Elmwood students made a trip to South Africa a few years back, and they were invited to return to Mankwe Wildlife Preserve. Students took the opportunity and ran with it, learning to identify animal species and removing rhinoceros’ horns to prevent poaching of the species.

The trip started with a quick pit stop at Windsor Castle in London before they boarded up the plane and headed for a 10-hour flight to South Africa. The first two nights were spent sleeping on the plane, but the destination was well worth the wait.

On the first drive at the 14,000-acre game reserve near the Botswana border, the students saw five rhinos. The next day they set up trail cameras at watering holes that they would go back to near the end of the trip to look over and see what animals were coming through.

“We sat in a classroom, and they went through how to ID tracks and the dung that we would see on the trails,” incoming freshman Tucker Flesberg said.

Workers at the preserve brought students to tracks in the dirt, tasking them with identifying the species they belonged to and which direction they were headed. Flesberg spent some time fishing in the afternoons at the watering hole but did not have any luck. Elmwood students saw countless animals on the trip, but one they saw a lot of were giraffes.

“At first, we’d always say stop, stop, stop, there’s a giraffe. By the end it was another giraffe,” Elmwood Science teacher Kristel Winger said.

The crew also learned to identify birds. Then the team learned from the Anti-Poaching Unit, watching their dogs train.

A major priority of the trip was the removal of the rhino horns to deter poachers.
“It’s like more valuable than gold,” incoming junior Paige Ginsbach said.

Winger said they were told rhino horn is the second most valuable thing on the black market behind pangolin scales. Winger said the value drastically increased after it was deemed illegal to be in possession of one.

“When they trim the horns off the rhinos, the reserve can’t even keep it. There has to be a government conservation team that takes the piece of horn,” Winger said. “All the rhino horn has to go to a vault that’s under the city of Johannesburg… It’s actually very dangerous, that small amount of time where the rhino horn is off the rhino, because if someone were to come in, they could take it.”
A day after learning about the process, it was time for the students to trim the horns themselves.

“Our first one was Sweet Chili, but he was really stubborn. He did not go down, so they had to trim him as he was standing up,” Ginsbach said. “No one could really do their job with him because he wouldn’t go down.

Winger said trimming the horns is like clipping fingernails, as the rhinos do not even feel it. Instead of the nail clippers, though, they use an electric saw. Students were divided into responsibilities, including a team constantly evaluating its breathing after it is darted, a tick counting team to prevent discomfort or disease and a measuring team. The students removed the horns from three rhinos that day. Flesberg said one of the rhinos had over 100 ticks.

“It was intense for a while there,” Winger said.

When the job was finished, the team had to run back to the vehicle, because nobody wants to be in the way of a rhino that is waking up. Since there are no lions on the preserve, rhinos’ only use for their horn is against other rhinos. Removing the horns from all the rhinos also keeps the playing field level. The class saw Brutus and Willis in a tussle later into the trip.

The students also made their way to Pilanesberg National Park. They saw elephants, cheetahs, hippos and more. Ginsbach was amazed by the number of species she saw on the trip, saying even an animal group like antelopes breaks down into tons of different types.

“You’re not going to regret it,” Ginsbach said about the next Science Expedition. “I already want to go back, and I’ve been gone for four days.

After returning to their home base at Mankwe, the team participated in dog training, hiding to allow the anti-poaching dogs to track them down.

“They weren’t able to do it for long, because the other group discovered a new baby rhino while they were going out to hide,” Flesberg of the never seen before rhino.

That would not be the last baby animal they would find, as they located a baby giraffe as well. They had the opportunity to name the giraffe, choosing Wisco after some debate.

Another fan favorite was the duo of Mbezi and Bongi. They sang a song to try to bring them in and it worked.
“There was a zebra that, at a week old, was abandoned by mom and was raised by the people on the reserve, so she is very tame,” Winger said. “She thought she was a human, so to let her realize she wasn’t at six months old, they brought a donkey in.”

On the way out, the team got a flat tire, so they also got the chance to learn how to change a tire, an always valuable life lesson.

The chef on camp was South African and made some traditional dishes for the classes. They got the chance to try wildebeest, kudu, impala and more.

“The food was really good. It’s crazy how different all your food can be no matter where you are,” Ginsbach said.

“There’s a lot of different problems [around the world], and when you go to those parts of the world, you get a different point of view,” Flesberg said. “You could go around the United States and ask anybody if they’ve been to South Africa, and the answer’s almost always going to be no.”

Winger is already beginning to plan the next science expedition.

“They want us to come back again, we just have to decide if we want to go back to Africa or have a new experience,” Winger said. “There’s so much you learn by being completely out of your element and out of your comfort zone. That’s where you grow.”