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Wyoming Doc Hires Army to Stop Poachers
October 20, 2002
Bruce Hayse of Jackson, Wyo., supports an anti-poaching force in Africa. (Stephan Frazier/AP)
BY JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
He favors tropical shirts and Western boots, not camo fatigues and a chestful of medals. He drives a muddy truck, not an armored limousine.
So why is this middle-age family physician living on the summit of cowboy chic recruiting his own army 8,000 miles away in the remote and wretched Central African Republic?
"Don't call it an army," Hayse said, wincing.
How else to describe 400 soldiers brandishing AK-47s?
Militia? Mercenaries? Military?
"All of the M-words are bad, too," he admonished.
"It's an anti-poaching patrol," he said. "Purely defensive in nature."
Defending nature. By whatever means necessary. That's Hayse's point -- and his passion.
In the Central African Republic, where the only reliable things are weeklong summer downpours and attempted coups, "necessary" invariably means at gunpoint, even when you are an environmentalist.
OK, Hayse concedes, an extreme environmentalist.
But he's not, he insists, an aspiring Third World strongman or a modern-day Mr. Kurtz paddling upriver into Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
All he's trying to do -- with, he emphasizes, the written blessing of the republic's president -- is save what remains of the country's magnificent wildlife and protect its remote villages from brutal gangs of poachers.
These poachers aren't tribal subsistence hunters who shoot or snare exotic antelope for meat. Instead, they set fires to drive every living creature through a fusillade of automatic weapons fire and rocket-propelled grenades.
It's not hunting. It's extermination.
Hayse says combat is likely because the poachers "won't allow themselves to be arrested. If somebody has a better idea, we'll listen. But nobody does."
In 2001, Hayse says, President Ange-Felix Patasse ceded authority over the entire Chinko River basin -- 60,000 square miles -- to Hayse's paramilitary forces, some of them recruited from villages that have been terrorized by poachers.
Hayse is personally funding the effort, spending more than $150,000 so far.
Today, his rangers are starting to patrol the Chinko region as the dry season begins -- high season for the animal slaughter.
Hayse has hired a shadowy former South African commando who fought in civil wars in Angola and Zimbabwe to lead the armed patrols. Hayse calls him "Dave Bryant," but his true identity is a secret.
An article about Hayse in the October issue of National Geographic asserts that one patrol recently captured and executed at least three poachers, and that seven more were captured and turned over to the government. Hayse said he was aware of the incidents but still is seeking details.
Attempts by The Associated Press to independently confirm those events, and to confirm Hayse's agreement with the republic's government, have been unsuccessful. The republic's ambassador to the United States, and officials in the country's capital of Bangui, have been unavailable for comment.
"The goal is not to kill people," Hayse said. "But you can't just declare a national park and assume that the animals will be safe. There will be some confrontations and you have to assume there will be gunfire."
Large conservation organizations initially were intrigued by Hayse's bold move, but now are backpedaling.
"Allowing a private militia run by expatriates to control the situation using lethal force against Africans will backfire on the government and hurt conservation in the region," said Richard Carroll, who directs the World Wildlife Fund's programs throughout much of Africa, including the Central African Republic.
"It's difficult," Hayse acknowledged. "I don't go to bed at night feeling that I'm doing exactly the right thing."
Bull's-Eye of the Continent: Poaching in Africa is on the upswing again -- a black market worth billions of dollars in ivory, skins, baby animals and meat -- after years of relative quiet.
Governments are selling industrial concessions to develop timber, minerals and other resources. Their deals open lands to illegal hunting that have served as the cradle of evolution.
A Texas-sized land with only 4 million people, the Central African Republic is located in the bull's-eye of the continent. It was legendary among some scientists, hunters and photographers as a bastion of equatorial biodiversity.
Native tribesmen called the tumbling, chocolate-brown Chinko River the "River of Elephants" because tens of thousands would wade and trumpet in its riffles, sharing the waters with hippos and crocs.
