Christchurch Detective Constable Amber Chauval’s path to policing has been anything but ordinary.
Before joining Police, Amber served in the Airforce before taking a bold detour, volunteering in South Africa to protect some of the world’s most vulnerable animals.
In 2014, Amber spent two months at a wildlife sanctuary in South Africa, working hands-on with white and yellow lions, assisting vets in darting, and treating buffalo, eland, giraffes, and zebra. The work was intense with 40-degree days, long hours, and physically demanding tasks.
One moment she’ll never forget? Being accidentally locked in an enclosure with three hungry lion cubs after a fellow volunteer panicked and fled.
“Not fun,” she says with a laugh, but the experience only deepened her resolve.
Amber returned to South Africa in 2018, this time to work with marine biologists studying the impact of orca predation on great white sharks. She also worked with southern right whales, jackass penguins and seal colonies.
“I still remember the moment I first saw a great white. I can’t put into words how I felt, it was just incredible.”
Her journey then led her to Care for Wild, a rhino orphanage where she helped rehabilitate calves rescued after their mothers were poached.
The work was emotionally and physically taxing. Amber’s tasks included feeding the rhinos, administering medicine, and even trimming horns to deter poachers.
“Working with these rhinos completely filled my heart and broke my soul”.
She recalls Arthur the Brave, a white rhino calf with machete wounds, and Fern, a tiny calf left for six weeks with injuries from hyena attacks.
“These animals are just incredible, and they’ve suffered so much at the hands of humans.”
Now a mother of two, Amber is driven by the fear that her children may never see these majestic animals in the wild.
That’s why she’s heading back. This time to Namibia, where she’ll join an anti-poaching team for a short-term mission.
Living in the desert for seven days at a time, she’ll be issued a uniform and firearm, trained in tracking and deployed to follow wild rhino crashes to protect them from poachers.
“I’m doing this for one reason," she says. "These animals deserve a future and people have no right to take that from them, all for a piece of keratin.
“I worry that the white rhino horn trade won’t stop until there are no rhinos left and I'm not letting that happen without a fight.”