Accompanying Kenya’s widely-publicized ivory bonfire last April were announcements that the country’s wildlife service was moving toward “intelligence-based conservation,” with more emphasis on the pursuit of traffickers and smugglers rather than on the poachers who actually do the killing. “We know there is limitless supply of poor guys on the ground who are willing to […]
Tag: poaching
POLL: Should Zimbabwe and Namibia be allowed to sell their ivory stockpiles?
A huge legal sale of ivory intended to cut elephant poaching instead catastrophically backfired by dramatically increasing elephant deaths, according to new research. The revelation comes just months before a decision on whether to permit another legal sale and against a backdrop of more African elephants being killed for ivory than are being born. In […]
Elephants could vanish from one of Africa’s key reserves within six years
Elephants could disappear from one of Africa’s most important wildlife reserves within six years unless industrial scale poaching is stopped and mining is brought under control, the WWF has said. Selous national park, a world heritage site in southern Tanzania, has lost an average of almost 2,500 elephants a year since the 1970s. But it […]
World’s Smallest Porpoise Is on the Verge of Extinction
The world’s smallest and rarest porpoise, the vaquita, is on the verge of extinction. A mere 60 remain, the Mexican government announced Friday. Their numbers have dropped 40 percent in two years, down from 97 in 2014, due in large part for illegal fishing for another endangered species. The totoaba, a fish whose swim bladder […]
The audacious plan to airlift 80 rhinos to Australia
A South African expatriate’s desire to protect rhinoceroses from poachers is driving an unusual plan to breed the giant animals down under. It’s sometimes said that people look like their pets. But that’s not the case with Ray Dearlove. He’s a a statuesque slab of fellow, built like a prop forward with the weathered features […]
POLL: Should all ivory stockpiles be destroyed?
We are often told that wildlife conservation should make economic sense, and so it should. In my previous article I outlined some of the economic arguments in favour of burning ivory stockpiles. Wildlife conservation should make moral sense as well. Winning the moral argument is probably even important than good economics for saving elephants and […]
Rare Sumatran Rhino Found for First Time in 40 Years
Sumatran rhinos had been thought extinct from Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, and hadn’t been physically encountered in the area for 40 years. But on Tuesday, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) announced the safe capture of a female Sumatran rhino there, in what the group calls “a major milestone for rhino conservation in Indonesia.” […]
African elephants ‘killed faster than they are being born’
More African elephants are being killed for ivory than are being born, despite poaching levels falling for the fourth year in a row in 2015. The new data, released on UN world wildlife day on Thursday, shows about 60% of elephant deaths are at the hands of poachers, meaning the overall population is most likely […]