Battleground: Rhino Wars (Documentary, English)
Status: Ended
Premiered: 2013-03-07
Ended: 2013-03-21
Network: Animal Planet
Country: US
Airs on: Thursday
Air time: 21:00
Runtime: 60 minutes
The world renowned Greater Kruger area of South Africa, just north of Johannesburg, is the new ground zero in a war to protect magnificent creatures on the edge of extinction. Rhinoceroses are being hunted to death by poachers who will stop at nothing to kill them just to take their horns. The death toll is astonishing; each year, nearly 500 rhinos are killed with baby rhinos and calves separated from their mothers and left to fend on their own. The human toll too is steep. More than 100 park rangers have been killed by these poachers in the battle to halt these criminals. The situation is worsening. Park rangers and security forces are desperate for help. And now four U.S. special forces veterans have come to help fight for the rhinos... Animal Planet will be embedded in Battleground: Rhino Wars, a three-part miniseries that documents this intense conflict that is centered on the worldwide commercial demand for rhino horns, an exotic commodity that's more valuable than gold on the black market. The miniseries reveals the conflict between blood-thirsty poachers and one of South Africa's anti-poaching units, which has recruited armed forces to stop the illegal, lucrative trade of rhino horns. Cameras reveal a bloody war that these elite U.S. warriors find themselves fighting, in an area where both rhinos and people are being slaughtered with increasing regularity.