There’s a monument near Brora, 60 miles short of John o’Groats, that claims to mark the spot where the last wolf in Sutherland was killed. I pass it often in the car. The wolf, it says, was killed by the hunter Polson in or about the year 1700. I know this story. Polson, so it […]
Tag: Wild boar
Last chance for the Persian leopard: the fight to save Iraqi Kurdistan’s forests
In the spring, the Pirmagrun mountain, one of the world’s last refuges for the endangered Persian leopard, towers over the surrounding countryside in Iraqi Kurdistan, its rocky snow-capped peaks fading into an ancient oak forest that starts out sparsely before running into narrow, densely-wooded valleys. As recently as the 1980s, the forest covered the slopes […]
Wild boar ‘carnage’ in eastern France was ‘intolerable’ – hunting president
The killing of 158 wild boar in a single day’s hunting in eastern France has sparked anger in the region and accusations of “carnage”, even if the hunters were within their allowed quotas. The boar were killed in a “battue” in which beaters drove the game towards the 82 hunters last Wednesday in the eastern […]
Vinnie Jones targeted by animal rights campaigners over love of ‘cruel’ hunting
X Factor: Celebrity semi-finalist Vinnie Jones is under attack from animal rights campaigners over his love of hunting. They are furious the ex-footballer is on a Saturday night entertainment show and stunned that anti-cruelty champ Simon Cowell is calling him “a friend”. Activists have highlighted how the sportsman-turned-actor takes part in hunting which they say […]
POLL: Should the entire wild boar population of Poland be culled?
Conservationists have branded plans by the Polish government to cull almost the entire wild boar population of the country as “pointless, counterproductive and evil”. In a move to tackle an epidemic of African swine fever, the Polish government has ordered a series of hunts, beginning this weekend, with the aim of killing the vast majority […]
The long journey to saving the Sumatran rhino, via Borneo (commentary)
In 1982, an orangutan researcher working in Indonesian Borneo wrote to a colleague at the biology department at the National University in Jakarta. He told of meeting a traditional-medicine trader at the market in Pangkalan Bun, a city in Central Kalimantan province. “A whole Sumatran rhino head is immersed in coconut oil in a basin,” […]
POLL: Should the National Trust be allowed to slaughter wild boar on its estates?
The National Trust has been criticised for planning to cull wild boar at its Stourhead estate in Wiltshire. It said it had taken the “difficult decision” to remove the animals from its land following reports that members of the public were feeling intimidated by the prospect of coming face-to-face with a wild boar. The charity […]
On the trail of wolves in Belarus
Dawn in the Naliboki forest: mist over the marshes and bats skittering in birch trees. Above the clearing, stars are fading into a pale sky. We’re in deepest God-knows-where in one of Europe’s largest wild forests. Zoologist Vadim Sidorovich crouches in the half-light studying the track; I’m barely breathing, so intense is the silence. A […]