Despite a lack of scientific basis, in Parliament on 25 June, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife dropped a bombshell, claiming that the culling of 1,220 elephants was inevitable and had been...
The EMS Foundation strongly opposes South African rhino breeder Hendrick Diedericks legal efforts to export hundreds of rhino horns. We view his litigation...
New research finds that overall tree cover in the Kruger National Park is on the rise, although in localised areas, elephants and other forces are reducing large-tree cover. For...
Elephant management in South Africa remains legally, ethically and ecologically complex. Despite the adoption of the 2008 Norms and Standards for Elephant Management and the 2016...
South Africa’s elephant strategy rightly celebrates heritage, culture and coexistence. But it’s proposals for adaptive management and flexibility could threaten what protection...
Tanzania is home to an estimated 17,200 lions, the highest number recorded by any country in the world, according to findings from the latest national wildlife census released by...
The Mozambican minister of agriculture, Roberto Albino, has revealed that the country’s elephant population, over the last seven years, increased from 9,114 to approximately...
New EIA analysis indicates the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region is resuming its long-held key role in trafficking ivory to meet demand in Asia. During the...
As South Africa wrestles with elephant management, delays and a lack of accountability could push culling from a last resort to an all-too-possible outcome. Deputy Environment...
Deputy Forestry, Fisheries and Environment Minister Narend Singh has insisted that elephant culling in South Africa will remain a “last resort”. But MPs and animal welfare...
The NSPCA is in the Constitutional Court this week to defend the inclusion of animal ‘wellbeing’ in South Africa’s biodiversity law. The case may turn on a single word, but its...
KwaZulu-Natal’s elephant ‘overpopulation crisis’ is being presented as scientific inevitability. But official replies reveal contradictions, missing evidence and a regulatory...
Madikwe Nature Reserve currently has 1,600 elephants, substantially more than originally intended, a situation created by years of official inaction. The high number of elephants...
In early 2026, EKZN Wildlife published proposals to remove 1,050 (subsequently increased to 1,220) elephants from five protected areas due to perceived overpopulation above...
A willingness to kill elephants as a management tool in North West’s Madikwe Nature Reserve suggests a shift in South Africa’s conservation approach. What was once a last resort...
The value of South Africa’s wildlife shouldn’t be in the hands of wealthy foreign hunters (commentary) Stephanie Klarmann 30 Apr 2026 Africa The latest statistics on South...
Rhino breeders in South Africa are attempting to bend international wildlife trade regulations to their will and undermine decades of South African law to circumvent the ban on...
On 29 May 2026, the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment published South Africa’s National Elephant Heritage Strategy (2026–2036) in the Government Gazette. The...
The largest number of elephant removals is planned for Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park. Source: Hluhluwe Game Reserve More than 1 000 elephants could be removed from protected...
A legal battle over South Africa’s captive lion bone trade has deepened in the Pretoria high court after the National Council of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to...
A new international poll commissioned by World Animal Protection in collaboration with Blood Lions reveals strong opposition to commercial captive lion breeding in South Africa...
Tanzania has ruled out elephant culling as a strategy to curb rising human-wildlife conflict, opting instead to scale up rapid-response measures to protect communities from...
Approved EMP for Madikwe Game Reserve. Issued by North West Parks Board
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has submitted written parliamentary questions to KwaZulu-Natal’s Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs (EDTEA)...
Indigenous Species hunted by International clients 2016-2024 South African Professional Hunting Statistics By Country 1 January 2024 - 31 December 2024 South African Professional...
Rhino trade set to be revived as new minister signals shift in wildlife policy A new government finding that supports the hunting and export of rhinos signals a shift in South...
Mpumalanga moves to shut down captive lion breeding Just as many expected a retreat from wildlife reform, Mpumalanga has taken the opposite step – moving to shut down captive...
The truth about the false narrative of South Africa’s ‘wildlife miracle’ The bontebok story is presented as proof that the country’s wildlife model works. However, it does not...
The exercise focuses on adult male elephants that had settled at Solio for extended periods. by EMILY KITONGA The Kenya Wildlife Service...
With surprising provincial unanimity, Parliament has advanced reforms to phase out South Africa’s captive lion industry. This is likely to set up a clash with the new environment...
What these numbers document is not conservation under pressure, but extraction at scale. They expose trophy hunting not as a people-centred conservation model, but as a...
Elephants and marulas — a call for a more nuanced approach to nature’s drama in Kruger National Park The ‘elephant problem’ debate tracks this logic: dead or damaged trees with...
BIODIVERSITY Challenging misconceptions — the positive impact of elephants on savanna dynamics Elephants have a bad rap for pushing over trees, and in the background, there are...
HUNTING New wildlife quotas reopen fault lines over hunting, science and governance A change of minister has brought a sudden return to trophy export quotas for endangered black...
It’s time to set the record straight. Antagonistic narratives surrounding the commercial use of wildlife have seen a significant upswing in recent months with renewed...
As the dust settles on the latest UN climate summit in Belém, one thing is now unavoidable: the world is not on track to limit warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels....
If you wanted a masterclass in how to turn a conservation success story into a global controversy, Botswana has just written the syllabus. The government’s draft 2026...
Cape Town — When Dr Mike Chase banks the small survey plane over northern Botswana’s mopane woodlands, he can see the country’s wildlife story written in the dust below....
When poaching amplifies the effect of higher hunting quotas, it is bad news for the future of Botswana’s elephant population and its contribution to the economy, according to...
The combined lessons of recent enforcement actions, judicial rulings and criminal investigations point to a decisive conclusion: legalising rhino horn, in any form, under any...
The sacking of environment minister Dion George has been framed in these pages as a story of alleged staff abuse and underperformance, though the counter-view was well...
A protected area alongside the Kruger National Park is experiencing high elephant densities and significant tree loss. What’s to be done? The combination of rising elephant...
In an unprecedented move, President Cyril Ramaphosa removed DA minister Dion George at his own party’s request. Was it his firm position against the hunting industry, or a lack...
The move to oust the environment minister exposes a deeper hijacking – of the National Elephant Heritage Strategy, of policy integrity and of conservation itself. A...
Behind claims of escalating human-elephant conflict lies a tangle of weak data, mismanagement and a R460-million fund that seems to need a crisis more than it proves one. Are...
Recent media reports have suggested that South Africa intends to break ranks with the international consensus on the ivory and rhino horn trade ahead of the upcoming CITES COP20....
South Africa prides itself on being one of the most biodiverse nations on Earth, yet a new report reveals that the very lands entrusted to safeguard this wealth are falling...
A quiet but highly significant policy rift is opening among southern African states as the world turns its attention to CITES CoP20, scheduled for 24 November 2025 in Samarkand,...
As South Africa’s Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, I am entrusted with safeguarding the beating heart of our nation’s biodiversity, a vibrant tapestry woven...
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is an international agreement which seeks to ensure that trade in specimens of wild...
North West Parks seems hell-bent on hunting and culling elephants and seems prepared to thumb its nose at parliamentarians trying to find solutions. Elephants in...
Claims of ‘overpopulation’ sound less like science and more like a cover for old practices dressed in ecological rhetoric. Elephants in the Madikwe Game Reserve in...
Stakeholder perspectives play a crucial role in conservation decisions, particularly for species with complex ecological and social impacts, such as African savanna elephants...
Culling, hunting and quick-fix solutions dominate policy talk, but without reliable national figures on human-elephant conflict, South Africa risks sacrificing both elephants and...
As delegates at a two-day indaba reached for solutions to human-elephant conflict, there were many who were happy to reach for their guns. Culling of sentient...
A slow-burning tragedy is unfolding at Madikwe Game Reserve in North West and the grind of counter-accusations has the look of a fight between enraged rhinos. Meanwhile,...
A robust, peer-reviewed paper poses a problem for hunting apologists, since it shows that the communities they claim are helped by trophy hunting clearly do not want it. ...
Across Africa’s protected areas, lion trophy hunting remains a highly contentious issue – especially when young, iconic pride leaders are killed under the guise of...
The controversial debate on whether the live export trade can ever be humane – or should be banned altogether – has been reopened by the Department of Agriculture’s release of...
The findings debunk the narrative that rural communities depend on trophy hunting to survive and instead highlight a growing desire for coexistence and respect for animal...
Large-scale breeding of predators with attendant welfare abuses continues unabated in South Africa, while exports only notionally comply with regulations. A recent...
Another massive elephant bull was recently killed in northern Botswana, according to our trusted sources on the ground: the surgical removal of Africa’s large-tusked elephants by...
Fears are growing around the potential relaunch of trophy hunting in the North West province’s Madikwe Game Reserve – a move stakeholders say will deal a devastating blow to the...
