14
Issue 09
I
WINTER 2020
ENVIRONMENT
Don Bailey is a pilot and a businessman on a conservation mission to rescue penguins, wild dogs and more, writes Shirley le Guern
saved a seal recently,” says Don Bailey, CEO of Expand A Sign who is also a passionate pilot, ardent conservationist and a board member of the legendary “environmental air force” known as The Bateleurs. Two penguins had washed up way off course on local beaches. Bailey was at the controls when they were airlifted back to Port Elizabeth. His passenger on the way back was a tiny dwarf seal that had lost a flipper to a shark and could not be rehabilitated and returned to the wild. Instead, Bailey flew her back to Durban and her new home at uShaka Marine World. Bailey has many a tale to tell of the exploits of his fellow pilots, many of whom are, like him, trying to navigate the choppy waters of a post-Covid economy without necessarily being able to guess the next challenge coming their way.
especially as a pilot. When doing this, you meet people who are paid almost nothing but work for conservation out of love. That reminds you what a real job is,” he says, referring to three young Green Scorpions who he flew out to capture some poachers in a Zululand game reserve. Bailey was called out of a sales meeting to help. “We rushed up and caught these guys. On the way back, they asked me to fly up a river to check on a large forestry company that was moving too close to the river. These guys were worrying about every element of the environment. They work long hours for very little pay. That’s inspiring and means far more than listening to a wealthy man talking about his latest investment on the stock market.” Since school, Bailey had always wanted to be a pilot. His father had other ideas and sent him to university
Flying a flag for the ENVIRONMENT “We flew some wild dogs a while ago and the guys unfortunately crashed. A call went out. Thirty minutes later, someone had put up his hand and a plane was in the air to pick up the dogs.” He believes the flexibility that is key to The Bateleurs’ operations and enables them to turn a near tragedy into an opportunity could be a lesson for businesses going forward. “It takes a while to mature. When you are young, you believe money is going to make you happy. But you have to ask yourself if that is true fulfilment,
Twenty-one years and thousands of missions later, our pilots have put nearly R50-million in time and resources into conservation to become an accountant. “So I bit the bullet and when I had finished I told my Dad I was going to become a pilot. He said I could now earn my own money to become a pilot,
so I got a job, saved, did my training and got my private pilot’s licence.” Getting a commercial licence proved much more expensive. To fund this, Bailey headed to London in 1995 where he worked for two years at a sports marketing company. On his return, he spent seven months at a flight school for his commercial rating and went on to fly for the United Nations in war-torn Angola. During a short break at home in 1998, he heard that two of their planes had been shot down in just two days.
