that caravan you were flying, or any aircraft for that matter, costs 4,000 per hour to operate, and it doesn't matter whether we're talking SA rans or dollars, it's 4,000. In this argument, you'll find that a quarter to one third only is the fuel burn in the aircraft. So a thousand of it was going to be burned in fuel. The other 3,000 is the cost of ownership, hangarage, insurances, licensing, etc. However, here comes the pilot who is the greatest donor of all, by the way. He wants to do this. He's got a passion to do it, and it's because we're encouraging him by making everything easy and a great experience that he comes along to the party. And as Don said, rather than that 50th cup of coffee at the neighboring airfield and the hangar talk I was talking about earlier on goes along the following lines. The pilot comes home from his mission and says, oh, my word, this was fantastic. We stayed with the most amazing people. They bride barbecued for us every evening. We flew in territory that's normally for Burton and the battle still refueled my plane it's like a no brainer. When's the next one? So.

Robbie (22:52)

Oh yeah, I could see that like if that pilot was a part of our cheetah relocation project. He's pulling cheaters on and off a plane. He's moving them to a boma. He's seeing them released into the Boma.

Steve (23:02)

They love it.

Robbie (23:02)

Part of the trip for the next five days. Releasing the cheetah that have already been in the boma for five weeks. Seeing the new cheetah go into the system.

Steve (23:10)

Oh they get, they get hands on experiences that no member of public could even hope for. And that is where we get this magical transformation where Don calls it the multiplier effect where if a supporter gives us 100,000 U.S. for example, we will convert that thanks to our pilots. I say we loosely but it's thanks to our pilots. We'll convert that into 400,000 of direct input of aviation value into conservation. And there's not another charity in the world that we know of that can, that can expand on the contribution in that way. It's fantastic.

Don (23:41)

Don and I just want to remind you know, don't forget we still like you know, charity. It's hard not to run you. We've got to do social media, we've got to, we've been terrible at telling our story for 25 years. It's just by a whisper but we need to shut it from the rooftops. But you know, we've got Steve there as a full admost. Steve's got to drive around, go to trade shows and all sorts. So we, we run very lean. We do say no to some missions just because there's not enough love to go around. So there's a lot to be done. And as you know, with a slavering conservation when we started to get calls from national Parks, Natal Parks board and the likes, it just shows how the system's crumbling. So yeah, there's still a lot that goes on behind the scenes. And I mean just to give you an idea, that last line movement and we like to talk to corporates about team play. To pull off a mission takes incredible amount of team play. So the, the mission idea starts and I'll give that line as an example. We teed up everyone. He's got to be a vet on the flight, this owner of the aircraft. We're at his discretion, he actually owns the mission. Then you got to find the nearest Runway, where can we get the fuel. And then there is a permit. Cites permits, lineup, stars aligned. What does the line do? Runs into a Gully. And they can't dart him. Abort abortion, wait another month, start all over again. And the plane is actually a working aircraft at that time. And it's just, you see, we have the each mission as a WhatsApp group and it's just all day long.

Robbie (25:07)

Oh, listen, people, this thing, we cruise

Don (25:09)

in the lines on a dog lead. We lead it in, it lies down and you fly. It's incredible. So the admin that goes into every mission's massive. And not only on the, you know, from big line, even the little ones, just that, you know, sometimes the guys put their hand up day before. Sorry, I've got a business meeting. I can't make it. Steve's got a juggle. Weather plays a massive part. Yeah, I mean the other one, a vulture. I've got a. A colleague friend that's got ex military helicopters. He did the vulture count. He does not now stop nagging me every week phone and wins the next mission. He totally fell in love with what he does and everything from that mission being given free reign of umphalosi. We did game drives and a military helicopter. Low level looking at vulture's nest. We saw wild dog, we saw cheetah with seven cubs. We thought there were honey badgers running. Remember Steve behind her, Unbelievable on the grass. And she turned and even gave us a go in the helicopter. Incredible experience and total reef faith in the system that, you know, I'm for lows. He's still a major bastion of conservation that needs protecting and that we working hard with. Yeah,

Robbie (26:16)

no, it's. I think you're nailing it on the head, man. It's really cool, man.

