The true scale of the slaughter of pangolins in Africa has been revealed by new research showing that millions of the scaly mammals are being hunted and killed. Pangolins were already known to be the world’s most trafficked wild mammal, with at least a million being traded in the last decade to supply the demand […]
Tag: hunting
POLL: Should Mozambique’s wildlife park be funded by trophy hunting?
Call it Noah’s Ark on lorries. Dozens of trucks rolled over the Zimbabwe savanna carrying elephants, giraffe, African buffalo, zebras, and numerous other large iconic mammals. Driving more than 600km of dusty roadway, the trucks will deliver their wild loads to a new home: Zinave national park in Mozambique. The animals are a donation from […]
30 years of protecting the mysterious Okapi
The discovery of the elusive okapi, once believed to be a mythical unicorn, was one of the most exciting taxonomic findings of the twentieth century. This mysterious mammal lives deep inside the tropical forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and has been known to the western world only since early 1900s. Some […]
‘Kill them, kill them, kill them’: the volunteer army plotting to wipe out Britain’s grey squirrels
One snowy dawn in March, I went hunting for squirrels in the Lake District. In the silent and empty woods beneath the Aira Force waterfall, the only thing moving was a solitary red squirrel, balanced on a nut-filled feeder hanging from a tree. If you grew up, as I did, with the grey squirrel, seeing […]
Why has Theresa May ditched a pledge to ban ivory trading?
Strange news: Theresa May has decided to drop a Tory pledge to push for a total ban on ivory trading (only the sale of ivory items produced after 1947 is prohibited). Why would she do that? Doesn’t she need votes? I thought nearly everyone loved elephants – who votes for helping to wipe them out? […]
$10,000 reward offered to find killer of famous Yellowstone white wolf
For years, the wolf known as “White Lady” delighted visitors who were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of her when they visited Yellowstone National Park. At 12 years old, the alpha female of the Canyon Pack had lived twice as long as other wolves in the park. Within nine years, with the same alpha […]
POLL: Should Canada ban the hunting of seals?
Not long after European settlers established a commercial seal industry in Canada in the early 1500s, business was booming. Back in the day, seal oil was sold in the Old World for use as a machine lubricant. And later, demand for newly in-vogue fur meant that hundreds of thousands of harp seals were killed each […]
Python hunters to tackle Florida’s unwelcome intruder
Bill Booth struggles to recall the last time he saw a raccoon, a fox or a rabbit on one of his frequent hunting excursions deep into the swamps of the Florida Everglades. An outdoorsman all his life, he knows as well as anyone how the native wildlife once abundant across the vast wilderness has been […]