Natal Parks Board-badges to an interesting organisation

[natal01]

Yesterday, my old friend John came into the shop and brought me a couple of badges from his days working for the Natal Parks Board. He was in the Building trade before he joined the Parks Board and, despite being mainly responsible for building maintenance, went on the odd trip overseas, accompanying a Rhino to its new home in a Zoo. He said that with the upsurge in Big Game poaching, many of the Board employees wanted to join the local Commandos, but were not allowed to as they were considered to already belong to a para-military organisation. ( The Commandos have now been disbanded by a government who viewed the force as a potential threat ). The Natal Parks Board, established in 1947 as the Natal Parks Game & Fish Preservation Board , is now called Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife and is still very active. This morning the local newspaper carried a story of Ezemvelo Wildlife officials having been engaged in a firefight with poachers in the Hluhluhwe Game Reserve. They shot and killed one poacher. We are losing Rhino to poachers at an alarming rate, so its pleasing to see a score for the good guys.
The two badges shown are the original brass , die struck cap badge and white metal , die-struck badge, worn by the female staff. To my knowledge there was also a brass , pin back badge with the English title first. This was probably the earlier version of the white metal badge.
Regards
Mike

[johnG]

Very nice badges indeed, and your comments about poaching brought back memories of my son flying me in his Cessna over stretches of a country to the north of you. There were times when what we saw on the ground made us regret the aircraft was not fitted with machine guns.

I know just how you feel about poachers, and share with you on that one.

Regards,

johnG

[Brian Conyngham]

Mike

Nice to see the white metal version, only ever seen the brass version.

I still have no idea why the rhinos are not de-horned, sad as it might be at least there will not be the wholesale slaughter on innocent animals.

Rant over and great news on the death of another poacher!

Brian

[Traist]

Hi Mike, very nice and unusual badges. Have fun. Andrew

[Phil2M]

I think its often the case that, having spent time tracking an animal, to find a dehorned rhino they will shoot it anyway. It saves them from tracking that same animal again for no results.

Phil

[milhistry]

If I recall corretcly the brass badges were worn on a green beret.

On their khaki shirts, the NPB also wore gold on green emroidered shoulder slip-ons with "NATAL PARKS BOARD" written in three lines or "NATALSE PARKERAAD" written in two lines

[milhistry]

Shoulder slip-ons