Don (26:24)

Are you.

Robbie (26:25)

How many times do you have. So, Steve, are you full time with this?

Steve (26:30)

Yes, Robbie. I'm the only full time employee of the Battle Years, although I'm also on the board of directors. And we do run lean and mean. We don't own a single airplane, we don't own any premises and no vehicles. So we make sure that every beam that we can possibly direct towards conservation, we do so. And I'm the only one who might be some form of a drain on the system. But as Don was saying a moment ago, I don't know if I'm a puppeteer or a juggler. There's a lot of that that goes on.

Robbie (27:00)

Are both of you pilots? I should have asked this question right at the beginning.

Steve (27:03)

Yep.

Don (27:05)

So, I mean, bit of history. I actually worked for Steve's brother in the 90s. I was a contract pilot in Angola for Steve's brother's company that I hear was the biggest single private owner of caravans in southern Africa. That's right, Steve.

Steve (27:19)

Yeah.

Don (27:20)

At the time, your brother. Yeah. So I go back with his family, funny enough. But then we, we reunited in 2005. Yeah, and that was my dream. I went back to being an accountant, living in London. Came back here, started a business and

Robbie (27:35)

the first day, the dream was to become an accountant again.

Don (27:39)

No, no, no. It was to fly when I, to fly when I want to, not when I have to. That was. And yeah, the first chance that came when the wife wasn't looking, I could buy a plane. I bought one and then literally the next day I got hold of Steve and said, I want to be in the battle years. I want to get involved. And that was 2000, 2005. So 21 years, 21st of the battle years this year.

Robbie (28:02)

What is the process if somebody is a pilot? If somebody, you know, has their own helicopter, has their own plane, what's the process for them to say, I want to be a part of you guys?

Steve (28:12)

It's pretty straightforward, Robbie. They jump on our website, give us the details with a copy of their current license, which must be current and the last most current page of their logbook. And they required to have 400 hours. We have a lot of commercial pilots will come to us, for example, and say, hey, what are you doing to me? I'm a professional, I've got 200 hours. And it's very easy to then ask them, so, okay, when did you last refuel your own airplane? And they've never ever done it. They've only ever taxied up to the bowser and said filler up, you know. So we tell them now you're going to go into a bush Runway and be filling from a jerry can. And do you even have the rubber mat out of the back of your car to put on the wing to stop the can from scratching the paintwork? So we need to kind of coach them even though they might be a professional pilot. But that's why we put that 400 hour prerequisite in place. It ensures at least a depth of experience and it's not that gung ho 60 to 70 hour ppl. Who hasn't had enough wired eyed scares yet to note? Keep it inside the envelope. So that is the pilot qualification, as loosely as I can put it. But to actually apply, they go on the website, fill in their details and we only ever ask once for that license and that logbook, Robbie. We don't want to be another bureaucrat or a civil aviation authority that says right. Every time you have a medical renewal, pilot's license renewal, your authority to fly on your aircraft, we need a copy of it. Let's just be giving us an admin headache. And the law takes care of it. The law in South Africa, like any country in the world says if you're going to pilot an airplane, it will have this, that and whatever in compliance. So let's let the law do its work and we keep it simple, straightforward.

Robbie (29:53)

Yeah, it's funny what you said Don, about the. So the logistics associated with a relocation. I don't think anybody. If you're not involved in the relocation game or the relocation conservation game, you honestly have no idea. And you come at it like this is simple, man. We're going to move like us, we're going to move these cheetah. Okay, well if you could create a bingo board of all the things that are going to go wrong, there are going to be 10 things that you didn't think about that aren't on that bingo board that are going to go wrong. Yeah, it's unbelievable.

Don (30:31)

We had so we would move cheetah from Malawi back to South Africa. They were sent up there for breeding because, you know, people forget. I think it's since the ice Age they say that cheetah have been under stress and their genetics are not that hot. But the biggest stress is cheetah is lion. People forget. Okay, let's put that's mad man then followed by lion. And I mean they've been reserves like Nambiti, I think lost 12 of their prime males. They bought a male line from the Kalahari in and he just went and hunted them down. And the idea was Malawi had a big track of land and they were sent up and they did really well and then they wanted to bring them back. We've also wild dog. We moved the first wild dog back to Mozambique. It was. The first set was 12, Steve. And then two years later another 12. They had 114 now. Now they're bringing him back into South Africa again because they've done so well in Gorongoza. Yeah. And that choose amazing. That's a whole pack lined up interlocking legs with drips and a caravan's amazing sight.

