OUR Team
Vianna von Weyhausen
Vianna, the Founder and Director of CSIwild, was born in Zimbabwe. She is usually to be found in the field with her units, but when not there, she travels the world researching new projects and raising the funds required to accomplish them, and spreading the word for canines in conservation.
A life-long conservationist and philanthropist, Vianna has a variety of wildlife experience, including fieldwork, fundraising, advising, management and start-ups. She is a founder member of Peace Parks Club and of WildInvest, and has been involved in various capacities with Tusk Trust, Support for Africa, the Sahara Conservation Fund, AfriCat, The Red Cross, and Bonobo Conservation Initiative.
Vianna is a member of The Explorers Club and a recipient of their EC50 Award
"Fifty people changing the world, that the world needs to know about"
Between 2021 and 2026, Vianna was a Visiting Scholar at the department of Ecology and Conservation Biology at Texas A&M University.
CSIwild is fortunate to work in South Africa in collaboration with Canine Conservation, one of the oldest and most elite organisations in the conservation K9 service industry.
Conraad Geza De Rosner
Founding Director, K9 Conservation
A South African, our Chief of Operations and head trainer Conraad has twenty-eight years bush experience under his belt. Starting his career as a game ranger in Zululand, Conraad became a police reservist in the Special Protected Species Unit, and has specialised for the last twenty-two years in training and working with canine units in the counter-poaching arena.
Conraad leads a formidable team, all members of which have extensive experience working with K9 counter-poaching units and have wide first-hand knowledge of the unique situations facing rangers in the field. He is also committed to providing the highest possible level of training to our students, both human and canine.
Pepe Peruyero
Founder and CEO
J&K Canine Academy
United States based Pepe is one of the most respected detection dog experts worldwide and has thirty years of experience in specialized detection training and canine behaviour. His passion lies in giving rescue dogs new purpose through meaningful work. He is among the very few who have successfully trained a turtle nest detection dog.
Kiran Rahalkar
Ecologist Kiran has a Master’s degree in Wildlife Biology and Conservation, and has decades of experience in wildlife law enforcement. After training to become a dog handle with us at K9 Conservation in South Africa, he spearheaded the establishment of conservation dog units in India and remains CSIwild’s head of operations there.
Ruan and Tina de Flamingh
Founders of GreenTrax
South Africa focused Ruan and Tina have 40 years combined experience training conservation dogs, with a special interest in working with Spaniels. Along side their anti-poaching and contraband detection dogs, they train canines for narcotics, which are closely linked to the Illicit Wildlife Trade. They have also pioneered “incursion detection”, in which dogs work along the borders of a reserve, seated on the front of an ATV.
Dog units
Based at K9 Conservation training centre outside Hoedspruit, South Africa, we breed many of our own high quality puppies. In our repertoire we have:
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German, Dutch and Belgian (Malinois) Shepherds and their crosses for our tactical anti-poaching dogs (trained to track human, firearm and ammunition odor, and to apprehend armed poachers). Also used as fence patrol dogs.
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Weimaraner as our detection dogs, trained to find live animals (wounded or orphaned, such as a rhino calf missing after its mother has been poached), dead animals (carcasses and bush meat), contraband (ivory, pangolin scales, rhino horn etc., and snares) and humans (e.g. poacher incursion and excursion on a boundary fence). Our Weimeraner also have apprehension capabilities. Furthermore we use them for scat detection in research and monitoring projects.
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Bloodhounds for cold-sent man tracking
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Spaniels where small dogs are required to detect wildlife contraband, arms, drugs etc.
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Blue Tick / Foxhound crosses, used either in a pack for tracking active poachers, or individually for tracking humans or animals
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Bloodhound / Doberman crosses (“DBs”) combine excellent tracking skills with apprehension abilities
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Canis Africanis – Native to southern Africa, with high endurance and disease resistance, this breed makes an excellent tracking and detection dog.
The following canine units were created and deployed through both Canines for Africa, the UK charity, and CSIwild
