Mike Paxton is odd. No doubt about it. Odd in the sense that he’s an outlier. When you think of a 31 year old about to enter the prime of his life you generally think of someone who has either completed his studies and gone into a profession or you might think of so many young men nowadays who live without any direction.
He’s neither. Paxton is a SAN Parks ranger who goes out on foot patrols to guard against, and catch, poachers.
Over six foot tall with a beak of a nose and a number two buzz cut Paxton’s demeanour is one of capability and resolve. Zimbabwe-born his nickname in the Kruger National Park, where he trained, is Engelsman (Englishman). As the only white among a hundred recruits who passed the rigorous ranger training, he’s determined, tough and unafraid. You could even say tenacious.
Unpretentious, he’s an excellent listener and imparter of knowledge, stopping to explain clues on the ground about what has recently passed.
When asked why he chose this career path he responds: “I wanted to do something meaningful. Something that my descendents would be proud of.”
With a young son his greatest fear is that the boy won’t have a choice. “If he wants to become a fashion designer there’s nothing I can do about it but I would hate it if he didn’t have a choice to see or work with wildlife because it had all gone.”
While Paxton exudes competence one gets fleeting glimpses of a gentleness, a tenderness almost, that belies his crackerjack persona.
“I can’t imagine doing anything different,” he says. “Not living in the bush would be too lonely.” He takes great pains to tell you that he is not passionate about the bush but that he cares for it. “Passion is about the ego, the me,” he explains. “Caring is about the ‘other’.”
And this caring, this ministering, comes through in the language he uses when he tells you that he “fell in love with a female leopard with a young cub, and followed her in his own time, wanting to see that they were okay.”
Paxton wants to get into conservation security management more seriously and will be entering formal study soon. For him his career, his life actually, isn’t only about military-style protection. With him it’s coupled with a sense of missionary zeal.
Paxton is a modern-day knight on a quest.