Robbie (31:30)

Yeah, that's the only thing with a cheetah that I've obviously gotten to know as I get into this world. Obviously wild dogs and lions, you know, they, they don't need crates. Right. So they're asleep move them. But a cheetah for some, I Don't know. I have to ask the vet. I didn't ask the vet the question. I was like, why are we, why do we have to move cheetahs awake, sedated, but awake in a crate?

Don (31:51)

Because they're very heat sensitive. One degree or so fluctuation. That's why cheetah can only do a quick burst. And this is what I got told by V can literally put them in a coma if their temperature fluctuates by a degree. And they are, they're high performing machines. They're like a Ferrari, finely tuned, that and if you knock them out for too long, their body temperature fluctuations and that can put them in a lot of stress.

Steve (32:15)

So that is another reason, Robbie, that I learned of. If it's of any interest, they are solitary hunters, not unlike a leopard. Lions hunting in prides and wild dogs hunt in packs. And a cheetah doesn't do well from the anesthetic. It lands up with what in human terms is a bad hangover. So this animal now with a hangover doesn't have its pride or its pack to support it and to do so take on some of the harder hunting roles. So it's severely compromised and can sometimes not come through the process. So it's almost a case of as little drugs and medication as possible, which to its best benefit.

Robbie (32:53)

Yeah, that makes sense. That's what happened to ours. They got sedated initially, put in the crate once a sedative, they had a knockout drug and a sedative in the first punch. And so then the sedative kept them going for the next 24 hours or kept them calm essentially for the next 24 to 48 hours.

Steve (33:14)

And do you know that right now in South Africa, Robbie, it's happy hour. It's a little after five on a Friday afternoon.

Robbie (33:20)

Well, listen, you guys seem to drink in beers, that's fine. This is a podcast now. You should be man. I'm drinking a protein shake because it's nine o' clock in the morning here. Let me ask both of you, you both have obviously talked about different missions and whatnot. What's been your favorite mission? I'll start with you, Steve.

Steve (33:45)

Favorite is being part of a an operation that brought the wattled crane birds literally back from the brink. But the most exciting mission or the Most hair raising 1 was 6 sub Adult Lions in a Cessna Caravan where the vet hadn't quite calculated how much Juicy needed because the people had like an all aviation. We all, when we board an aircraft, we try and fib about the Weight of our suitcase, right?

Robbie (34:12)

Yeah, we.

Steve (34:13)

We hustle on with extra weight. Well, these lines were not sub adult. They were all adult, but now we had them in our care. What can you do? And the vet on board had taken sufficient drugs plus 50%. Well, he used the 50%. And on short finals into the destination airfield, which was from Pilansburg in the northwest province to Tutlui in Zululand, this vet was running out of drugs such that the lions were starting to stir. Heads were coming up. It was an extremely tense moment. It really was.

Robbie (34:46)

And what are you, like 7,000ft in the air and these lions heads are

Steve (34:49)

popping up and descending fast enough. What they actually did was get the local village vet on the. On the radio, and they had him meet the aircraft and he literally had a syringe plugged between each finger, preloaded with the juice. And I promise you, the. The prop on the aircraft had not stopped windmilling to a stop yet. And the door was open and that vet was just passing syringes in for the onboard vet to. To sedate these lines. And. And a funny thing was there was a wildlife videographer with a big beta cam camera they had in those days who came to the door. He was shouldering everyone else out of position to photograph this until he realized the lines were waking up and he backed off so quickly he fell over.

