A new report released by the Humane Society International (HSI) finds that trophy hunters are “grossly” overstating the economic benefits of big game hunting in Africa. HSI timed the release of the report to coincide with the start of Safari Club International’s (SCI) annual convention in Las Vegas, Nevada on February 1. US-based SCI, one […]
Tag: poachers
Saving the vultures of Saudi Arabia
An overview of the vulture species that nest in Saudi Arabia, the threats they are facing and what BirdLife is doing to help them. Vultures are one of the most threatened families of birds in the entire world and their decline has been shockingly rapid. Some species in Africa and the Indian subcontinent have declined […]
Innovative technology creates safe haven for rhinos
An innovative new technology might be able to protect rhinos like never before. Unveiled last week, the new system integrates a set of technologies — Wi-Fi, thermal cameras, biometrics, closed-circuit televisions, and sensors — to create a security network across an entire game reserve. What makes it so promising is that it helps rangers react earlier, […]
Video: The Ivory Game – timely account of elephants’ death throes
It is obviously more than a game and this documentary directed by Kief Davidson and Richard Ladkani – and exec-produced by Leonardo DiCaprio – showing on Netflix, brings a new urgency to an old subject: the ivory trade, which is threatening the world’s elephants. This threat has not been cancelled or brought under control, as […]
Hounds hot on the heels of poachers in rhino country
“I am ready to die for conserving the rhino,” says Wisdom Makhubele. But the brave young ranger now has another weapon in the war against rhino poaching: the extraordinary nose of tracking hounds. The trained dogs can run poachers to ground far faster than people, sometimes even being set free in packs and followed from […]
POLL: Should there be a worldwide ban on the pangolin trade?
Governments and NGOs are pushing to ban the commercial trade in pangolins, the world’s most trafficked mammal.They passed a motion last week at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Hawaii urging all IUCN members to support the transfer of all eight pangolin species from Appendix II to Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade […]
POLL: Should the sale of elephant ivory be legalized?
World Elephant Day was not necessarily good news for Africa’s elephants: Pressure is mounting in southern Africa to lift the ban on the sale of ivory. In the mid-1980s, during the last great elephant poaching crisis, Africa lost nearly half its elephant population, roughly 600,000 animals, in a decade. But the world responded in 1989 […]
How to catch a poacher using fake eggs
Sometimes life really does imitate art. In the fourth season of the hit TV show, Breaking Bad, police put GPS devices on barrels of methylamine to try and track the show’s protagonists to their meth lab. Inspired by the episode, Kim Williams-Guillen, a conservationist with Paso Pacifico, decided to take the concept one step further: […]