Parliament’s patience snapped this week as Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen failed to show up to a long-awaited joint committee briefing on wildlife protection – a meeting...
Reporting on his first year in office, Dion George was clear, firm, and unapologetic. Whether his promises will be backed by policy, enforcement, and legislative clarity remains...
Two local SPCA societies are taking the national body to court with a list of serious allegations. The NSPCA says it’s about personal grievances and not animal welfare. ...
At a recent Parliamentary Committee hearing the tourism board claimed that there are too many elephants in Madikwe and that overpopulation threatens biodiversity and leads to...
Zimbabwe’s controversial decision to cull 50 elephants in save Valley Conservancy (sVC) — while renewing its campaign to lift the international ivory trade ban—has sparked...
Insiders describe why, and how, rangers sworn to protect wildlife collude with poaching syndicates slaughtering rhinos. Kruger Park ranger Hendrick Sithembiso is...
More than 1,000 starving elephants may have to be culled. Parliamentarians demand answers by tomorrow (Friday). At lease 70 elephants have died of starvation in Madikwe....
Parliamentarians were this week shown horrendous images of captive lion breeding in South Africa. Captive lions found in shocking condition. (Photo: NSPCA) Emaciated...
Wildlife relocation projects that fail to acknowledge environmental and social issues highlight an urgent need for conservationists to engage in scientifically grounded and...
By sticking to a narrow interpretation of export permit requirements, Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Dion George is missing a golden opportunity to end the...
The owners left the injured tiger to begin tearing her legs apart, trying to relieve the stress or pain. An NSPCA inspector reports widespread neglect at the facility. ...
The draft strategy is skewed in favour of anthropocentric benefits – economic, spiritual and cultural – and cannot function in practical terms. Consumptive use of elephants is...
The sale of lion bones is heading back to court with a 235-page application by lion breeders demanding that the Environment Department set a CITES export quota for 2025. The...
‘The Ndumo Game Reserve experience serves as a warning to other similar reserves, that even well-established protected areas such as (Ndumo)... could be lost to conservation...
What lies behind the persistent attempts to shut down or curtail the operations of the Skukuza Regional Court, which has achieved remarkable success in bringing rhino poachers to...
Imagine a world where elephants roam freely across vast, interconnected landscapes, their ancient wisdom anchoring the health of the African savanna. This is the future...
Tens of thousands of wild animals, from spring hares to rhinos, died in the name of sport and entertainment in 2023. These are some of the numbers. You pay a mere $100 to...
Big cats are poached for their hides, organs and bones, while the other animals are hunted for their meat. Kruger spokesperson Isaac Phaahla. Snaring in the Kruger...
The Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area (GLTFCA), which includes Kruger National Park, in South Africa, and Limpopo National Park, in Mozambique, is one of the last ten...
The new field of conservation psychology offers valuable lessons for protecting the world’s wildlife — as well as ourselves. In recent weeks and months, Donald Trump and...
A sustainable future for elephants has to work alongside human social development if they’re to survive in South Africa’s rapidly changing landscape. That’s the core message of a...
VANISHING TREASURES The remnant natural forests of Zululand have enjoyed legal protection for several decades – on paper at least. But there is a different picture on the ground....
The move imperils countless threatened creatures, from elephants and primates to sea turtles. An elephant at Amboseli National Park in Kenya.Media Drum World/ZUMA This story was...
The recent years-long drought may have tipped parts of the Northern Cape towards an irreversible dust bowl, following decades of heavy grazing and mining. As Earth’s average...
Vietnam’s apparent reluctance to share DNA samples of smuggled horns with South Africa – the country with the largest remaining populations of rhinos in the world, albeit...
What the Research Says About Elephant Numbers All we know is that change is certain, and elephants have and will continue to change the ecosystems in which they occur even...
The struggle to ensure kindness and fair treatment of animals – or deny it – will take centre stage this year as hunters, conservationists and government lawmakers face off on...
A new study has highlighted the potential of separate water points for elephants, located away from villages, to significantly reduce human-elephant interactions in Namibia’s...
Stephanie Klarmann says lack of scientific rigor in statements used to justify exploitation of wild animals cannot go without challenge Significant progress has been made towards...
Arguments abound on the benefits and dangers of trophy hunting. We need a careful, measured approach to analyzing how it’s justified and promoted. Trophy hunting remains a...
South Africa is the world's largest exporter of live tigers and their parts despite not having any captive-breeding facilities registered in terms of the Convention on...
Some four years after the mysterious death of nearly 400 African elephants in Botswana’s Okavango Delta, remote sensing and spatial analysis suggest that the massive die-off was...
South Africa is the biggest exporter of tigers in the world and, as pressure increases on captive lion breeding, tiger numbers are expected to rise. A tiger in captivity....
High pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI) virus is suspected to have reached Marion Island, one of South Africa’s two sub-Antarctic islands in the southern Indian Ocean and is...
It’s been a long and winding road to ending captive lion breeding — and it begins with bones. 'Nobody believes [the practice of captive lion breeding] is...
In a discussion with Mike Wills, Sam Ferreira, a Large Mammal Ecologist at SANParks, highlights the complexities of managing elephant populations in Kruger Park, where...
Momentum seems to be growing for re-opening an international trade in rhino horn, congruent with what seems an insatiable desire to monetise our remaining biodiversity. This is...
Substantive wildlife tourism potential should be producing rapid broad-based development in all southern African countries. Of the world’s remaining African...
WHY MINISTER GEORGE MUST OPPOSE THE APPLICATION BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN HUNTERS AND GAME CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION TO REMOVE WELL-BEING CLAUSES FROM ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION EMS...
Our relationship with the wild animals on our planet, whose numbers are rapidly declining, is deeply problematic. With the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP16) in session in...
Among the top three suppliers to the global wildlife market, South African breeders and exporters exploit loopholes and a lack of enforcement to bypass conservation rules....
The decisions made by the Namibian and Zimbabwean governments to slaughter hundreds of elephants amid a widespread drought will do very little to address the effects of human...
Demand reduction campaigns can reduce prices, resulting in a decrease in elephant poaching Between 2010 and 2012, we lost 100,000 elephants across central and eastern Africa....
Questions have been raised over why nine elephants including a pregnant cow and calves, were shot from a helicopter by Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife authorities on Mawana Game Reserve...
Harare –18 September 2024 – The Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG) has learned with shock and deep concern a decision made by the government to slaughter 200 elephants...
A disturbing challenge has been launched by trophy hunters in the Constitutional Court objecting to the definition of animal wellbeing included in the latest set of amendments to...
It was only a matter of time before hunters challenged former environment minister Barbara Creecy’s new laws on the treatment of wild animals. The first salvo has just been fired...
The Human Elephant Foundation is concerned over the recent killing of nine elephants on a farm near Vryheid, in northern KwaZulu-Natal.
The foundation said there was no legal permission for this action, which is required by law.
However, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife refuted the claims that there was no permit.
IT was a time to rejoice. It seemed to be the only logical way forward. The path had been laid out for us. The truth shone as clear as an unmuddied lake. We were bright-eyed and...
Reining in the unruly global trade in wild species could help mitigate the climate emergency, experts say. According to trade records, people plucked more than 400,000...
Namibia intends to "cull" 21 elephants in the dry north-west of the country where a small population of desert elephants roam In a statement issued on Monday, the Namibian...
There has been a dramatic increase in elephant poaching in northern Botswana, with little official concern about reports of the poaching. An aerial survey in July revealed 19...
Given how few big tuskers are left in the world (some estimates suggest fewer than 50), the agreement between Kenya and Tanzania to not hunt the Amboseli population couldn’t be...
If you’ve had a conversation with anyone recently returned from the Kruger National Park (KNP), you’re likely to hear: “It was lekker, but there are too many elephants! The...
Legalising trade will remove the stigma that rhino horn is illegal and could entice many more consumers into the market. The demand will then outstrip the legal supply and...
Botswana has threatened to send 10,000 elephants to the UK and another 20,000 to Germany as UK and European countries move toward banning the import of hunting trophies....
Southern African nations are at it again. Nyasha Chingono reported in late May that those “hosting the largest elephant populations in the world made a fresh pitch…to be allowed...
Photographer and artist Roger Ballen’s latest exhibition The End of the Game is an immensely disturbing and provocative examination of the subjugation and commodification of wild...
The wave of elephant poaching over the past two decades appears to have substantially subsided while prices of ivory have collapsed, but there remain serious threats to some...
The Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) has called for a revision and the republication for public comment, for a period of 30 days, of the government’s National Biodiversity Economy...
