The University of Pretoria and its partners are conducting research on how to prevent injuries during anti-poaching efforts.
South Africa (26 July 2024) – Ahead of World Ranger Day on 31 July, the University of Pretoria (UP) announces a key partnership in a new 10-year research programme focused on injury prevention among game rangers.
Drawing on expertise from UP, the NGO Game Rangers Association of Africa (GRAA), and expert researchers
in injury prevention from the United Kingdom, South Africa and the Netherlands, the programme will run from
2024–2034, focusing on rangers involved in African anti-poaching operations.
Rangers, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), will be called upon to protect nearly
a third of the planet in the next decade.
In the past year, however, 140 rangers were killed in the line of duty throughout the world. With 42 of those
deaths taking place in Africa, African rangers face the highest exposure to life-threatening situations.
The research programme aims to build a repository of data that can be used for future research projects
geared towards injury prevention strategies among game rangers in Africa.
An important contribution will come from UP’s Departments of Physiotherapy and Section Sports Medicine,
which has extensive experience in supporting sports athletes through research aimed at finding injury
prevention solutions.
“When we think about wildlife conservation, we think about the animals’ well-being,” explained Prof Carel
Viljoen, Head of the Department of Physiotherapy at UP. “We rarely think about the rangers protecting these
animals behind the scenes.“Our team of physiotherapists, medical doctors, sport scientists, and biokineticists acknowledge these rangers’
vital contribution, and will be combining all our injury prevention expertise to support anti-poaching rangers
in their job to better protect wildlife.”
Anti-poaching heroes
Rangers don’t only safeguard natural areas, provide critical data and respond to environmental emergencies.
They also play a central role in tackling poaching, which has had a devastating impact on wildlife conservation
efforts across the globe – in southern Africa especially.
Rangers face significant safety risks at the frontlines of the fight against poaching. Ranging is also extremely
physically taxing work, requiring similar exposure to physical activity to that seen in multiday endurance
athletes.
Nearly 9 out of 10 African rangers (88.6%) have reported facing life-threatening situations in the line of duty,
yet there remains a dearth of literature on the incidence of injury, type and mechanisms of injury, severity,
risk factors and other critical data.
Such data plays a pivotal role in injury prevention strategies for game rangers.

Guarding the guardians
The new research will first focus on gaining a better understanding of the rangers’ injury profiles and the
injury risk factors at play. Rangers will also be interviewed in order to assess their perceptions of injury risk
and prevention, as well as barriers to injury prevention in wilderness areas.
Because occupational injury prevention strategies are more effective when focused on the context where an
individual works, the research will initially be wide-ranging and eventually narrow down to specific parks –
since risk factors most likely differ for rangers working in, say, Table Mountain National Park versus the Kruger
National Park.
“The Game Rangers Association of Africa (GRAA) is the oldest, largest and most representative ranger
association in Africa,” said Louise de Bruin, Administrator of the GRAA. “We provide rangers across Africa with
the necessary capabilities and support to perform their vital duties to conserve wildlife and wild spaces across
the continent.“We are therefore delighted to partner with the University of Pretoria in this important study that will provide
tangible benefits to rangers’ physical well-being. Ensuring injury prevention among rangers will contribute to
their well-being and optimal performance, working on the frontline of conservation.”
