The morning I left Lewa to join John in San Diego, Rehema greeted me with the question “did you hear gun shots last night?” “No,” I answered, “were there gun shots?” No one in our valley had heard anything, but the rangers who live behind us had been notified of an incident “over by the Wilderness Lodge,” about ten miles from us, close to the Lewa boundary. Lewa security suspected poachers but had not yet located a carcass.

By lunch time the victim had been found; a female black rhino, 13 months pregnant. She’d been shot and killed, her horns scalped off the front of her face, her body and unborn baby left to rot or be eaten by scavengers. The entire drive to the Nairobi airport, I couldn’t shake the sadness. Which rhino was this? The first black rhino we’d ever seen had been in that area. It had captivated us with its prancing and powerful energy. Who would do such a thing? I felt anger toward the people in Vietnam and China who drive the market for rhino horn and elephant tusks: people willing to pay exorbitant prices for rhino horn-based aphrodisiacs and ivory carvings.

Before coming to Kenya, I shared the western world’s general repugnance for poaching and desire to protect endangered species. Now that I live among these creatures, watch them every day, listen to them at night, follow their movements and get to know their habits, my stand against poaching has moved from my head to my heart. Poaching literally raises the bile in my throat and brings tears to my eyes.

When we returned from San Diego on Tuesday, one of my first questions was “did they catch the poachers?” Lewa has some of the best rhino security in the world: electrified fences, 150 rangers, highly trained bloodhounds, a dense network of informants, airplanes, a helicopter, night vision equipment and two specialized, heavily armed, anti-poaching teams. I looked to our new friend, David Chancellor, for answers. David (davidchancellor.com) is a British photographer who is making a photographic documentary of NRT. Poaching – or more correctly, the elimination of poaching – is a central theme in NRT’s story and David is embedded with the rangers, on call to photograph the action as it happens. He would have the inside story.

Six days after the first incident, the poachers struck again. This time Lewa was ready. Local sources had identified the men and their plan to try for a second kill. Last Saturday night two poachers entered Lewa armed with G3’s (a British assault rifle) and carrying enough milk and bread to sustain them through two or three days of hiding. Four, four-man teams of armed rangers waited inside the Lewa border to ambush them. There was an exchange of gun fire. One poacher escaped, the other lay dead.

Few people here feel sorry for the dead poacher. In this world there is little mercy and no discussion. Rangers shoot to kill. If they don’t, they know a 50,000 shilling ($700) bribe will have the perpetrator back in action within hours. When I asked co-workers about due process, the answer was “if someone is inside the Lewa fence with milk, bread and a G3, that is proof enough.”

David captured photographs of both the dead rhino and the dead poacher. My guess is that they will show up on opposing pages in his upcoming book. The caption could read: The score is 1 to 1: two faces of poaching’s tragedy.