If Barbara Creecy loses her position as the minister of forestry, fisheries and the environment after the elections, commercial wildlife breeders will cheer. But many...
I have been working across three spheres of the ecotourism sector for the past 33 years. Principally, I am a co-owner of a safari company, and at times, I accompany guests as a...
In the first case of its kind, NGOs are taking legal action against the government for failing to adequately protect an endangered species. The endearing African penguins,...
(c) georgelogan.co.uk Trophy hunting is a hot topic at the moment. Two news stories in particular are fuelling a heated debate: one concerns the legal killing...
The captive predator industry threatens the welfare of thousands of big cats kept for entertainment, hunting, and commercial trade of live animals and their body parts. In...
Botswana and Zimbabwe have long claimed that their elephant populations are exploding, making hunting a necessity to curtail ‘unsustainable’ growth, but a recent survey...
The EPI Foundation, the secretariat to the 24 African member states of the Elephant Protection Initiative (EPI), has expressed its strong opposition to the reopening of domestic...
Will government’s new strategy really benefit people and nature, or simply lead to massive over-consumption of natural resources, creating unrealistic expectations in an attempt...
The environment ministry this week tabled a roadmap to end the captive lion breeding industry, but it will take a few years for the wheels to stop turning. Lions in a...
A generation ago, farming with animals like lions, rhinos and crocodiles would have seemed bizarre. Today, millions of wild animals are raised on farms to supply a burgeoning...
To Identify and Recommend Voluntary Exit Options and Pathways for the Captive Lion Industry For submission to the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Report...
By Friday, 22 March, the public is expected to have commented on a detailed plan by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment to massively exploit and...
South Africa has more than 75 tonnes of rhino horn stockpiled from animals that have died naturally, horns seized in anti-smuggling operations, and horns sawn off from...
Forestry, Fisheries and Environment Minister Barbara Creecy has barred fishing around key African Penguin breeding colonies, but conservation bodies say the closures fail to...
The Criminal Investigation Service (SERNIC) and Mozambique Tax Authority (AT) yesterday intercepted a 20-foot container containing 651 pieces of elephant tusk ivory at the port...
Media Statement On the 27th February 2024, Minister Barbara Creecy issued a media statement confirming that an alarming number of 397 rhino were killed in KwaZulu Natal in 2023,...
BACKGROUND: We approached Michel Mantheakis – chairman of the Tanzanian Hunting Operators Association (TAHOA) – before publishing our report on the recent trophy...
Letter to EU Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries proposing further ban on importing hunting trophies 19th February 2024 To: Virginijus Sinkevičius, EU...
The Wildlife Animal Protection Forum of South Africa (WAPFSA), a collective of thirty organisations, has a history of interest in the protection and conservation of wild animals...
Trophy hunting is officially touted as an integral part of South Africa’s policy of sustainable use of natural resources. So why is there a veil of secrecy over the hunting...
An international shortage of lab monkeys is driving prices higher, with concerns that this is fuelling the hidden market. (Photo: Nature Needs More) Every year,...
Two bottlenose dolphins cavort in the sea, jumping high out of the water, off the coast of False Bay, Western Cape. (Photo: Gallo Images / Deaan Vivier) As food fish...
Only when South Africa commits to implementing a phase-out of the entire captive big cat industry, with time-bound goals and objectives, can it begin to piece together its...
Leading environmental organisations, including the WWF, Environmental Investigation Agency, Panthera, Wildlife Justice Commission and Four Paws, have produced a roadmap to...
In a striking development, American national Derek Lewitton was arrested by the Hawks, South Africa’s elite police unit, following the unearthing of 26 unreported rhino...
Noting the recent judgement in the North Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) in the matter of The Endangered Wildlife Trust and The SA Hunters and Game Conservation Association
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South Africa’s limited protected-area estate is increasingly coming under threat from mining. This is facilitated by an enabling regulatory environment that permits mining...
Importing iconic African animal parts is no longer acceptable in Canada – but in the UK, peers blocked a similar ban. The Canadian government has banned domestic trade in...
Chemicals in Cape Town's coastal waters could be affecting the breeding of endangered penguins. Research showed that contaminants around penguin colonies...
UN body also steps up efforts to shut down domestic ivory markets Monday 6 November – The European Union’s extensive trade in rare captive-bred species will be under...
The first ever KAZA-wide coordinated aerial survey of elephants is an initiative of the KAZA Secretariat and Partner States comprising the Republics of Angola, Botswana, Namibia,...
Mr Kam Kamalasen Chetty Chairperson MTT on South Afriça’s Captive Lion Industry Via email: kchetty@dffe.gov.za 29 August 2023 Dear Mr Chetty Re: Closing of Captive...
Rhinos are not the only wildlife threatened by poaching: elephant poaching in the Kruger National Park has seen a dramatic increase in the past year, with 32 elephants killed,...
On September 3, an incident within the Greater Kruger reignited the debate around the co-occurrence of tourism and trophy hunting in this iconic wildlife region, with Balule...
Since 2020, snaring has tripled in the crown jewels of South Africa’s Big Five reserves. This suggests economic hardship, although it is not the sole factor to blame. Snared...
It was a land claim that could have become a Big Five game reserve in KZN. But greed, incompetence and guns have ensured that the community has ended up with empty hands and a...
A draft government policy proposes to end the keeping of lions for commercial purposes, as well as phasing out intensive commercial breeding of rhinos and regulating leopard...
WILDLIFE ANIMAL PROTECTION FORUM SOUTH AFRICA Honourable Minister Barbara Creecy minister@environment.gov.za llevendal@environment.gov.za...
This is a story about an apparently illegal kill licence, a botched trophy hunt, the gratuitous pain and suffering of an elephant and the right to shoot iconic wild animals....
The debate over trophy hunting has been raging in the UK again. As Sian Sullivan previously wrote for the Canary, pro-trophy hunting lobbyists turned...
Far from benefitting the lives of indigenous people and rural communities, trophy hunting activities trap them in a never-ending cycle of impoverishment and social...
NG13 is a remote, largely unpopulated 2,907km2 (290,000ha) region in the northern Botswana, zoned for multiple uses, including photographic tourism and trophy hunting. It shares...
WORLD LION DAY 2023 This is the tenth anniversary of World Lion Day which is celebrated on the 10th of August every year. It is a day dedicated to the global raising of awareness...
South African National Parks has confirmed that lions have been targeted in a poisoning campaign in the northern Kruger Park by poachers seeking the animals’ body parts,...
As the United Kingdom proposes to ban trophy imports, hunting proponents ramp up their efforts to dismiss their critics. The United Kingdom’s House of Lords is...
Inside the cheetah black market, from poachers to messaging apps. For different reasons and in different black markets, the value of animals and animal parts varies. In...
Ahead of the House of Lords’ 16 June debate on the Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill, pro-trophy hunting group Resource Africa sent peers...
Carnivores are programmed to stalk and attack creatures and eat their flesh. They don’t change that instinct when in captivity, so it’s not surprising that they kill people –...
Organisations opposed a UK bill seeking to bar trophy imports are shooting into the dark, according to a new study As the UK’s House of Lords considers a bill proposing to ban...
An elephant has been found dead after it was shot eight times during a trophy hunt in South Africa. The "deeply distressing and tragic trophy hunt" took place September 3 at the...
Protected areas critical to the country’s biodiversity and conservation efforts are being badly mismanaged, says the Endangered Wildlife Trust For a long time there has been...
A trustee, whose husband was killed by an elephant from Mawana Game Reserve, tried to have 3,600 of its wild animals culled ‘to get some cash flow going’. By the time the...
A multinational and interdisciplinary team of scientists has published new research that provides critical insights into the damage that the legal wildlife trade...
Overwhelmed by the sheer number of bleeding soldiers at the Battle of Metz in 1793, a French military surgeon was forced to develop a rapid classification system to determine...
One of three elephants shot and killed early in 2021 after escaping from Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park. (Photo: Supplied) On paper, there are more than 400 provincial parks...
Campaign Against Canned Hunting activists march in Johannesburg against canned lion hunting on 15 March 2014. (Photo: Gallo Images / Foto24 / Mary-ann Palmer) ...
With Onderstepoort Biological Products unable to supply vaccines, horses are dying of deadly African Horse Sickness and bluetongue is threatening the red meat industry....
These statistics are based on the information contained in provincial Professional Hunting Registers submitted to DFFE in May each year. Please contact us should you...
While official rhino poaching numbers are down, a lack of conservation personnel – specifically rangers – could see the small gains in numbers disappear. Warning bells on the...
