Animal
Rhino killings surge to an average of more than 5 a day last week
The South African government has just released the rhino statistics covering the last week and there has been a shocking surge in rhino poaching. So far this year 350 rhino have been killed that’s 37 up on last weeks figures or an average of 5.3 rhino killed each day. The surge has been driven by [...]
International taxonomists name their Top 10 new species from 2012
In celebration of Carolus Linnaeus – the scientist who established the naming system for species – the world’s top taxonomists have released their latest Top 10 new species list. The latest list covers 2012 and is the 6th annual list they have produced. The choice of this years top species covers a wide range of [...]
World’s newest country go in hunt of rhinos
The world’s newest country, South Sudan, has announced that it is to mount a ground and aerial search to discover if the rhino is truly extinct in the country or if the ‘fog of war’ meant that the rhino were just not seen. The rhino was last confirmed in Sudan in the 1990′s and has [...]
Lion cub in Twitter sale is seized by authorities
On Monday a lion cub was put up for sale on the Twitter web site. Photographs of the cub was tweeted together with a price tag of Dh30,000 by a Dubai based pet shop. Today wildlife officials of the United Arab Emirates have taken the cub into custody. The pet shop owner who is currently [...]
United States sentences Vietnamese rhino traders to 3.5 years in prison
The Judge went easy on two rhino horn traders in the United States yesterday when she sentences one to 42 months and another to 46 month in prison. This was less than the sentences that the US Federal prosecutors called for. The father and son team who were Vietnamese emigrants were also fined and ordered [...]
3 rhino a day killed in South Africa last week
South African authorities have just released the weekly statistics for rhino poaching in the country. Last week 21 rhino were killed taking the total so far this year to 313. The 21 rhinos killed in the last week means that the current average of rhinos being poached is 3 a day. The Kruger National Park [...]
Elephant campaigner charged with ivory possession
One of the top officials of an elephant campaigning group in Kenya has been charged with illegal possession of ivory after 19Kg of ivory was found in the back of her car. Her son has also been jointly charged. Soila Sayialel is the deputy director of Kenyan campaign group Amboseli Trust for Elephants and was [...]
Wildlife moving from the plate to the cabinet
China has released details about its latest round of raids by police in tackling the illegal wildlife trade in the country. In April 80,000 police took part in an operation which saw over 6,000 markets, dealers and websites raided. Liu Wenshu, a spokeswoman for public security office of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Landscape and [...]
Elephant death toll at Dzanga Bai starts to come in
The impact of the incursion of 17 poachers at the Dzanga-Ndoki National Park in the Central Africa Republic has started to come in now that the area is safe again for rangers to enter. So far 26 elephants bodies have been found at the Dzanga Bai or ‘Village of the Elephants’. On Monday a group [...]
The Dzanga-Ndoki incident, is there a Chinese connection
A couple of days ago the WWF issued an alert over an incursion into the Dzanga-Ndoki National Park by a section of the Seleka rebels from the Central Africa Republic. There are reports that these rebels are working with the Sudanese poachers that plague the area. Now latest reports are coming in that the incursion [...]
Tanzanian opposition calls for poachers to be hung
Tanzanian Leader of the Opposition, Freeman Mbowe, announced in the Parliament yesterday that it’s time to get tough with poachers and that those caught poaching should face the death penalty and be hung. Mbowe was speaking at a debate on the Natural Resources and Tourism budget. He referred to a The Parliamentary Committee on Land, Natural [...]
Lonely koala finds a new home
It’s an image that has been making the rounds on the internet for the last couple of weeks. A lonely koala bear that went out for the day and came back only to discover that his home in a pine forest in Bathurst, Australia had been felled. The koala had been reported to a local [...]
Rhino horn smugglers go free due to lack of interpreters
South African courts have released two major rhino horn smugglers because the government were unable to provide court interpreters. The two Vietnamese rhino horn smugglers were caught in November 2010 after a routine search at a roadblock. The smugglers were aboard a bus and had 12 rhino horn concealed in their suitcases. Xuan Binh Dang, [...]
Minister calls for shoot to kill policy in Botswana
The Deputy Speaker of the Botswana Parliament, Pono Moatlhodi, has called for the immediate introduction of a shoot to kill policy to tackle poachers targeting rhino and elephants in the country. His call for a new tougher stance against the poachers comes just days after Mozambique declared that the Limpopo National Park lost its last [...]
Can the elephants survive the coup in Central African Republic
Last month saw the government of the Central African Republic overthrown by rebels and the state has now become lawless. Rebels groups have reportedly joined up with Sudanese poachers and elephants are facing a crisis. Conservation groups World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and World Conservation Society (WCS) have today released a joint statement calling for immediate [...]
No rhinos left in Limpopo National Park
Wildlife officials in Mozambique have announced the devastating news that there are no rhino left in the Limpopo National Park in the south of the country. They made the announcement earlier today (Wednesday) at a media briefing. Uncontrolled poaching over the last couple of years has resulted in the last rhino being killed in the [...]
Philipphine Coastguard catches another boat smuggling pangolins
Following a tip-off from the public officers from the Philipphine Coastguard made a search of a boat in Coron, Palawan and discovered 23 pangolin hidden in the roof space of the boat. The officials received a tip-off on Monday night and immediately sent an inspection crew to search the boat, MV Maria Lydia, before [...]
From rhino horn to smelly feet
A new advertising campaign has been launched in Vietnam by WWF and TRAFFIC to try and dissuade people from using rhino horn as medicine. The campaign highlights that rhino horn is the same material as finger and toe nails. The highly visual campaign will see posters of rhinos whose horns have been replaced with feet [...]
Hundreds of frozen pangolins found on rogue fishing vessel
Philippines Coastguards have announced that hundreds of frozen pangolins have been found in the hold of a rogue Chinese fishing vessel that went aground in one of it’s marine nature reserves. The fishing vessel that was operating illegally in the marine reserve went aground on the Tubbataha reef, in Palawan island, western Philippines, last week. [...]
Badger crimes surges in England and Wales over last 5 years
The number of people prosecuted for wildlife crimes against badgers has surged in the last 5 years. Back in 2007 just 30 prosecutions took place while in 2011, the last year figures are available for, the number had increased to 58. The figures were released following a written parliamentary question by Diane Abbott MP. While [...]