Robbie (35:34)

Yeah, it's funny the second, because obviously moving 17 cheetah, as we've talked about, we couldn't find a plane to move 17, so we moved 12, and then we moved 15. 5. And the second trip on the 5, the one of the males didn't sedate. Well, just did not. Was not a happy cheetah. And literally from. We flew from or Tambo to Tet and then Tet into a dirt Runway in the middle of Mozambique. And literally on the way to Tet, this thing was smashing itself up against the crate and so heavily that the caravan was moving back and forth at 10,000ft. And we were all just obviously the stress of the animal, the stress of please don't die, and then another stress of please don't kill us at the same time. And then he did it again from Tet to the. To the Runway. And when we land in the Runway, I was just ready to get off that plane and get this cat in the boma. And when we released him out of his crate, he was just. His whole head was bloody. He was ready to scrap, ready to fight. But the dude's alive. The dude is loving life in Mozambique right now with his Two other coalition mates.

Steve (36:51)

Yeah, you know, the less creating of the animals, the better at the end of the day. And there's guaranteed on your podcast and in your comments column, Robbie, there's going to become the naysayers who say why are we even doing this? You know, it's, it's. The animals are having this terrible time that you're talking about, so, so why do it? But if you think about it, those wattle cranes that we worked with and wild dogs have been brought back literally from the, from the brink of extinction. And they've now been distributed and the money has been spread into different banks for want of a, of a description. The eggs in different baskets, so much so that they are no longer endangered as they were previously. And in the course of doing that, huge care is taken. You know, for example, with all the cats, and you would have seen it with the cheetahs, a very specific little mask is made. And that mask covers their eyes, that keeps them a little calmer. And when lying with their cheek in the sand, you know, waiting to be crated or loaded onto the vehicle, like with humans, the eyes stay open under sedation and the pupils dilate. So now it's staring straight into the African sun with a dilated pupil. You know, have a cat with impaired vision. So the little mask gets put on and it also stops the bottom eye being spiked by the grass. And I'm just talking about the face mask. There's so much else that goes into it and the care and professionalism with which it's done is just top draw stuff.

Robbie (38:13)

It really is, yeah, 100%. Don, your favorite mission?

Don (38:19)

Well, first when I start, you got to learn the one formula in aviation and that's the skid mark on the Runway should be indirectly proportional to the one in your underpants. And when you fire lions, it goes the other way around that formula. So you've got to be very careful, I think. Oh, and I've had a few lovely ones. But we recently in the last bit were involved in a. A project to remove o sites from a rhino. And the idea was for that to be formed in field. But then there was a time period to get them from infield to honest report in Pretoria where they put them into this cryo cryptic freezer for future hoping they can fertilize him later. And that was just part of what everything would we are about. It was amazing experience to go right up in the corner up near Uppington. Actually Steve came along with me and early morning we were on that airfield first Thing and the whole procedural box comes in a special canister and there's a canister and a canister chucked into the back and off we went. And then we met a professor on the apron on the other side. And you can't, you could never do that. That was the point. If they put in a car, they wouldn't make it. And they basically, we proved the model and if they can ever get this thing to fertilize and able to put it back into a mom, there's a huge opportunity to genetically make the rhino incredibly strong and be able to outbreed any form of poaching.

Steve (39:39)

So, yeah, if I may just add there, Robbie, that the OSAT that Don refers to is the biological term forward, in plain speak, is a fertile rhino egg that they've harvested from the ovaries infield from a wild rhino. And of course these OSATs are both time and temperature sensitive and hence the need for the aviation. They would never make it any other way to the lab, to the in vitro fertilization lab.

Don (40:06)

And I mean, as a human eye, you can't see it, it's so small, yet it grows into this animal. You know, at 2 tons. It's, it's incredible.

Robbie (40:12)

