We left camp this morning at 4am to go to find the dogs.

9 of the adults in the pack have radio collars - it's necessary for so many of them to have collars, as there is a significant risk from poachers snares in Mkuze reserve. Poaching is a complicated matter, so I'm not going to comment on that, but snaring as a method is indiscriminate and captures anything that has the misfortune to pass over it.

On the journey, 3 hyaena approached the vehicle when we slowed. Very unusual behaviour for hyaena, but the smell of where a dead impala had been until the night before was very compelling and overwhelming for them. Given the chance certainly one of the hyaena who could not control his interest would have been in the truck with us if we hadn't kept a close eye on him, and moved when needed.

The previous reserve that I was at is internationally recognised as being instrumental in saving the White Rhino from extinction in South Africa. The project was so successful that I had become accustomed to seeing them quite regularly. Mhkuze reserve on the other hand has far fewer, and so when we encounter them, if they have been "marked" by having notches punched into their ear then we record them in the data capture (condition, age, GPS location, activity etc). So, this morning at around 5am we came across 6 white rhinos in a mud pool. As we checked the ears with our binoculars we realised that one of the rhinos had a snare around his neck. We contacted the section Ranger to advise him, and he set off from the other end of the reserve to meet us.

Then all of the rhinos ran! We managed to locate them in the distance, and confirm the direction in which they were moving, and then we tried to keep them in view - not easy in the dense bush, it's amazing how something so huge (in fact 6 things so huge) can "disappear" into the surroundings so effectively.

The section ranger arrived, and continued to monitor the rhino location as we waited for a helicopter to arrive. The plan was to use the helicopter to locate the rhino, dart it and remove the snare.

We continued on our journey to locate the dogs. They have to be tracked and located twice a day, to check their safety and condition. They are currently located in one of the most difficult parts of the reserve to find them. It's mountainous, and so makes it difficult to get a signal with the telemetry at times, when they move to another valley or over a hill.

The telemetry gives 3 types of signal or noise. One type indicates the animal is not moving but has been, so is noted as resting. One type indicates the animal is moving, so may be walking, running or hunting. The third type is the one that no-one wants to hear, a mortality signal, which means that the animal has not moved for some time, and is likely to be unable to perhaps because of injury, or poachers snare.

This morning we got resting signals, and then moving signals from all of the collars, so we know the pack are together, and all should be well. We took triangulation readings to identify the location, as it was not going to be possible to get a visual sighting, and then we set off to try to locate the mother cheetah and cub that we were unable to find yesterday. We didn't locate them today either....

On the way back down the mountain we received the news over the radio that rhino had recovered from the darting drugs and was back with the rest of the crash (which is apparently the term for a group of rhinos) - and no longer with a snare around his neck.

Getting up at 3.30am was worth it - it's not every day you save a rhino on the way to work!