According to a report this week by Quartz, two Chinese nationals were arrested last month in the state of California with $3.7-million-worth of totoaba swim bladders that they had smuggled from Mexico. Quartz’s Justin Rohrlich writes that a sheriff’s deputy in Orange County, California initially pulled the two men, Yikang Liang and Haoyu Huang, over […]
Tag: traditional chinese medicine
Petition: Protect South African Lions From Deplorable Conditions of Bone Trade!
Lions are sadly among the list of many wild animals suffering at the hands of humans. They are killed by poachers and trophy hunters, taken from the wild as babies and trained for circuses or kept in zoos, and they’re sadly held in captivity for the bone trade. Lions are being used as a replacement […]
Suspected totoaba poachers shot by authorities in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez
Three suspected totoaba poachers were reportedly shot yesterday by Mexican marines following a confrontation over illegal gillnets that had been confiscated. According to local news outlet Fronteras, the governor of the Mexican state of Baja California, Francisco Vega, has confirmed that three people were injured in a shootout between suspected poachers and Mexican marines early […]
POLL: Should the commercial trade in captive-bred tigers be banned?
The first thing that hit the inspectors was the smell. It was a sweltering midsummer day in Prague, and they had just opened an unplugged freezer filled with the rotting remains of tigers, lions and cougars. Pavla Rihova, the lead environmental inspector on the scene, said she had never seen anything like it. “I have […]
Indonesia’s Aceh sees harshest penalty yet for a wildlife crime
A court in Indonesia’s Aceh province has sentenced two men to four years behind bars for attempting to sell a tiger skin, in the toughest ever penalty handed down for a wildlife crime there. Sarkawi Bin Warigo, 41, and Sabaruddin Bin M. Yusak, 45, were arrested last July. During the trial, they refused to be […]
High price of rhino horn leaves bloody trail across the globe
On the black market it is reputedly worth more than its weight in gold or cocaine, and this week the lure of rhino horn brought the bloody business of poaching to a zoo near Paris. There, in the dead of night, criminals broke in, shot a white rhino called Vince three times in the head […]
POLL: Should all tiger farms in China be closed down?
In China, around 6,000 captive tigers are raised on “farms,” often under inhumane conditions, and their pelts sold for hefty sums in a poorly regulated market upheld through legal loopholes by the Chinese government. Breeding tigers on these farms is legal, but sale of their parts is not — something that may be about to […]
POLL: Should India’s export of tiger skin, parts and bones be stopped?
From 1990 to 2013, the notorious tiger poacher Kuttu Bahelia and his extended family — brothers, uncles, and their wives and children — reportedly killed hundreds of tigers and leopards in the tiger-rich Indian states of Maharashtra and Karnataka, according to law enforcement informants and media reports. “Even if half that [estimate] is correct, it […]
