Something we did quite often as volunteers were snare sweeps. A snare is an animal trap made out of metal. The poachers, go into the bush, find two trees close together, and set up a circle of wire between the trees. Then they place shrubbery on either side of the trees to block any way around the snare. The animals (usually water buffalo, or some type of antelope) don't often see the snare because it is hidden with tree vines and branches. So, they walk right into it. When they pull on it, it tightens around their neck like a noose. Usually, they panick when they realize they're caught in something, and they pull and try to run. This only tightens the snare, and if the poacher doesn't come along quickly to put the animal out of its misery, the snare will slowly strangle the animal as it tries to free itself. So, what we would do, is line up, a few feet apart from each other, and walk through the bush in a straight line, looking for snares. If we found one, we would cut it down, and donate the wires to an organization that made jewelry out of them. The money made from selling the jewelry is then used to fund other conservation projects, and to hire locals to make the jewelry, thus finding honest employment in place of poaching. In these pictures, we came across a snare that had caught a water buffalo. Kailos estimated it had been out there for about two weeks, and as you can see, because the poacher did not find it, the animal died after an angonizing tussle with the snare. The buffalo ran several times around the tree in panick, and the snare wire ended up cutting all the way to its bone. Poor thing. The saddest part is that all of this was in vain, as not even the meat was taken by poachers. In this picture, Jess is pointing to a snare that is hidden between two trees. Why the frown you ask? Well, she just barely missed the snare on her snare sweep. It's so hard to see them. You can see how camelflouged they are. As we did our snare sweeps, we would often stop to learn about local plant life, and various animal and poacher tracking techniques. Kailos and Jerry, our faithful guides and volunteer coordinators at Miambo, were an invaluable and inexhaustible wealth of information on local bush life, and everything having to do with it.