Excerpt from Dereck Joubert, Chairman, Great Plains Foundation: It was very much like a blood moon as Beverly and I drove towards Duba Plains Camp and my mind toyed with the fact that for some rhinos it would literally be a blood moon. The red full moon was, in this case, setting before dawn as we mobilized; and somewhere in South Africa poachers were washing their hands after a hard night’s work, as they do most full moons now.
This is exactly what happened in the second week of September this year shortly after a friend of mine, Markus Jenson, who owns land in South Africa, contacted me about his rhinos. We’d been debating whether he should sell his rhinos and fund some anti-poaching on his land or give them to us (you no doubt know my feelings on this). A few days after our discussion he called me and said that the night before on a wonderful full moon, he’d heard gunshots. Four of his rhinos were dead.