"Andrea, did you find anything?" Ikari

In the patrol car, Old Barry honked the horn to drive away the surrounding animals, and asked Andrea loudly as he searched for signs in the bushes in the distance.

After receiving information about Cecil's disappearance from the doctor's assistant Brent, Barry Sr. and Mensah immediately reported the matter to the management of the conservation center and repeatedly reminded them, claiming that an illegal hunting might have occurred.

Old Barry has worked in the conservation center for decades. His face is a very important passport in the entire conservation center. His words have attracted great attention.

The management staff reported this suspected illegal and possible hunting operation, and the news was passed to the Wildlife Office, and the executives of the Wildlife Office immediately ordered an investigation.

Among the investigators, the two discoverers, Old Barry and Mensah, are naturally indispensable. At the same time, Old Barry is a staff member with rich handling experience. Even under normal circumstances, he will still be involved.

The Andrea described by Barry Sr. is an anti-poaching ranger who is devoted to animal protection. He has received professional investigation training in wildlife crimes. He has retired from the army and has outstanding abilities.

He followed old Barry to investigate Cecil's disappearance. Now the three of them are investigating the situation of the lion group in the territory of Cecil the Lion.

When Andrea heard Old Barry's inquiry, he did not stand up. He raised his right hand over the bushes and greeted Old Barry in a gesture that the other party could see.

"come and see."

Old Barry unbuckled his seat belt, and Mensah in the passenger seat picked up the shotgun placed on the seat and loaded it with bullets.

This is not to deal with animals, but to prevent possible poachers.

Most of the animals on the African grasslands reproduce naturally. No matter how stupid they are, after experiencing generations of hunting, they know to stay away from humans. The real danger comes from humans themselves.

When the two of them carefully came to the bushes and saw the terrifying scene in front of Andrea, they couldn't help but curse.

Behind the bushes is a lioness who was shot. The bullet holes in her body are particularly conspicuous.

The corpse had been eaten long ago, and the blood that had dried to black under the body had already soaked into the soil and solidified into lumps. Wherever it flowed, all the grass that had just grown was burned to death, leaving only a few unknown mushrooms.

"The high salt content in the blood will cause dehydration of the plants, and when it flows into the soil, it will also harden the soil, which is not conducive to root ventilation. The two points combined will make it difficult for plants to grow. Unless the salt is diluted with water and then decomposed, some saprophytes can grow. Plant-like plants, such as mushrooms.”

Andrea squatted on the ground, picked up the soil with two fingers and crushed it. While explaining, he looked up at the sky, feeling the humidity of the air and recalling the weather in the past two days.

He is not a professional mushroom grower, but he will naturally see more if he stays in the forest for a long time.

For example, after a night of light rain, you can find small mushrooms growing on dead trees the next day. After careful observation, you can summarize many unknown and strange patterns.

"When the blood decomposes, it will generate a lot of heat and burn the roots. The mushrooms must have grown after it rained. With the recent rains, they would have been diluted more than once and they would have been dead for at least two days."

The expressions of everyone present were not very good. The death of the lioness, coupled with the two-day time limit, proved that the lion king Cecil was definitely in danger.

In the wilderness, it is difficult to encounter criminal poachers, but it is very easy to encounter the traces left by poachers.

Many times, the first step is to deal with the crime scene at the scene or after receiving an alarm. Some poaching has occurred for 8 to 10 days or more, and the animal carcasses have long since decomposed.

Now being able to discover the scene within two days is considered extremely fast, but compared to the time span of the entire poaching operation, it is still too late.

It's so easy to kill an animal. It doesn't even take ten seconds to kill an animal with one bullet.

All tragedies cannot be undone, all we can do is make amends.

"Let's dissect it first."

Andrea put on gloves, took out the corresponding knife, skillfully cut away from the bullet hole, and performed an on-site dissection, which was part of the ranger's on-site treatment.

On-site processing includes dissecting animal carcasses for the purpose of studying weapons and poaching techniques. Rangers have to cut open the bullet holes to observe the trajectory, and if necessary, remove ribs to remove bullets.

The real mission of the rangers is not to kill poachers, but to bring them to justice, so special attention must be paid to evidence collection.

If the stolen goods and weapons can be captured at the same time, the court can impose a prison sentence of up to 45 years. The main reason for the prison sentence is that there is no death penalty in South Africa.

Without sufficient evidence, poaching suspects can only be sentenced to a maximum of 2-3 weeks in prison or a mere R500 fine.

One of the proofs of Andrea's outstanding ability is that he is extremely good at obtaining evidence. Most of the poachers in his hands will die in prison.

Corruption has made the lion's muscles no longer tough. The hard steel knife can easily cut through the skin and flesh, and the strong smell explodes like a bomb. However, the expressions of everyone present remain unchanged and they are used to it.

After some operations, Andrea quickly got what she wanted and collected the physical evidence in a plastic bag.

After taking enough photos, the three of them headed towards the center of the lion territory.

At this point, old Barry can only pray that things will not come to the worst, that is, the entire pride of lions will be wiped out.

The bumpy patrol car drove over the uneven grass, carrying the three worried people to the core of the territory.

A pride of lions in the Kalahari Desert may occupy a territory of 119-125 square kilometers.

However, due to the richness of the land, all the national parks in Kenya have fierce competition for the territory of the lions in them. Nairobi National Park is even more involved to the extreme. The lions here can occupy 3 square kilometers, which is considered good. The largest The territory is no more than 4 square kilometers.

The Cecil pride of lions is not in Nairobi, but it is not much larger, less than five square kilometers.

Coupled with the overlapping territories between different lion groups, almost all members of the lion group move around in the central area, making it very easy to find.

It's just that the members of the lion pride usually disperse into several small groups to spend every day, and they only come together when hunting or eating together.

So after the three of them found all the small groups and confirmed the situation of Cecil's lion group, they discovered a piece of good news and a piece of bad news.

The good news is that things are not at their worst. The lion group has not been wiped out, and there are still many female lions left.

The bad news is that all the young lion cubs in the entire pride have disappeared.

"Wait a minute, come here and take a look, there are wheel marks here!"
Chapter completed!