The latest moves by Environment Minister Barbara Creecy may signal the beginning of the end of captive lion breeding. On 13 April, a general notice was issued by Barbara Creecy,...
Vital legislation for the protection of wildlife has been stopped in its tracks by a mysterious settlement between game breeders/hunters and the Department of Environment. The...
Widespread corruption at Kruger National Park linked to criminal syndicates in Mpumalanga and the murder of honest rangers are its greatest threat. At least 40% of Kruger Park’s...
South Africa’s oversight failure in the export of primates and body parts is leaving them to a horrible fate, but nobody seems to care. One of the problems is that primates are...
REPORTS These detailed reports cover important conservation issues, highlighting the urgent need for action to safeguard the survival of vulnerable species.Search...
South Africa is failing in their oversight of the legal export of non-human primates and their body parts , effectively condoning needless cruelty to these innocent...
Crime, corruption and murder in greater Kruger SummaryFor more than a decade, Kruger National Park has faced a relentless onslaught of rhinopoaching. But today its greatest...
Elephants created Africa’s first highways and still remember them. It’s when we block them that trouble with humans begins. Elephants are long-distance hikers, moving...
JOURNALISTSAndreas Wilson-Späth holds a PhD in geology from the University of Cape Town and is a stay-at-home-dad who has been working as a freelance journalist for more than...
FREE PHOTO LIBRARY Photographs in this library may be downloaded free for further publication. All that is required is that the photographer is credited on publication.[ngg...
RECENT NEWS Recent news reports on important conservation issues highlight the urgent need for action to safeguard the survival of vulnerable speciesSearch Recent...
MEDIA ARTICLES These articles may be republished free of charge in the interest of wildlife conservation, requiring only that the author and Conservation Action Trust are...
Twelve formerly wild cheetahs, which have been in holding pens for over seven months, are scheduled to be crated and flown to India on Friday, 17 February. But a conservation...
For a professional hunter, an elephant’s value is what he can ask a client who wants to shoot it. For the owner of a game reserve, it’s the increase in tourist revenue from...
The Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Ms Barbara Creecy, has published three important regulations for implementation namely: Revised Regulations Pertaining to...
It’s World Wildlife Day on 3 March. This year, the event coincides with the 50th anniversary of the global wildlife trading body. World Wildlife Day is an annual celebration of...
Parliamentarians were horrified by the cruelty NSPCA inspectors have to witness on lion breeding farms. Warning: this report contains graphic images. It was a briefing to...
The Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), in collaboration with the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA), recently assessed the state of South Africa’s provincial...
A tiger escaped from a residence and roamed the countryside outside Johannesburg, South Africa, for four days this month. It attacked a man and killed several animals,...
By Don Pinnock - Daily Maverick - 18.01.2023 Parliamentarians were horrified by the cruelty NSPCA inspectors have to witness on lion breeding farms. Warning: this report...
From 2008 to 2018, South Africa permitted the export of captive-bred lion skeletons. The well-being of a lion in captivity is irrelevant when all you want is its bones. This has...
Tourists viewing elephants from a boat on the Jozini/Pongolapoort Dam in northern KwaZulu-Natal ducked for cover on Wednesday as suspected elephant poachers opened fire. Eight...
An assessment of the categories used in existing ecosystem valuation frameworks, incorporating our additional elements. Categories are taken from the Common International...
ReconAfrica, a start-up oil exploration company with interests in Namibia and Botswana, is fighting for survival as its auditors resign, a cash crunch looms and a New York court...
As you read this, global attention is on COP15, the world’s biodiversity conference in Montreal, Canada. We are using the resources of 1,6 Earths and the ecosystems that sustain...
Kruger National Park, the world’s greatest refuge for rhinos, is losing them to poaching faster than they’re being born. The park’s last rhino may already be alive. It’s time to...
Parliament’s environment committee has accused the departments of environment and agriculture of dragging their feet over the ending of captive lion breeding and canned hunting....
The European Union has come under fire from wildlife charities, among others, for some of its actions at the World Wildlife Conference. Not everyone is displeased with the trade...
Are elephants global treasures in urgent need of protection, or a commodity on the world market? According to positions being taken at the UN wildlife trade organisation Cites...
PROPOSAL 5: TRANSFER THE ELEPHANT POPULATIONS OF BOTSWANA, NAMIBIA, SOUTH AFRICA, AND ZIMBABWE FROM APPENDIX II TO APPENDIX I PROPOSAL 66.4.1: RESTRICT WILD-CAUGHT LIVE EXPORTS...
By Donald Lehr for foundation Franz Weber - 13.11.2022 Analysis of Proposals and Documents on Elephants and Ivory 19th Conference of the Parties of CITES Opens...
By Pro Elephant Network - 10.11.2022. CITES COP19: Endorsed statement in favour of resolutions to prevent the export of wild elephants to zoos and captivity PROPOSAL 5: TRANSFER...
That’s the advice of Professor Rob Slotow, who says protected areas need to be sufficiently diverse and robust to bounce back from a range of major disturbances such as storms,...
Some say sending African cheetahs to India is a brilliant idea, others insist it’s possible but with warnings, and some say it’s an absolute disaster. If the 20 African cheetahs...
The protection of critically endangered wild animals is being undermined as Asian zoos force them to perform for profit in violation of CITES regulations. By the transposition of...
The avian flu outbreak that killed thousands of cormorants on the Cape West Coast and devastated chicken farms has spread to the penguin colony in Simon’s Town. The public has...
The global wildlife trading body urgently needs to review the assessments it uses to set leopard trophy hunting quotas, according to a recent study. The review is necessary to...
As an Afrikaner I understand the passion to hunt — it’s what we learnt at our father’s knee. But justifying it by the Bible and for pleasure is a step too far. I read the...
Lion breeders began sharpening their claws and preparing to pounce when the Department of Environmental Affairs’ High-Level Panel proposed the phasing out of captive-bred lions....
The Schweizer-Reneke Afrikaanse Protestantse Kerk boosts funds by offering prizes for killing as many wild animals as possible. The prizes? The licence to kill even bigger wild...
Trophy hunters run loud, expensive campaigns to convince the public they kill for conservation and the good of poor communities. Two recent authoritative surveys revealed that...
Our much-heralded new White Paper on Biodiversity establishes a much higher duty of care towards wild animals, but another strategy document makes a mockery of the minister’s...
ABOUT USThe Conservation Action Trust is an independent entity registered (134-578 NPO) with SARS as a Non Profit Making Organization and (930045703) Public Benefit...
The Conservation Action Trust works for the protection of threatened species by promoting the objective investigation and reporting of important conservation and environmental...
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Another paper has come out highlighting the negative impacts of the trophy hunting but is being spun by sustainable use activists in defense of trophy hunting. A Strampelli et...
We are urging the minister to immediately close the feeding grounds of South Africa’s African penguin colonies to the sardine or anchovy fishing industry for as long as necessary...
19th Conference of the Parties of CITES Opens Tomorrow in Panama City Analysis of Proposals and Documents on Elephants and Ivory Providing analysis at the 19th meeting...
Conservationists in South Africa have sounded the alarm about 150 endangered vultures found dead in two separate poisoning incidents. Body parts were removed, seemingly with a...
Today (12 August) is World Elephant Day 2022 and, in a year full of important meetings likely to impact elephant conservation, we’re taking the opportunity to flag up key issues....
Powerful message released on World Lion Day: What would our children say if they knew the truth? Watch: https://youtu.be/HGfFsEItmLg Today is World Lion Day (10 August) – a day...
By Dr Louise de Waal - 10.08.2022 - www.bloodlions.org Powerful message released on World Lion Day: What would our children say if they knew the truth?...
As the slaughter rate of KwaZulu-Natal’s rhinos soars to record levels, a buried government report has brought to light some major weaknesses in anti-poaching measures by the...
Investigation shows that trophy hunting in Botswana continues to impoverish local communities, causes the decline in species and heightens human-elephant conflict...
Because of their size and visible effects on vegetation, Kruger Park’s elephants are a highly emotive subject, fueling acrimonious debates, cries of ‘too many elephants’ and...
The Wild Harvest Initiative seeks to normalize hunting with the help of IUCN SULi and trophy hunting industry groups. IUCN SULi (Sustainable Use and Livelihood) and Oxford...
South Africa is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. However, global change, including climate change, habitat loss and transformation, invasive species, pollution,...
The Draft White Paper on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity in South Africa has been published by the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Ms...
As the world’s biodiversity slips ever deeper into crisis, a ground-breaking South African White Paper demands a paradigm shift to put care of the creatures with whom we share...
Zimbabwe has failed to drum up Africa-wide support to sell live elephants and ivory. Here are some reasons why their trade would be disastrous for elephants. In a...