Vast herds of buffalo, giraffe and antelope of every stripe migrated through a savannah three times larger than the legendary Serengeti, stalked by lion and leopard.
But for the past several years while the world wasn't looking, poachers have swept across the eastern border from Sudan during the winter dry season.
Scientists estimate that 95 percent of the wildlife in the Chinko region has been lost.
Anti-poaching patrols with shoot-to-kill authority aren't new. Throughout Africa, Asia and South America, governments have created national parks and mobilized their armies to capture poachers and secure their borders.
But on the Central African Republic's eastern frontier, where schools, hospitals and even roads are rarities, the responsibility apparently is being left to the burly, 53-year-old Hayse.
'An Ethical Obligation': In 1998, Hayse led the first raft trip down 300 miles of the muddy Chinko, a place "as wild as you'll ever see," he recalled during a late bistro dinner.
At first, he exulted in the Chinko's isolation, he said. But he soon realized the surrounding forest was silent. The wildlife he expected was missing in action.
His party found a few burned-out campsites littered with elephant pelvises and handfuls of spent ammunition.
"I was so depressed," he said. "It was a paradise. Yet day after day on the river, we saw nothing."
The only populated village was Rafai, at the Chinko's mouth. Tribal elders greeted the rafting party with tales of terror at the hands of poachers.
"It's fine to float down an unexplored river, but at a certain point there is an ethical obligation to do something more," he said.
He and his friends created African River and Rainforest Conservation, a nonprofit group. In addition to the mysterious mercenary "Dave Bryant," Hayse hired a political liaison and a community development specialist. They are arranging for well-drilling, medical care and loans for small business.
If the poachers are defeated, Hayse and wildlife biologists agree there probably are sufficient remnant populations of elephants and other species to repopulate the Chinko basin over many years.
But what about a physician's pledge to do no harm? "I'm doing something I believe in -- protecting wilderness," Hayse said. "On the other hand, it means doing something that means other people will get killed."
October 20, 2002
Bruce Hayse of Jackson, Wyo., supports an anti-poaching force in Africa. (Stephan Frazier/AP)
BY JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
He favors tropical shirts and Western boots, not camo fatigues and a chestful of medals. He drives a muddy truck, not an armored limousine.
So why is this middle-age family physician living on the summit of cowboy chic recruiting his own army 8,000 miles away in the remote and wretched Central African Republic?
"Don't call it an army," Hayse said, wincing.
How else to describe 400 soldiers brandishing AK-47s?
Militia? Mercenaries? Military?
"All of the M-words are bad, too," he admonished.
"It's an anti-poaching patrol," he said. "Purely defensive in nature."
Defending nature. By whatever means necessary. That's Hayse's point -- and his passion.
In the Central African Republic, where the only reliable things are weeklong summer downpours and attempted coups, "necessary" invariably means at gunpoint, even when you are an environmentalist.
OK, Hayse concedes, an extreme environmentalist.
But he's not, he insists, an aspiring Third World strongman or a modern-day Mr. Kurtz paddling upriver into Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
All he's trying to do -- with, he emphasizes, the written blessing of the republic's president -- is save what remains of the country's magnificent wildlife and protect its remote villages from brutal gangs of poachers.
These poachers aren't tribal subsistence hunters who shoot or snare exotic antelope for meat. Instead, they set fires to drive every living creature through a fusillade of automatic weapons fire and rocket-propelled grenades.
It's not hunting. It's extermination.
Hayse says combat is likely because the poachers "won't allow themselves to be arrested. If somebody has a better idea, we'll listen. But nobody does."
In 2001, Hayse says, President Ange-Felix Patasse ceded authority over the entire Chinko River basin -- 60,000 square miles -- to Hayse's paramilitary forces, some of them recruited from villages that have been terrorized by poachers.
Hayse is personally funding the effort, spending more than $150,000 so far.
