Exploits in Lewa with poacher-turned-ranger Kapuna Nanyuki as world marks Rhino Day

At sunset on the hills of Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Meru County, Kapuna Nanyuki is among antipoaching rangers on duty.

He patrols to the East, clad in full plain jungle green combat and armed with a 308 riffle, his thoughts hooked on the slopes, his eyes fixed down the valley, with nostalgia he is carried away by two rhinos wandering in the plains, and the image leaves him with satisfaction combined with anguish and regrets, he utters murmurs.

He did not hear the game drive vehicle approach. Behind him, a Citizen Digital crew interrupts his thought trails. Are you okay? I ask.

“Can you see those rhinos, if today I shoot just one, how many people will benefit from it apart from just getting a few coins in my pocket? How many local and international tourists have traversed this conservancy today alone, extending their phones and cameras to capture the moment in satisfaction? How much have they paid to glance at different animals in this conservancy, imagine the many that are employed here, the families benefiting from this conservation. It really hurts, even killing one animal a day, to replace it will not take a day, not even a month,” Nanyuki says.

“I killed 10 wild animals a day, even though it is in the past, I caused tremendous damage but I can only ask God to forgive me.”

We allowed time to pour out, after which he realised that we were not his colleagues but strangers. We exchange pleasantries and get to know each other. He gets back to his senses and he soberly begins to engage with us.

Nanyuki has served at the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy as a ranger for the last 25 years. His life took a turn around after 16 years of hardcore poaching.

“I read in a Nairobi newspaper that the government had put up a bounty for my head, and officers ambushed my village quite often with beatings to anyone on their path, they were being forced to produce me or reveal my whereabouts,” he narrates.

All along he had established rapport with the wildlife and was a bushman who never feared any wild creature but man.

“I survived gunshots on several occasions, I had the best firearm but I never fired back at the officers, they were just doing their work, what was important then was my life and the business I was doing, I traversed game parks in Marsabit and further,” he says.

Nanyuki was working with a group of 70 people; some got arrested, some surrendered but he was not to look back soon. He had mastery of routes in the parks that helped him slide easily from the officers' sightings.

“One day, several government high-ranking officers pitched a tent in my village, and over 300 village elders gathered, they were tired of my behaviour and they cursed the work I was doing, they urged me to keep off wildlife since I had tarnished name of the community, I had caused enough trouble when I decided to surrender,”  he says.

Nanyuki narrates how the government offered him a job as a game park officer but he declined, thinking that it was a bet to eliminate him. It took him a year to even accept a job as a ranger in the conservancy.

“When I got employed and they did not kill me, my first off days, I went for the people who used to be my clients, I forced them to close down the businesses or I would have them arrested since then I have been in the frontline talking to different people far and wide on the importance of conserving wildlife,” he says.

Nanyuki also gives insights to fellow rangers on best practices to ensure that criminals don’t get away with the wildlife.

His colleagues and bosses hail him for selflessness, knowledge and hard work. He is involved in ensuring the preservation of wild habitats, being part of the restoration of various animal species and ensuring the conservation of among others, rhinos which are the dominant wildlife in Lewa Conservancy.

The fairly old ranger is famous to the young and old around the Lewa community and back in Namnyak his home town as a wildlife conservation ambassador.

According to his boss, Edward Nderitu, Nanyuki is armed with a unique firearm as he is the best shooter and tracker Lewa Wildlife Conservancy has ever had.

“A few years ago, he got an award given to selected rangers all over the world, emerging to be among the 5 best rangers in the continent, and this year during World Ranger’s Day he was among the rangers awarded by Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) director-general,” said Nderitu, the head of anti-poaching unit at the conservancy.

According to John Pameri, head of general security, Lewa has produced a good population of both black and white rhinos which Lewa have had to donate to other game reserves.

“We are so proud as Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, to celebrate this year World Rhino Day with 267 rhinos which are 12 per cent of Kenya’s rhino population and most of the rhinos are born here in Lewa, I joined Lewa when rhinos were less than 20 and now as we speak we have moved out a couple of rhinos to other reserves because of our habitat carrying capacity,” he says.

Pameri attributed the achievement to the entire Lewa stakeholders among them anti-poaching rangers like Nanyuki whose work he says is more of a calling than a profession.

Due to intense poaching, the rhino population almost got wiped out in Kenya between 1970 and 1990.

As the world marks Rhino Day focusing on progress in the fight against rhino horn trafficking while celebrating significant victories, but acknowledging the challenges that have persisted in the war against poaching and habitat loss.

Lewa Wildlife Conservancy celebrates Nanyuki, a reformed poacher who protects rhinos by championing communities and offering guidance while sharing knowledge and expertise with fellow rangers for the safety of rhinos and other vulnerable wildlife.