Today (6 June) sees the UK Ivory Act come into force, effectively outlawing all legal ivory trade apart from a few narrow exemptions. EIA led a coalition of environmental...
WE, the Ministers responsible for Environment, Wildlife and Tourism in Key African Elephant Range States have gathered in Hwange, Zimbabwe, on the 26th of May 2022, together with...
Trophy hunting is still legal in South Africa, and people like Tom Miranda from the USA represents a R1.4 billion sector that has many up in arms. Along with the bloody fate...
The Republic of Zimbabwe will host an African elephant summit in the Hwange National Park from Monday 23rd to Thursday 26th May 2022. The...
Over the last two years, Nature Needs More has continued to meet with politicians and government agencies in our push for modernising CITES. During this time, it has become clear...
While hunters celebrate and conservationists mourn the killing of two of Botswana’s largest-tusked elephants, a biodiversity tragedy is waiting in the wings. For millions of...
Germany has become the latest European country to announce a potential ban on the import of hunting trophies. The move comes as those who support the practice have...
Zoonosis, where disease jumps from animals to humans, caused the Covid-19 pandemic. Apart from welfare concerns, the huge number of pathogens in caged and farmed lions is a time...
Botswana’s trophy hunting which was supposed to benefit local communities is instead shifting wealth from them to the country’s big businessmen- Sunday Standard investigations...
They were named Kasper and Kitso and charmed thousands of visitors to the Hazyview Elephant Sanctuary in Mpumalanga. The two animals were sedated before a move to the Western...
Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment’s decision to allow issuing quotas to trophy hunt 10 leopard, 10 black rhinoceros and 150 African elephants is suspended by...
To Whom it May Concern,Re: elephant introduction to Lamloch Game Farm We are writing to express our concerns over the proposal to move eight African elephants to the Lamloch Game...
Chobe National Park’s goose that lays the golden egg of Botswana tourism is under threat of being killed by eight 75-bed lodges planned for its prime riverfront. If it goes...
The attached hunting statistics are informed by the information contained in individual hunting reports received from provincial authorities. Please contact us for access to...
EMS FOUNDATION PUBLIC STATEMENT OF CONCERN THE SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT FAILS CHARLIE, THE ELEPHANT HELD IN CAPTIVITY AT THE NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS, PRETORIA This statement...
Expanding croplands, human settlement, plantation forestry and mining are speeding up habitat loss in game and nature reserves across the country. Small groups of people...
According to the newly launched WildChoices website, over half of the 219 captive wildlife tourism facilities in South Africa (as identified by the website) should be AVOIDED, as...
New research by EIA has shown that the volume of trade of some of the most widely trafficked wildlife commodities – raw ivory, pangolin scales, rhino horn and tigers – is now...
Animal Law Course coming to South Africa (and Africa)!We are thrilled to announce that Animal Law will be taught for the first time in South Africa (and possibly Africa), in...
A myth-busting exercise on hunting questions the claim that bagging wildlife trophies is sustainable. When you strip trophy hunting to its essentials, it’s about the desire...
As numbers decline and persecution continues, South Africa has issued a quota for the trophy hunting of 10 leopards. But it may be illegal and is being challenged in the high...
On Friday 25 February 2022, Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment (FFE), Barbara Creecy announced that a trophy hunting quota had been set for 10 black rhinos, 10...
On the 6th March 2022, the Namibian Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT) finally admitted in an emailed statement that it has exported 22 wild-caught elephants...
Elephants are going to be the talk of France in the coming days. The international wildlife trading body has a meeting there from 7 to 11 March, and it has a...
Campaigners and Nations Step Up Efforts to Close Ivory Market in Japan The first in-person meeting since 2019 of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species...
PUBLIC STATEMENT SATURDAY 5TH MARCH 2022 The EMS Foundation has been informed that rare wild caught Namibian desert adapted elephants, as part of a clearly commercial...
An investigation by Nigeria’s Premium Times and Mongabay has found evidence of systematic failure by Nigerian law enforcement and the judicial system to hold wildlife poachers...
If you want to kill animals for fun, South Africa is the place. Topping the list of favourites by trophy hunters are lions, baboons, southern lechwes, caracals and vervet...
Humane Society International/Africa’s new report states 83% of exported trophies from South Africa are captive-bred animals, non-native species or species without science-based...
Parliamentarians slam Departments of Agriculture and Environment for lack of answers on animal welfare. The future welfare of wild animals in human care was in good hands, the...
Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Minister, Ms Barbara Creecy, has confirmed the quotas for the trophy hunting of black rhino, leopard and elephant in South Africa for...
In July 2021, the Born Free Foundation (BFF) published another in a series of reports that challenge the claims, and public perception, of zoos as venerable...
Evaluating the financial contributions of the Consortium of Charitable Zoos to in situ conservation. “Zoos claim to be ‘Powerhouses in Conservation’, and zoo visitors...
RE: URGENT UPDATE ON THE TRADE IN WILD CAUGHT ELEPHANTS FROM NAMIBIA TO THE UAE In October 2021, 22 elephants were captured and taken to a holding facility in Gobabis, the...
Namibia is in the process of capturing 57 wild elephants sold last year at auction, according to a statement today from the country’s Ministry of Environment, Forestry...
Today, the last two introduced white rhinos at Mombo are being captured and moved to a sanctuary. It is maybe the last toll of the bell for Botswana’s enthusiastic programme to...
The reality is that rhino numbers in SANParks reserves have decreased by 75% over the past 10 years. In a few years’ time, private reserve owners may well be guarding the only...
RHINO POACHING IN SOUTH AFRICA IN 2021 A total of 451 rhino were poached in South Africa in 2021, 327 within government reserves and 124 on private property. While there is a 24...
The trophy hunting lobby group Safari Club International (SCI) attracted media attention in January. This was for auctioning off killing trips for a polar bear and...
On 31 December, when much of the country was on holiday or gearing up for the New Year’s Eve jollies, Environment Minister Barbara Creecy quietly proposed some seemingly...
The issue of trophy hunting is highly emotive, and the UK government plans to ban the import of trophies. But if it goes ahead, it must look at establishing a global conservation...
Do you have any desire to stalk and kill an elephant? Probably not, but some relish the idea. Recently the world’s largest trophy hunting convention took place in Las...
Wildlife Justice Commission says South Korea-China shipping route should be flagged as ‘high risk’ for traffickingWJC says case involving Chinese family shows criminals are...
When vast areas of northern Botswana are denuded of trees, elephants almost always get the blame. We need to start looking elsewhere. The debate on what to do about elephants in...
BEIJING, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- China has seen a significant decline in ivory smuggling, as efforts to clamp down on the practice intensified, the General Administration of Customs...
Traditional medicine is integral to many cultures and plays an essential role in healthcare in Africa. The Chinese Government has been ramping up its expansion of traditional...
The Kruger National Park has a major rhino-poaching crisis, but that’s just one of many mounting problems — and it’s extremely worrying. Crags of ancient rock and twisting...
Delayed legislation includes ban on trophy hunting imports and stricter sentences for puppy thieves. Some of the government’s most prized new animal welfare...
‘While we spend our efforts trying to promote ecologically acceptable practices on livestock farms to promote ecological integrity and regeneration, we are inundated by...
Dr Bool Smuts of the Landmark Foundation is known in the environmental field for his willingness to fight for ethical conduct towards wildlife, particularly leopards. He doesn’t...
Hong Kong has been accused of playing an oversized role in the ivory industry. A ban on selling most ivory products in Hong Kong came into effect Friday, the culmination of a...
Male elephants are more aggressive when fewer older males are present, new research suggests. The research, by the University of Exeter, suggests that the removal of...
PREFACE On the 22nd of September 2021−World Rhino Day−the acting head of South African National Parks, Dr Luthando Dziba, said that there may be fewer than 3000...
RUNDU, NAMIBI Canadian oil and gas exploration company Reconnaissance Energy Africa has bulldozed land for a test oil well inside a protected wildlife area in northeastern...
Namibia’s Community-Based Natural Resource Management is seen as a global gold standard for conservation. But a probe has found that it’s falling apart. An investigation into...
The welfare of wild animals in South Africa is being thrown under a bus by dithering departments and inappropriate legislators. Giving the job of drafting wild animal welfare...
Posted on December 14, 2021 in LIVE WILDLIFE TRADE SOUTH AFRICA AND CHINA, News The EMS Foundation and Ban Animal Trading, authors of the investigative report...
ANSWERS TO WELFARE QUESTIONS: PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT, FORESTRY AND FISHERIES MEETING HELD ON 23 NOVEMBER 2021: BRIEFING ON THE REVIEW OF THE ANIMAL WELFARE ACT.
