On the 11th April 2021, the Kalahari lost one of its greatest icons. Master tracker Horekhwe Pro Langwane (also known as “Karoha”) was not only an expert tracker, traditional doctor and one of Botswana’s last “runners”, but a valued wildlife expert who we worked with on numerous occasions at Cheetah Conservation Botswana. As one of only three remaining “Master Trackers” in Botswana — a title given only to the most exceptional trackers — he provided incredible knowledge and skill when it came to our work in tracking carnivores through the Kalahari landscape. Most recently, his intensive work surveying the Western Kalahari Conservation Corridor with our PhD candidate, Marie-Charlotte Gielen, has helped build the science of how wildlife and communities share the land in Botswana’s Wildlife Management Areas. In 2017, Karoha came on board with CCB’s Education team to lead tracking workshops with students attending mobile bush camps in the village of Kacgae, teaching them how to track spoor (footprints) in the thick Kalahari sand, how to age tracks and how to identify edible foods in the bush.
As one of the first San trackers to ever use the Cybertracker software, he was able to gather countless data for wildlife surveys and through this work co-authored several scientific papers.
One disappearing tradition of the Kalahari San is the “persistence hunting” that the San used to hunt food for their families. This unbelievable technique saw “runners” spend hours at a time running down antelope until the animal would collapse with exhaustion. Karoha can be seen using this traditional technique in this video, made for David Attenborough’s Life of Mammals series in 2002.
https://cybertracker.org/persistence-hunting-attenborough?fbclid=IwAR3SvYIlk1SaKjD263ujeevZ_ar1AxicVhTEqZlnoeSyyrXWPlNEq-D8jNA
We have long worried that the unfathomable traditional knowledge of the Kalahari San is disappearing with modernization and the loss of their nomadic lifestyle. As one of the last Master trackers of Botswana, we will mourn both the loss of Karoha and his ever-present smile but also the incredible knowledge, stories and skills that he takes with him. We are so thankful for his joyful spirit, his hard work, his passion for the bush and for having worked with us to pass on his invaluable knowledge on to the next generation of conservationists. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his friends, family and loved ones, both far and wide.
“I had the great honor to work with Karoha for three years during my spoor surveys. He was a very cheerful person, always up for a laugh, and had an immense knowledge to share. It is a very sad loss for all of us personally who knew him, and for the world as well as this knowledge is disappearing with him.” – Marie-Charlotte Gielen
As one of the first San trackers to ever use the Cybertracker software, he was able to gather countless data for wildlife surveys and through this work co-authored several scientific papers.
One disappearing tradition of the Kalahari San is the “persistence hunting” that the San used to hunt food for their families. This unbelievable technique saw “runners” spend hours at a time running down antelope until the animal would collapse with exhaustion. Karoha can be seen using this traditional technique in this video, made for David Attenborough’s Life of Mammals series in 2002.
https://cybertracker.org/persistence-hunting-attenborough?fbclid=IwAR3SvYIlk1SaKjD263ujeevZ_ar1AxicVhTEqZlnoeSyyrXWPlNEq-D8jNA
We have long worried that the unfathomable traditional knowledge of the Kalahari San is disappearing with modernization and the loss of their nomadic lifestyle. As one of the last Master trackers of Botswana, we will mourn both the loss of Karoha and his ever-present smile but also the incredible knowledge, stories and skills that he takes with him. We are so thankful for his joyful spirit, his hard work, his passion for the bush and for having worked with us to pass on his invaluable knowledge on to the next generation of conservationists. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his friends, family and loved ones, both far and wide.
“I had the great honor to work with Karoha for three years during my spoor surveys. He was a very cheerful person, always up for a laugh, and had an immense knowledge to share. It is a very sad loss for all of us personally who knew him, and for the world as well as this knowledge is disappearing with him.” – Marie-Charlotte Gielen
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