It's incredible. Yeah, absolutely incredible. I know that you mentioned in the beginning, obviously the Origins foundation is, you know, we convey the truth about sustainable use of wildlife all over the world. That's what we're about. We don't. If somebody is a non consumptive user, we're not against them at all. There are places in this world that is an exceptionally great model for wildlife conservation. We're essentially for all, we're essentially for every single wildlife conservation model and tool that we have. Right. The more tools we have, we don't have very many tools. We think we've only got seven tools in our toolbox for wildlife conservation. Obviously you mentioned when you, when you get projects, you do a little bit of bidding on the project. If the line is going to be moved for some sort of canned line hunting, that's a total no no would be a no no in our books too, for sure. What about what, what about, you know, areas like, and I'll give you an example again, I don't want to put you on the spot here. Um, but there are places that do sustainably utilize wildlife. You know, maybe some of them do line hunt, but it's wild, free ranging lines, they're not being brought in. It's a wild managed situation. I, I'll give, I, I'll actually I'll give you a little bit more context here. We did some work in Makuzi which is the sort of the bastion of where rhinos started being placed. We actually were on the place that the first private rhino was relocated by Ian Player back in the day. And the person who's been involved as Gary Kelly owns a hunting safari company today. But they had a bunch of lines and they've had a bunch of line problems. Like we had to bring a helicopter to the site to go get a line from a community area with a vet, dot that line, bring her back. Five lines got out of one area, we need to get them back into the other area. I, I'm assuming you don't have a, what's the word I'm looking for here? You don't have a set line in the, in the sand that says if you're a sustainable use guys or you're hunting guys, we don't work with you.

Don (42:24)

I think it's, it's, it's a major discussion and I mean I know private reserves that we work with, they had to shoot seven lion on the reserve because we know genetically the bug up his fences. These lions have nowhere to go. And brother and sister can't look each other and say let's make children. It's what we got to stop because the tb, the hip dysplasia, all these things that are happening with lion is because of this inbreeding. And it's, it's a case of they had seven line put it out there, nobody wanted it, you can't then go and put them in a cage. And the reality is, oh hush, hush. They had to be euthanized and they had to get euthanized with a rifle. And now if you've got someone who says well I will pay money for whatever reason, that's the hunting per why not? I know the same reserve had a rhino before it all got out of kilter. And they had a rhino that was on its deathbed, huge horn was in a D any day soon and an American guy was willing to pay a million rand to shoot it. I couldn't do it myself, but I get it. Instead it ended up being a big squabble. It passed away, no money was made and now who's paying for all the security of the other rhinos and things like that? So I think it's a very open minded topic. As I said, we work with lion for genetics, moving them around for the strong. But every reserve by law has a requirement. They can only have as X carrying Capacity. And when they get to the end of that, what do you do? And I watched the most recent Botswanan president, you know, he's been talking about now the culling of elephants, because you only have to go to Botswana to see the decimation, what elephants have done. And a protester in the States got up and started screaming, he's a murderer. And he's a murderer. And he said, he listened and he said he finished. Have you. When you walk home here tonight at Vegas, you walk and you're safe. But have you ever walked in the dark? When the elephant around, it'll come, it'll find you. And when it finds you, it'll hit you and it'll push you into the ground. In 1972, we didn't have an elephant in Botswana and now we become the refugee camp for elephants. Rather than screaming and shout at me, find a home for them and I'll give them to you. And that's the debate. People got to understand, if you're going to comment from the outside, come and live it. We see it all the time and you have to see, even like elephants. We know the recent vulture survey we did, we know that man is the biggest problem, you know, the death of a poison for vultures, for muti. The other one was elephants. They were horrified by the decimation of trees and areas where these vultures breed. Gone. Just red soil for miles, because elephants have done it. And the reality is they're too many for the land to carry there. So the biggest solution was find more land, get more land open. And I think you, one of your guys on your orange coat bar said, if we don't do anything, you'll watch animals starve to death. What's worse?

Robbie (45:17)

Yeah, 100%, Steve.

Don (45:19)

So I'm, I'm not saying I'm pro, I'm not saying against. I see the big picture and I think the biggest, the best comment was if you put value on those animals, we will have sustainability. That is the reality. And I know enough hunters to know that. Hunters are the biggest conservationists out there. And I'm probably going to get shot by my board for saying that. I get it. I'm not a hunter.

Robbie (45:42)

Well, that's the perfect position.

Don (45:43)

Since I had children, I've softened up too much to I can't do it and I've always will be there. And I think it's got to come from all aspects, be involved and.

Robbie (45:52)

But best position, right? Somebody who's a non hunter understanding it. And that's all we're about that's all I want is that if you, if you don't hunt, all I ask you to do is understand the impacts and benefits that come from it. And that's all we tried disseminate is the data and the OR proof sensor or, or better.