Since 2016, Elephants Alive started collaring elephants in Mozambique, building on our 18-yearelephant tracking history in South Africa prior to this. In 2018, together with the...
A giraffe that was decapitated in 2014 when a transporting vehicle moving the animal to a game farm drove under a low bridge in Pretoria; captive lions found neglected...
There should be a “zero hunting quota” put in place for elephant, black rhino and leopards. That was the comment from Humane Society International Africa (HSI) as public...
Johannesburg - Global animal welfare organisation Four Paws have urged government to consider legislative changes to stop the commercial trade of all big cats in South Africa....
1 BACKGROUND South Africa has split the animal welfare mandate between the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries (hereafter referred to as DEFF or the...
A number of concerns related to trophy hunting have come to the fore recently. South Africa has faced criticism for releasing killing quotas that lack scientific evidence to back...
Last month, with little publicity, the Department of Environmental Affairs gave the public 30 days to object to or comment on its proposed hunting and export quotas for elephant,...
The work of SAMLIT has been commended by His Royal Highness, The Duke of Cambridge, Prince William, in his role as President of the Royal Foundation’s United for...
ABSTRACT Elephant culling is included in National Norms and Standards for the Management of Elephants in the Republic of South Africa, as a last-resort option to reduce elephant...
Grassroots opposition to the relentless deluge of applications for offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling will continue until extractive industries leave our shores. he...
DURBAN - EZEMVELO Wildlife is facing escalating threats from communities around some of its parks who are demanding full-time employment and are threatening to invade the parks...
Namibia and Zimbabwe are likely to exploit the loopholes created by the UN wildlife trade organisation’s conflicting advisories on the export of elephants. Elephants, like...
While South Africa’s national crime statistics make it evident why the country is seen as one of the worst places in the world for violent crime, the latest Global...
NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT: BIODIVERSITY ACT, 2004 (ACT NO. 10 OF 2004) No. 45294 3 8 October 2021 CONSULTATION ON THE PROPOSED HUNTING/ EXPORT QUOTA FOR...
Thirty captive lions on a private breeding farm in the Free State, South Africa, have had to be euthanised after the farm owner apparently left them suffering for days after...
A report to the CITES secretariat concerning the recent statement on proposed elephant exports from Namibia. Via electronic mail (Ivonne.higuero@cites.org) Ms. Ivonne...
Tour operators and guides encourage visitors to buy illegal ivory, tiger ‘glue’ and other products Tourist guides and information centres in Southeast Asia have been fuelling the...
A recent debate on trophy hunting in the Letters section of Science turned in an interesting direction when the writers of the first letter, written by opponents of...
SINGAPORE, Sept 21 (Reuters) - After a drastic reduction in wildlife trafficking during the pandemic, authorities in Southeast Asia must act swiftly to stop smugglers getting...
The estimated rhino population in Africa is about 18,000, which represents a 12% decline in the past decade, according to the latest State of Rhino report, published by the...
A 53-year-old warrant officer within the South African Police Service (SAPS) was on Friday appearing in the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court, with a female accomplice, on...
Criminal networks in Somaliland smuggle cubs out of Africa to wealthy buyers abroad. Now the breakaway African state is fighting back. Do you know these animals? The question...
Our new Cargo of Cruelty report reveals Ethiopian Airlines is shipping live wild animals from West Africa around the world for use as exotic pets. World Animal Production has...
STOP THE IMMENT CAPTURE OF YOUNG ELEPHANTS IN ZIMBABWE FOR EXPORT TO CAPTIVE FACILITIES In spite of the Pro Elephant Network communications with CITES representatives and the...
Cites regulations prohibit Namibia from exporting elephants, except to conservation programmes within the species range The non-governmental organisation Foundation Franz Weber...
The title of the book I compiled with Colin Bell, ‘The Last Elephants’, was less predictive than a warning — elephants on the continent were in big trouble, with populations...
James A. Baker III was secretary of state under President George H.W. Bush. Hillary Rodham Clinton was secretary of state under President Barack Obama. As the world watches...
Official information obtained by the EMS Foundation from the South African Department of Forestry, Fisheriesand the Environment via the Promotion of Access to Information Act...
Parliament invites the public to comment on the Draft Policy Position on the Conservation and Ecologically Sustainable Use of Elephant, Lion, Leopard and Rhino. CALL FOR ACTION:...
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna, based in Geneva, was set up to protect endangered species, but it has as many holes as Swiss...
It has been six years since the death of Cecil, a male lion who was a popular individual for wildlife viewing tourists visiting Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. The...
A new policy paper signals a more humane approach to the treatment of wild animals and an end to cruelty to lions in South Africa. Following an extensive forensic report on five...
Canadian company ReconAfrica is currently digging for oil in Namibia, with further exploration in Botswana moving forward too. Ultimately, the company aims...
Environment Minister Barbara Creecy’s report on the use and protection of SA’s iconic wildlife was groundbreaking. But is there the political will to turn its recommendations...
The Kasanka National Park in Zambia – home to the world’s largest mammal migration – is under immediate threat from agricultural development. Up to ten million fruit bats migrate...
The Department of Agriculture is about to introduce a new Animal Welfare Act, but all non-agricultural stakeholders have been excluded from the working group drafting it,...
Durban - Dr Audrey Delsink was afraid of elephants when she started out in the field of natural sciences, but now has a real passion for them, as well as managing and conserving...
Two government approaches to our relationship with wild animals, two opposing views. One could chart the path to South Africa’s global leadership in wildlife conservation the...
Allowing the manipulation of the genes of indigenous wildlife species through their listing as domesticated wildlife under the Animal Improvement Act will erode the...
When one of South Africa’s worst environmental disasters unfolded 21 years ago, Lauren Waller made her way to the Salt River warehouse in Cape Town, donned rubber gloves and...
A whistleblower complaint to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission cites “egregious” violations by ReconAfrica and executives. ReconAfrica, a Canadian company exploring for...
PUBLIC STATEMENT Endangered Species Day 21st May 2021 The EMS Foundation will be making a series of statements, the content of which is in the public’s interest. We are...
Lie detector tests are to be introduced for staff at Kruger National Park amid fears that international poaching gangs have infiltrated the ranger force in South Africa’s...
In a seismic shift that will send shock waves through many areas of SA’s wildlife industry, the Cabinet has endorsed a report calling for the end of lion farming, captive lion...
Environment Minister Barbara Creecy has announced: “The Panel identified that the captive lion industry poses risks to the sustainability of wild lion conservation resulting...
A rapid assessment of the international trade in Hippo ivory between 2009 and 2018. Following several developments— including an auction of hippo teeth and a proposed cull of...
Tiger Mafia Synopsis The initial 200 hours of footage shot for this documentary came together over a ten year period and a dozen trips to SE Asia and several to South Africa....
Interested and affected parties in the oil exploration activities in the Okavango Basin are deeply concerned about the impacts of potential 2D seismic surveying to be undertaken...
Before the pandemic, it was one of the best time ever to be a human. We lived longer, fought much less and had extra alternatives than our ancestors. This is the world that we...
Tigers (Panthera tigris tigris) are included in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which assembles 183...
Executive summary Traditional food marketsi, rather than supermarkets, are the norm in many parts of the world. Such markets form part of the social fabric of communities and are...
The values of Zimbabwe’s and Namibia’s ivory stockpiles have been grossly overstated, and their proposed sale would lead to another poaching epidemic. Last year the world reacted...
Researchers have identified that captive and wild lions carry 63 pathogens that could result in about 83 diseases and clinical symptoms.Drawing on this research, conservationists...
The elephant hunting season opened on April 6th, 2021 in Botswana. The Botswana authorities have issued permits to kill 287 pachyderms by the end of the season in September 2021....
Across the continent, traditional healers are increasingly using the body parts of vultures, creating an illegal market that has experts alarmed. Last year, at dawn on...
A review of the exploitation of South Africa's captive big cats and its people.
The controversial sale of elephants from Zimbabwe to other countries, mostly China, is again in the spotlight. The renewed scrutiny comes due to author...
Many wildlife species are threatened by shrinking habitat. But according to new research, the potential range of African elephants could be more than five times larger than its...
Abstract Namibia's internationally acclaimed CBNRM program depends to a large extent on revenues generated from the trophy hunting of wild animals. The model is an important...
The film gets some things wrong, but it exposes the grim ecological destruction of the Earth’s oceans When the BBC made a film about the crisis in our oceans, it somehow managed...
Years of artificial water sources in the park have led to a number of ecological problems and landscape degradation. Strategically placed boreholes to cope with...
