Wildlife releases are usually joyous events. Uplifting scenes of animals cautiously nosing the air as they take their first tentative steps into freedom warm our hearts. However, new research suggests the wild can be a “death trap,” especially if the released individuals lack the essential skills to find food and integrate with wild populations, or […]
Tag: poachers
The most desirable songbird in Indonesia is disappearing from the wild
SUMATRA, Indonesia — Armed with a machete, some sticky gum and a recording of birdsong on his phone, “Peni” makes his way into the forest. He’s searching for songbirds in the Sumatran jungle, specifically the white-rumped shama (Copsychus malabaricus), known locally as murai batu. The popularity of murai batu has boomed in the past decade […]
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 […]
Rhino review – Tom Hardy channels David Attenborough in mission to save Kenya’s rhinos
Here is a rare wildlife success story. The world’s black rhino population has plummeted to just over 6,000 as rhinos are pushed to the brink of extinction by habitat loss and poaching. But conservation efforts have resulted in a rhino comeback in Kenya, where numbers are growing in fenced-off sanctuaries known as conservancies that employ […]
It’s ‘whack-a-mole’: Alarming rise in pet trade fuels wildlife trafficking into California
In October, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer at California’s Otay Mesa border crossing noticed an odd bulge inside a man’s pants. Jesse Agus Martinez, a U.S. citizen who lives in Tijuana, repeatedly claimed the bump was “pirrin,” a Spanish word for penis. His history of smuggling birds into the U.S. prompted further examination, […]
Namibia loses bid to overturn ban on rhino horn trade
Namibia’s proposals to lift the ban on the international trade in black and white rhino horns have been rejected at a key conservation meeting. The result of the voting at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) earlier this week was adopted by the conference on Thursday in […]
“The tiny turtles’ perilous haul is akin to a marathon across the world’s most dangerous obstacle course.”
Ask any turtle biologist from any country as to the meaning of arribada and chances are their eyes will glaze over, before they begin gushing effusively about the synchronised transition from sea to sand of thousands upon thousands of marine turtles that have a sole purpose in mind. To those without the benefit of either […]
‘They’re a lot like us’: saving the tiny punk monkeys facing extinction
Luis Enrique Centena spent decades silencing the forest. Now, he listens. Making a whistle, the former logger points up to a flash of white and reddish fur in the canopy. Inquisitive eyes peer back – a cotton-top tamarin, one of the world’s rarest primates. “I used to cut trees and never took the titís into […]