Cruelty to wild animals can take many forms and is often not obvious to the casual viewer. Many of the worst examples – elephant riding, civet coffee tours, for example – are commonly offered to tourists in the countries in which they take place and might appear to be traditional aspects of their cultures. What this list […]
Tag: elephants
“Staring menacingly, the buffaloes encircled our vehicle.” My close encounter with a mega-stampede
We’re parked up in our Land Cruiser on the golden grasslands of Botswana’s Mababe Depression, surrounded by Cape buffaloes caked in mud. “There must be 3,000 of them here,” our guide Jonah Seboko says quietly, scanning the scene with his binoculars. “Beautiful, just beautiful.” That’s not a word I’d ever really associated with the notoriously […]
Petition: France Must Ban Trophy Hunting Imports
In December 2025, Belgium’s Constitutional Court upheld a groundbreaking law banning the import of hunting trophies from endangered and at-risk species. The law protects elephants, lions, rhinos, jaguars, chimpanzees, cheetahs, hippos, and many more vulnerable animals from being reduced to decorative souvenirs. France cannot remain on the sidelines while its European neighbor takes decisive action […]
An Empire of Nature: African Parks and Rwanda’s Nyungwe Forest
NYUNGWE NATIONAL PARK, Rwanda — It’s a cool morning in the montane rainforest of western Rwanda’s Nyungwe National Park. Sunbeams stream down from the canopy, glowing in the mist. Birdsong pierces the still air. Jacques Habimana, a baby-faced 23-year-old trail guide, stops abruptly, pressing a finger to his lips. He points toward the treetops. A […]
Wildlife Poachers to Be Targeted Using State of the Art AI Listening Technology
Wildlife poachers can now be located and arrested across the central African forests thanks to state-of-the-art AI listening technology. A network of microphones has been deployed across the rainforests to detect gunshots from illegal poaching of elephants and other animals, and American scientists are using AI to ensure the network can distinguish gunshots over the […]
A Troubling Rise in the Grisly Trade of a Spectacular African Bird
In late August the Nigeria Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society received photos of primate and bird parts recently seized by the Nigerian Customs Service in Oron, a small port city in southeastern Nigeria, some 20 miles from the border with Cameroon. The images showed 11 blackened ape heads — a gorilla and 10 chimpanzees […]
Why are conservationists alarmed about Botswana’s biggest elephant hunt?
Conservationists have raised the alarm about the Botswana government’s decision to increase its annual trophy-hunting quota for elephants, reigniting a debate over how the country should manage the world’s largest elephant population. Botswana, a largely dry nation which is home to 2.3 million people, has more than 130,000 elephants, nearly one-third of all elephants in […]
Watch dramatic BBC footage shows desperate, ravenous leopard mother risking death for her cubs, high in the treetops
In Botswana’s wild Okavango Delta, leopards love to feast on large ungulates, such as antelope and zebra. The Delta is usually home to a rich array of flora and fauna, attracting huge populations of elephants, hippopotamuses, crocodiles, buffalo and antelope from across the region. The abundance of prey makes it a prime location for Africa’s […]