Traffickers from Latin America are desperate to get their product into the United States—so desperate they’ll risk the dangers of swimming across the Rio Grande with their contraband. But it’s not meth and it’s not cocaine. In one case, according to a special agent, it was about 25 parrots destined to be sold as pets. […]
Tag: illegal wildlife trade
POLL: Should India’s export of tiger skin, parts and bones be stopped?
From 1990 to 2013, the notorious tiger poacher Kuttu Bahelia and his extended family — brothers, uncles, and their wives and children — reportedly killed hundreds of tigers and leopards in the tiger-rich Indian states of Maharashtra and Karnataka, according to law enforcement informants and media reports. “Even if half that [estimate] is correct, it […]
How wildlife may fare under Trump
What a president will do for wildlife has never been much of a campaign issue. Debates focus on national security, trade, economics, and to a lesser degree in this election cycle, on the environment. Wildlife, however, plays a part in all those concerns. Take, for example, the illegal wildlife trade. It’s a multibillion-dollar business that […]
Black, white and unique: the Malayan tapir struggles for recognition
Two-month old Asahan sucks milk greedily from a bottle. The baby Malayan tapir — his spotty brown juvenile coat already morphing to the distinctive black and white of an adult — was rescued by local villagers who found the displaced animal wandering alone through an oil palm plantation and then handed him over to Malaysia’s […]
Another big predator in Southeast Asia faces extinction
Conservationists have long known that it’s hard – and in some cases – nearly impossible to survive as a tiger in Southeast Asia. Burning forests, high human populations and unflagging demand for tiger blood, tiger skin and crushed tiger bone means the big cats have to tread a daily gauntlet of snares, guns and desperate […]
POLL: Should there be a worldwide ban on the ivory trade?
The UK is putting elephants at risk of extinction through its broken promises on the ivory trade, according to campaigners. Before the last election, the Conservative party pledged to shut down the UK’s domestic ivory market: at the time 30,000 elephants a year were being slaughtered for their tusks. But no action has been taken. […]
In a world of 7 billion people how can we protect wildlife?
Consumers and collectors want sturgeon caviar, snakeskin bags, shark meat and fins, wild snowdrop bulbs, precious rosewood furniture, and quality agarwood oil, as well as rare birds, reptiles, cacti and orchids. But they rarely stop to think about their origins. There are now over seven billion people consuming biodiversity every day in the form of […]
Indochinese leopard has disappeared from 94% of its historical range
The Indochinese leopard is struggling to survive. Once widespread across southeast Asia, the leopard subspecies has been wiped out from much of its habitat, and now occurs only in six percent of its historical range, a new study published in Biological Conservation has found. “Nobody was expecting this,” co-author Jan F. Kamler, Southeast Asia Leopard Program […]