Cape Town - FORTY SANParks employees found guilty of being involved in rhino poaching have been dismissed, Forestry, Fisheries and Environment Minister Barbara Creecy has...
The Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority may have misled the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (CITES) when it reported having sold 97 baby...
The essential and gorgeously diverse array of life on Earth is disappearing fast. That’s a tragedy of Shakespearian proportions*, as a future planet without...
Original report: New-Biodiversity-Framework-for-comment-1-1Download
The EndPandemics alliance brings together various groups working to prevent future zoonotic disease outbreaks by ending the wildlife trade and the destruction of nature, and...
How Namibia has been losing wildlife, forests and sand through mis-governance and maladministration since 2015. 1. Key observations Poaching, illegal logging and forest...
The captive lion industry is putting the health of tourists, industry workers and communities at risk because of the so-called 'Sick Five'. You’ve heard about the Big Five, but...
A POSITIVE CHANGE FOR ALL WILDLIFE IN SOUTH AFRICA ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The NSPCA wishes to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to all of our supporters.Thank you for...
The Auditor-General’s annual review of the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries’ finances has uncovered irregular, wasteful and unaccounted for expenditure and has...
Wildlife and weaponised disinformation: the path of least disclosure There can be no faith in government if our highest offices are excused from scrutiny - they should...
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is one of the most important international bodies in the world right now. Its actions...
In the morning hours of Monday, January 25th alleged ivory/rhino horn, and drug trafficker, Mansur Mohamed Surur, was led from his Nairobi jail cell to a waiting vehicle. He was...
Conservationists have demonstrated that legalised trade and commercial breeding of wild animals stimulates demand, encourages poachers and smugglers and ultimately pushes species...
Specialists from around the world have petitioned Environment Minister Barbara Creecy to release into a sanctuary a Pretoria Zoo elephant bereaved by the loss of partners and...
ABSTRACT Wild vertebrate populations all over the globe are in decline, with poaching being the second-most-important cause. The high poaching rate of rhinoceros may drive these...
This month, ReconAfrica’s multimillion-dollar drilling rig pierced a riverbed in elephant habitat some 160 miles from the wildlife-rich Okavango Delta. WALVIS BAY, NAMIBIAThe...
Kruger National Park, home to the world’s largest concentration of rhinoceroses, has lost two thirds of its animals to poaching over the past decade, according to new data....
The idea of being able to put a price on nature is dividing opinion, but the financial value of ‘ecosystem services’ is increasingly guiding policy In 1996, Prof Shahid Naeem was...
The Namibian government will put 170 wild elephants up for sale on 29 January, justified by false population statistics and disputed claims of human-elephant conflict. More than...
International concern mounts as the Namibian government put 170 wild elephants up for sale, justified by false population statistics and disputed claims of...
Flemming Emil Hanson (Zenger, 26 January 2021) reports that “A hunter is facing up to five years in jail for killing an endangered tiger in South Africa, importing it to...
After years of silence about Kruger National Park rhino populations from South Africa’s Ministry of Forestry and Fisheries and Environmental Affairs, we can now confirm that...
Heavily-pregnant animals among species transported across continents, lawyers say China and the world’s wildlife trade watchdog are facing legal questions over the...
https://youtu.be/ECzGSOco1sg In the United Arab Emirates, the possession and trafficking of wild animals have been officially banned since 2017. Yet every day on social media,...
Eleven years ago, out in the cool, coastal waters of Gansbaai on the Western Cape’s Atlantic seaboard, Dr Sara Andreotti was awed by how many great white sharks she...
Environmental activists warn that plans to drill in Namibia and Botswana pose significant ecological risks. “The day we die a soft breeze will wipe out our footprints in the...
The illegal trade in wildlife and wildlife products globally is estimated to be worth more than USD72 billion annually, ranking alongside the illegal trafficking of narcotics,...
Should the undoubted intelligence of octopuses change the way we treat them? This question has been asked a lot of late because of the documentary My Octopus Teacher. ...
AN OPEN LETTER PREPARED BY THE BORN FREE FOUNDATION ADDRESSED TO: His Excellency Hagers Geingob, President of the Republic of NamibiaPrivate Bag 13339, Windhoek, Namibia...
INTRODUCTION The Pro Elephant Network (PREN) consists of a global community of diverse individuals and organization, comprising expertise from both western academies (including...
Abstract Many wildlife species are impacted by unsustainable consumption. Wildlife is consumed for such diverse purposes as food, medicine, ornamentation, entertainment, and...
2020 was a bumpy year for the wildlife trade and the UN body that is meant to oversee the buying and selling of wild lives on an international level. The coronavirus...
For a distance of some 150km, Canadian company ReconAfrica’s oil and gas prospecting concessions border the Kavango River, a crucial source of water in a semi-arid area and the...
Two women thought they were helping by hand-rearing cubs, until they learnt some sinister truths. Now their Panthera Africa is a sanctuary for big cats born victim to an...
Ever since the film ‘Jaws’, with its creepy music, sharks have had bad press as nightmarish super-predators. But sharks are important for the health of the sea. And we’re wiping...
llegal wildlife ads have increased on Facebook despite its steps to combat animal trafficking. Crime watch groups are calling for broad legal reforms. WHEN A SQUAD of...
The light sentence handed out to the vet who mutilated a monkey is a travesty of justice says the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA). In what...
Pangolins are considered the most trafficked mammal in the world and one of the major threats facing them is the demand for their scales, primarily in China. The legal...
Two prolific British trophy hunters are unmasked today as a network of trolls targets Boris Johnson’s government for threatening to clamp down on big-game hunting. Abigail Day, a...
In November 2010, two men in Lenasia attempted to kill two camels as part of an Islamic ritual. They were inept, caused immense suffering and the animals had to be shot by an...
Pesticide lobby group CropLife SA, which represents major manufacturers, wants to oversee the licensing of scientists responsible for testing its members’ pesticides, leaked...
Plans by the Namibian Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT) to capture and sell off 170 of the last free-roaming elephants among the communal farming areas of...
The majority of South Africa’s snakes that are exported are wild-sourced and, along with most indigenous lizards, are not CITES-listed, meaning they can be moved out of the...
Conservation and animal welfare organisations, Humane Society International-Africa (HSI-Africa) and Blood Lions on Monday called for a ban of South Africa’s captive lion breeding...
Once again, a scientific paper is presented in a way to disparage critics of the trophy hunting community despite its shortcomings and potentially contradictory interpretations....
Hundreds of oil wells could come to cover a huge expanse in Namibia and Botswana, in what has been called possibly the “largest oil play of the decade.” Conservationists and...
Despite overwhelming worldwide opposition, including a parliamentary resolution to close down the captive lion breeding industry, SA’s government is ignoring red flags that the...
Empathy in conservation is hotly debated. Still, the world needs more stories like My Octopus Teacher IMDb Kathryn Williams, University of Melbourne; Christopher McCormack,...
Zimbabwe sold 32 baby elephants to China in October 2019, after tearing them away from their wild families in 2018, for the latter country’s use in zoos. The...
Content warning: The following article contains images and descriptions of animal abuse that readers might find distressing. Tigers are in a very precarious situation, with only...
Michael ‘t Sas-Rolfes told me know that he thinks some of my more recent posts were verging into “QAnon territory.” He is presumably referring my claims about the Property and...
A vet has been found guilty of extreme cruelty to a vervet monkey and awaits sentencing in the Nigel Magistrate’s Court. It took eight years of battling by the NSPCA to get the...
Trophy hunting advocates love to argue that those who disagree with their views on wildlife conservation are incapable or unwilling to understand science. Yet, trophy hunting...
Climate change appears to be disrupting the yield of fruit trees, a critical food source for many large mammals in Central Africa.A new study warns that endangered forest...
We are working with conservation charity Space for Giants to protect wildlife at risk from poachers due to the conservation funding crisis caused by Covid-19. Help is desperately...
Will the government and its high-level panel finally accept the overwhelming evidence that captive lion breeding should be stopped? A small number of people breeding lions in...
In 1996, Safari Club International and their African Chapter held a series of visits and meetings around the African continent. The result was a report called the SCI...
“The price of the private dining room would be included in the price of the pangolin, along with the rest of the dinner”. In this excerpt, Peirce recounts a trip to Vietnam...
In the relatively shallow waters of the upper Gulf of California in Mexico a ghostly menace has driven the world’s smallest porpoise to the brink of extinction: gill nets. Only...
Three years ago, a friend and I went to the Two Oceans aquarium in Cape Town and witnessed the damage plastic causes to endangered species such as turtles. The aquarium rescues...
