An audacious attempt to allow a huge sale of stockpiled elephant ivory has been defeated at an international wildlife conference. The rancorous debate exposed deep divisions between African nations with opposing views on elephant conservation. About 50 elephants are still being poached every day to supply ivory traffickers and all countries agree the world’s largest […]
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POLL: Should all countries worldwide ban the trade in elephant ivory?
A bid to give the highest level of international legal protection to all African elephants was defeated on Monday at a global wildlife summit. The EU played a pivotal role in blocking the proposal, which was fought over by rival groups of African nations. But the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), […]
POLL: Should Southeast Asian newts be protected under CITES?
A little-known group of amphibians — the Southeast Asian newts — are in high demand as pets, a new study has found. Large numbers of these semi-aquatic salamanders are being collected from the wild and sold in the United States and the European Union, researchers say. To understand the scale of trade in these animals, […]
Manta ray tourism worth 28 times more than killing them for Traditional Chinese Medicine
A new study in the open access journal PLoS ONE estimates that manta rays are worth $140 million a year in tourism across 23 countries, significantly outweighing the worth of manta ray gill plates, which have become the newest craze in Traditional Chinese Medicine. “As an example in Indonesia, revenue to fishermen from manta gill […]
Gold and poaching bring murder and misery to Congolese wildlife reserve
Early on a Sunday morning last summer, the villagers of Epulu awoke to the sounds of shots and screaming. In the eastern reaches of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, that can often mean another round of violence and ethnic murder is under way. In this case, however, something even more horrific was afoot. The […]