During my (relatively short, I might add) lifetime I have had the privilege of visiting the majority of South Africa’s national parks and game reserves. What a wealth of natural heritage we possess! When people from abroad look at some of the work in my photographic portfolio, they are amazed at the diversity of wildlife […]
Tag: Elephant
POLL: Should the Woolly Mammoth be resurrected through genetic engineering?
The woolly mammoth vanished from the Earth 4,000 years ago, but now scientists say they are on the brink of resurrecting the ancient beast in a revised form, through an ambitious feat of genetic engineering. Speaking ahead of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Boston this week, the scientist […]
POLL: Should the trade in both raw and antique ivory be banned?
The UK and EU, the world’s largest exporters of legal ivory, have been accused of not doing enough to save Africa’s fast disappearing elephant populations. “This is the last chance saloon to save elephants,” said UK Labour MP Justin Madders at a meeting at Westminster Hall on Monday where more than 30 MPs on both […]
POLL: Should the slaughter of Borneo’s pygmy elephants be stopped?
Even the planet’s smallest elephants, tucked away on the island of Borneo, are no longer immune to the global poaching crisis for ivory. On New Year’s Eve, wildlife officials in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, found the bones of a beloved male elephant, nicknamed Sabre for his unusual tusks that slanted downwards like the extinct sabre-toothed tiger’s […]
China to shut down its ivory trade by the end of 2017
China will shut down its domestic ivory trade by the end of 2017, according to an announcement made today by the Chinese government. The announcement comes more than a year after China’s President Xi Jinping and United States President Barack Obama pledged to enact “nearly complete bans” on the import and export of ivory, an […]
POLL: Should the export of elephants to China be banned?
More than 30 wild elephants were being readied on Friday evening for an airlift from Zimbabwe to captivity in China, according to wildlife advocates. The founder of Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, Johnny Rodrigues, said on Friday that their plane was still at Victoria Falls airport because officials could not find scales big enough to weigh […]
Elephant refugees flee to last stronghold in Africa
Chobe National Park, Botswana – The elephants swim across the river in a straight line, trunks jutting out of the water like snorkels. With low, guttural bellows, they push their bodies together, forming a living raft to bolster a calf too tiny to stay afloat on its own. This pachyderm flotilla has a dangerous destination […]
Take me to the place where the white boys dance…
To kick off this post, I have to apologise to the band “The Killers”, whose song title made a perfect title for this photo and its resulting blog post. As you may know, we recently returned from an amazing family safari-camping-roadtrip through some of the most iconic places in Namibia. One of the destinations was […]