Africa’s vultures are vanishing, according to a new report, posing a potential health risk to humans and livestock, since populations of other scavengers such as rats and jackals could rise as a result. The assessment, carried out by the conservation group BirdLife International, found that six of Africa’s 11 vulture species were at risk of […]
Tag: poachers
Another 22 elephants poisoned with cyanide in Zimbabwe reserve
Zimbabwean rangers have found the bodies of 22 more elephants that were poisoned with cyanide in the country’s Hwange national park. The grim discovery brings to 62 the number of elephants poisoned by poachers in this southern Africa country in October. Rangers found the carcasses of the elephants in Hwange park’s Sinamatella area on Monday […]
Elephant Killings in Chad’s Signature Park Cause Alarm
A routine aerial surveillance flight over the western part of Chad’s Zakouma National Park has uncovered the deaths of two female elephants and their calves in what officials say is the first poaching incident there in more than three years. The loss of any elephants in Zakouma, a 1,158-square-mile preserve in southern Chad not far […]
Tanzania turns a blind eye to poaching as elephant populations plunge
For tour guides in Tanzania, the results of a continental elephant census showing that the country had lost two-thirds of its herd in five years and become Africa’s ivory trading hub came as no surprise. They’d tried to prevent tourists from seeing the melting skins and drying bones littering the Selous ecosystem in southern Tanzania […]
U.S. Steps Up Fight Against Poaching and Wildlife Trafficking
With the slaughter of elephants and rhinos in Africa at record levels, lawmakers in the U.S. are stepping up efforts to save some of the world’s most iconic species. An Obama administration task force is expected to make recommendations on how the federal government do more to fight wildlife trafficking, a trade that largely revolves […]
POLL: Should the export of baby elephants to China be stopped?
Zimbabwe has shipped 24 elephant calves to China, in a move that has angered animal rights groups who described the export as “extremely cruel”. “Some 24 elephants are en route to China as we speak after they were taken from their families in Hwange national park,” Johnny Rodrigues, chairman of the animal rights group Conservation […]
Amid rhinoceros poaching frenzy, dark days for South African society
Two adult rhinos and a calf lie under a tree 50 meters off the road. It’s a nice sighting for me in the midday heat of Kruger National Park in South Africa — my second of rhinos in two days. On the eastern horizon behind their sleeping forms lies a dark blue line; the Lembobo […]
Pictures: Black Rhinos Back in Tribal Africa After 25-Year Absence
Black rhinos were killed off from Samburu country by poachers, but now the community is bringing them back. Black rhinos are once again roaming the vast rangelands of the Samburu people in northern Kenya, thanks to relocation efforts by the community and conservationists. The animals had once been a common sight in the semi-arid region, […]