Meet the U.S. Army Vet, a Badass Female ‘Poacher Hunter’

Kinessa Johnson, a U.S. Army vet, isn’t exactly what you’d call an average woman, what with the high-power sniper rifle she has to brandish on the daily as a part of her profession.

She has made it her mission to hunt the poachers of endangered rhinos and elephants in Africa.

 Her army career is described as U.S. Army combat veteran who fought in Afghanistan. She spent more than 4 years in army. Later, she was a weapons instructor and a diesel mechanic until eventually she became an anti-poaching adviser with Veterans Empowered to Protect African Wildlife (VETPAW).

VIDEO

VETPAW is a non-profit organization which uses the skills of U.S. veterans to train anti-poaching rangers in Africa and support their communities.

But what makes Johnson special isn’t the fact that she carries a gun for a living. It’s what she does with it that has gun, and animal lovers alike, up in arms over her incredible work in a continent beset on all sides by poaching.

As we mentioned above, she is an Afghan war vet who spent four-and-a-half years with the US Army. Her idea of retirement has been to reenlist in a different fight under a different banner, taking up arms on behalf of VETPAW.

As a weapons instructor and technical advisor to rangers, she goes on patrols with rangers and trainees and has a heavy hand, in tracking and beating back the cunning and sometimes well-equipped crime syndicates responsible for sourcing the illicit goods from the endangered species now under her protection.

But in a global fight with solutions ranging from protection to educating the cultures from which the demand for these goods arise, Johnson’s pretty dead set on a philosophy of immediate security .