Don (46:09)

If you say it's cruel, we'll take in the bush long enough to watch a lion kill something. That's cruel.

Robbie (46:16)

Well, I, that just, you know, it's actually a little bit of, it's sort of a hypocritical scenario, right, that it's cruel to hunt, it's cruel to shoot something. But the number one attraction for the non consumptive user in an eco tourism setting is to watch something kills something.

Don (46:36)

Yeah.

Robbie (46:37)

And it's the most exciting thing you can see, but it's the most ethically, morally, you know, violent thing that you could possibly watch yet. That's the most attractive thing that everybody wants to see. It's this weird sort of conscious, theological, philosophical like tug of war that you like. You don't like the efficient kill where I'm actually doing the killing, but you're okay with mother nature being completely having no ethics and no morals associated with killing, but you actually enjoy it Anyway, we're getting off topic, Steve.

Don (47:16)

My gin's gonna taste even better now thinking about that one.

Steve (47:20)

I would like more and more for the hunting to be done with the camera, but that's coming from a photographer. I am a conservationist, yes, but I'm not a bunny hugger and I'm also not freaked out by the hunting thing. And in fact, with all the work that we've done in the places we visited, because of what we do, we have a tremendous exposure to the broad brushstroke of what goes on in conservation. And I can tell you now that the private game farms where they give up some of their stock, which is in surplus and it's bred to be that way during the limited hunting period of the year the season, are far better off financially and in much better shape in terms of their fences, their accommodations, their staff, the salaries they pay, their vehicles. It is abundantly clear that the game reserves that facilitate hunting during the hunting season, all of which is properly controlled and done with professional hunters, are in a much better place than the pure game reserve. And I think that speaks volumes as well.

Robbie (48:21)

Perfect. Perfect. So if anybody wants to donate, if somebody wants to learn more about the battlers themselves. Steve, where's the best place to send somebody?

Steve (48:33)

Well, of course, like with anyone, our website is the vehicle for communication There's a contact us page on the website.

Robbie (48:41)

What is the website?

Steve (48:43)

Say again?

Robbie (48:44)

What is your website?

Steve (48:45)

It is the normal www. And then there we have it on my shirt. Battle ears.org for organization.

Robbie (48:53)

Okay, so it's just www.battlers and that's spelled B A T E L E U R s dot org.

Steve (49:01)

That's it.

Robbie (49:01)

Put that in the show notes.

Steve (49:03)

Yep. And those mails will come to me and I redirect them wherever. Best handled. But we'd love to hear from anyone who wants to chat with us about our programs and, you know, possible participation support, of course. Visiting pilots. We can't often enroll a pilot who's coming on holiday in South Africa, but if we got a mission on the go while they're here and they ride along, it can sometimes be the highlight of their flying career.

Robbie (49:30)

Amazing. Amazing.

Don (49:32)

And Steve, just to add that on our Instagram, we the. We called the Environmental Air Force, and as an Air force, we have more active pilots and more flying time than the South African Air Force currently.

Robbie (49:44)

Wow.

Don (49:44)

That's VIPs we fly are very important. Pangolins, not people.

Robbie (49:51)

I love that statistic. You have more pilots and more airtime than the South African Air Force. I like that. Yeah. As the Environmental Air Force, we pride

Steve (50:02)

ourselves in having a greater force readiness.

Robbie (50:05)

Amazing. Amazing. Well, Don, Steve, thank you so much for reaching out. Thank you for your time this morning. I hope this is the last time we connect and do something. I'm looking forward to hopefully using the baftalurs in the future for some of the work that we do. And please don't hesitate to reach out if we can do anything for you guys. Right.

Don (50:24)

Thanks, Robbie.

Steve (50:26)

I think, yeah, it's been great to be here. And if we have some really exciting mission arising, I'm going to share that with you in an email. You might want to just do another podcast dedicated to just that mission and why it's happening and who's doing it and so on. So happily do that.

Robbie (50:42)

All right, thanks, guys.

Don (50:43)

Thank you.

Robbie (50:45)

Well, that's it for today. I 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.