The battle against the poaching that kills a rhino every seven hours in South Africa has acquired a new weapon: women. The Black Mambas are all young women from local communities, and they patrol inside the Greater Kruger national park unarmed. Billed as the first all-female unit of its kind in the world, they are […]
Tag: poaching
Thandi’s calf – the rhino that should never have been born
Nearly three years after surviving a brutal poaching attack that left two male rhinos dead, Thandi the rhino gave birth to a calf on 13 January 2015 at Kariega Game Reserve in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Using footage of Thandi and her calf captured just moments after the birth, this film by photographer and […]
Zimbabwe plans to sell baby elephants to global buyers
Tourists said they heard the families scattered by gunshots. They made for easy targets: great, grey figures stark against the golden grass. As the animals began to stampede, their terrified babies, unable to keep up, were roped together and taken away. Their capture tore apart families that in the wild could be separated only by […]
New blood record: 1,020 rhinos killed in South Africa
South Africa has surpassed last year’s grisly record for slaughtered rhinos – 1,004 – more than a month before the year ends. In an announcement on November 20th, the South African Department of Environmental Affairs said that 1,020 rhinos had been killed to date. Rhinos are butchered for their horns, which are consumed as curatives […]
Video: On safari in Zimbabwe – with poachers turned gamekeepers
At dawn the bush comes to life. Birds sing, a lion roars and a tiny deer steps gingerly past my veranda. As the first rays of light touch the acacias, there is a soft voice by the canvas and a tea tray is set out. Soon after sunrise, I grab my camera and climb on […]
POLL: Should lion canned hunting be banned in South Africa?
International indignation over the canned hunting of lions in SA is growing, writes Martina Polley. Lions are majestic animals, the alpha predators of the African bush. We think of them as roaming wild and free across the plains. But this is far from the reality. South Africa has a population of about 2750 lions in national […]
With death of rhino, only six northern white rhinos left on the planet
Rhino conservation suffered another tragic setback this weekend with the sudden death of Suni, a male northern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. Suni’s passing means there are only six northern white rhinos left in the world, and only one breeding male. “Consequently the species now stands at the […]
Elephants worth much, much more alive than dead, says new report
Elephants are worth 76 times more when they’re alive than dead, according to a new analysis released this past weekend. The report follows on the heels of findings by WWF that the world has lost 50 percent of its wildlife over the past 40 years, with more than half of African elephants killed for ivory […]