Today, his rangers are starting to patrol the Chinko region as the dry season begins -- high season for the animal slaughter.
Hayse has hired a shadowy former South African commando who fought in civil wars in Angola and Zimbabwe to lead the armed patrols. Hayse calls him "Dave Bryant," but his true identity is a secret.
An article about Hayse in the October issue of National Geographic asserts that one patrol recently captured and executed at least three poachers, and that seven more were captured and turned over to the government. Hayse said he was aware of the incidents but still is seeking details.
Attempts by The Associated Press to independently confirm those events, and to confirm Hayse's agreement with the republic's government, have been unsuccessful. The republic's ambassador to the United States, and officials in the country's capital of Bangui, have been unavailable for comment.
"The goal is not to kill people," Hayse said. "But you can't just declare a national park and assume that the animals will be safe. There will be some confrontations and you have to assume there will be gunfire."
Large conservation organizations initially were intrigued by Hayse's bold move, but now are backpedaling.
"Allowing a private militia run by expatriates to control the situation using lethal force against Africans will backfire on the government and hurt conservation in the region," said Richard Carroll, who directs the World Wildlife Fund's programs throughout much of Africa, including the Central African Republic.
"It's difficult," Hayse acknowledged. "I don't go to bed at night feeling that I'm doing exactly the right thing."
Bull's-Eye of the Continent: Poaching in Africa is on the upswing again -- a black market worth billions of dollars in ivory, skins, baby animals and meat -- after years of relative quiet.
Governments are selling industrial concessions to develop timber, minerals and other resources. Their deals open lands to illegal hunting that have served as the cradle of evolution.
A Texas-sized land with only 4 million people, the Central African Republic is located in the bull's-eye of the continent. It was legendary among some scientists, hunters and photographers as a bastion of equatorial biodiversity.
Native tribesmen called the tumbling, chocolate-brown Chinko River the "River of Elephants" because tens of thousands would wade and trumpet in its riffles, sharing the waters with hippos and crocs.
Vast herds of buffalo, giraffe and antelope of every stripe migrated through a savannah three times larger than the legendary Serengeti, stalked by lion and leopard.
But for the past several years while the world wasn't looking, poachers have swept across the eastern border from Sudan during the winter dry season.
Scientists estimate that 95 percent of the wildlife in the Chinko region has been lost.
Anti-poaching patrols with shoot-to-kill authority aren't new. Throughout Africa, Asia and South America, governments have created national parks and mobilized their armies to capture poachers and secure their borders.
But on the Central African Republic's eastern frontier, where schools, hospitals and even roads are rarities, the responsibility apparently is being left to the burly, 53-year-old Hayse.
'An Ethical Obligation': In 1998, Hayse led the first raft trip down 300 miles of the muddy Chinko, a place "as wild as you'll ever see," he recalled during a late bistro dinner.
At first, he exulted in the Chinko's isolation, he said. But he soon realized the surrounding forest was silent. The wildlife he expected was missing in action.
His party found a few burned-out campsites littered with elephant pelvises and handfuls of spent ammunition.
"I was so depressed," he said. "It was a paradise. Yet day after day on the river, we saw nothing."
The only populated village was Rafai, at the Chinko's mouth. Tribal elders greeted the rafting party with tales of terror at the hands of poachers.
"It's fine to float down an unexplored river, but at a certain point there is an ethical obligation to do something more," he said.
He and his friends created African River and Rainforest Conservation, a nonprofit group. In addition to the mysterious mercenary "Dave Bryant," Hayse hired a political liaison and a community development specialist. They are arranging for well-drilling, medical care and loans for small business.
If the poachers are defeated, Hayse and wildlife biologists agree there probably are sufficient remnant populations of elephants and other species to repopulate the Chinko basin over many years.
But what about a physician's pledge to do no harm? "I'm doing something I believe in -- protecting wilderness," Hayse said. "On the other hand, it means doing something that means other people will get killed."