Two months after the entire board of the Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife conservation agency packed their bags to go on suspension, the organisation remains in limbo – with no clear...
Lawmakers in Beijing are currently revising the Wildlife Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China, the country’s most important piece of legislation covering...
While government, wildlife farmers and NGOs remain locked in discussion about the future of lions, elephants, rhinos and leopards, the British conservation organisation, Born...
Last year, Born Free released The Bitter Bond—a multi-award-winning animated short film depicting the callous exploitation of lions from birth to premature death by the...
A 2020 Assessment of lion numbers in Lion Conservation Unitsand range states' capabilities to conserve wildlife. Summary In 2012, LionAid published a review of lion numbers...
Simple Summary In South Africa, thousands of African lions are bred on farms for commercial purposes, such as tourism, trophy hunting, and traditional medicine. Lions on farms...
For the Attention of: The Director-General Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries (hereafter the...
Disclaimers Please note that this Submission is non-exhaustive and does not represent all the responses to the issues and matters raised herein. We reserve the right to provide...
Wild lions can kill you, but farmed lions pose a far greater threat in terms of more than 80 zoonotic diseases that could be passed on to humans. A joint scientific...
The formal protection of Hwange in Zimbabwe dates from 1928. At that time most game species were at low concentrations and elephants in particular were very rare. From the...
In a press conference today, the Deputy Director and Chief Veterinary Officer of the Botswana Department of Wildlife and National Parks presented little convincing information to...
One of the world’s worst wildlife scams is being permitted by the United Nations organisation formed to protect wild animals from over-exploitation and regulate trade. It all...
At least 26 great apes illegally removed from the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been seized in Zimbabwe, where four suspected traffickers have been arrested....
With its pastel-colored skin and mouth that seems fixed into a smile, the web-footed gecko (Pachydactylus rangei) is a charming-looking creature. The species, which is endemic to...
Old male elephants play a key role in leading all-male groups, new research suggests. Trophy hunters justify targeting older bull elephants on the grounds they are...
As Department of Agriculture officials file into a meeting with Parliament’s Environmental Portfolio Committee on Friday (August 28) to explain the animal welfare laws they...
The Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife conservation agency is in the news again for all the wrong reasons after the entire board of directors was suspended last week following ‘prima facie...
The entire board of Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife has been suspended, bringing into sharp focus the deep management problems within the entity that is responsible for 80 game...
Some conservationists and activists in South Africa are concerned that criminal syndicates are making it even more difficult to protect rhinos from poachers. “GO NOW!...
It’s World Elephant Day, but clearly not in Zimbabwe, where more than 140 young elephants have been ‘harvested’ by running them to exhaustion and then sold to China for human...
Chimpanzees are our nearest genetic relatives on the tree of life. At this rate, eaten or forced to entertain zoo visitors or wealthy sheikhs, they’re heading for extinction....
Panel overseeing hunting is loaded with industry representatives. A Parliamentary colloquium passed a resolution in August 2018 to implement legislation with a view to ending...
World Elephant Day: Africa is home to around 415,000 African elephants – a sobering 30% drop in the last decade and down from 10 million a century ago. The continent’s pachyderms...
In their latest marketing ploy, the trophy hunting industry co-opted the Black Lives Matter movement to fight California’s proposed trophy hunting import ban....
World Lion Day (10 August) celebrates one of South Africa’s most iconic species, yet despite dwindling wild lion numbers, they are also threatened by a burgeoning trade...
The EU’s new Green Deal strategy offers ‘guidance’ to African countries but does nothing to stop Europe’s own ivory market, Rosei Awori writes As part of its plans to be the...
How can anyone be proud of killing such magnificent creatures, asks leading primatologist Jane Goodall. The natural world is becoming increasingly threatened as we move into...
OPEN LETTER: Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries- Barbara Creecy, about the unethical trophy hunting of elephant in the greater Kruger area. Re: UNETHICAL TROPHY...
We are protecting wildlife at risk from poachers due to the conservation funding crisis caused by Covid-19. Help is desperately needed to support wildlife rangers, local...
Earlier this month, Niger and Burkino Faso presented CITES with a new report that detailed Zimbabwe’s gross violation of a COP18 resolution, by its capture and sale of 32 very...
Today (Wednesday 29 July) is International Tiger Day, an event designed to raise awareness to the dire circumstances facing the world’s largest cat. There are fewer than 4000...
Three people have declined to serve on a government panel. That’s not exactly news. But, given who they are and the panel on to which they were invited, their refusal has exposed...
The Committee met to be briefed by the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries on the norms and standards (N&S) that had been developed in line with section 9 of...
An open letter to Cape Nature opposing the proposed elephant 'Sanctuary' development on Lamloch farm in Kleinmond, South Africa Dear Dr Baard, The Pro Elephant Network is made...
Government notice of norms and standards for the management of Elephants in South Africa.
The regulation of international trade in live African Elephants. A definition of “appropriate and acceptable destination”
The carcasses of more than 400 elephants have been discovered north of the Okavango Delta and nobody yet knows what’s killing them. The government appears to be dragging its...
The pandemic has revealed the truth about Thailand’s unsustainable and exploitative elephant tourism sector — and a chance to rethink the relationship between humans and...
The nature charity WWF provides lobbying and practical help for the trophy hunting of wild animals, a former campaign staffer has disclosed in a book. The Worldwide Fund for...
Botswana’s government is yet to test the remains of the dead animals in what has been described as a ‘conservation disaster’ More than 350 elephants have died in...
Almost without exception, every single captive-bred lion in South Africa faces a miserable fate – petted and played with as a cub, then becoming the target in a canned hunt or...
Abstract The most comprehensive data on poaching of African elephants comes from the Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) program, which reports numbers of...
Three-quarters of new and emerging infectious diseases in humans originate in wildlife. COVID-19, SARS and Ebola all started this way. The COVID-19 global pandemic has drawn...
Abstract This paper critiques the conservation and economic claims advanced by the captive predator breeding industry in South Africa. It contends that captive lion breeding...
Johannesburg - The government has proposed changes to South Africa’s meat safety legislation, suggesting that threatened species such as rhinos, elephants and giraffes end up on...
Supported by wealthy and powerful organisations like Safari Club International, the Dallas Safari Club and the National Rifle Association and egged on by countless awards and...
South African proposal to breed wildlife for slaughter courts disaster The proposed Meat Safety Act will see more wild animals landing on dinner plates. GettyImages Chris Alden,...
It’s hard to love vultures. Their bare-headed appearance, scavenging habits and reputation as the refuse disposal workers of the bird world rarely endear them to a public who...
Much is being written about the trade of live wildlife for human consumption at wet markets around the world, such as the one in Wuhan where the Covid-19 pandemic...
The thing with keeping wildlife in cages is that it almost always turns around to bite you in the behind. The current global pandemic is case-in-point and going forward, a new...
The Minister of Environment, Barbara Creecy, initiated a meeting with the EMS Foundation and Ban Animal Trading in response to the publication of The Breaking Point Report which...
It’s time to rethink the role of CITES, says its former head, John Scanlon. It has no teeth to enforce wildlife trade laws and could cause the next pandemic. The pandemic...
Where neoliberalism subjugates the natural world and people to the commercial whims of markets and globalisation, sustainable use has ensured the international commercialisation...
After three years in office, the Trump administration has dismantled most of the major climate and environmental policies the president promised to undo. Calling the rules...
Experts say the government is ignoring science and dragging its feet in the face of a crisis. According to scientists and marine conservationists, overfishing is threatening...
The legal trade in wild animals between SA and China is helping the illegal trade grow, writes environmental investigator Don Pinnock. The legal trade in...
The Kruger National Park is being encircled by a ring of human hunger triggered in part by the Covid-19 pandemic. The Mozambican and Zimbabwean regions that border the park on...
Chimpanzees, Bengal tigers, wolves, wild dogs and lions are among thousands of endangered wild animals exported, sometimes in contravention of CITES regulations, often in...
South Africa is the largest exporter on the continent of live wild animals to Asia. However authorities repeatedly fail to comply with the very basics of a regulated trade in...
THE EXTINCTION BUSINESS REPORT SERIES Breaking Point: Uncovering South Africa’s Shameful Live Wildlife Trade with China (2020) is Part 2 in the EMS Foundation and Ban Animal...
South African traders with China are illegally selling thousands of wild animals threatened with extinction and endangered, under the guise of legal exports, according...
Throughout their range leopards are in rapid decline, having disappeared from North Africa, much of the Middle East and Asia. Declines have been so severe that the species...
Wild animals are back. Kangaroos bounding through the streets of Melbourne, elephant herds passing through Indian villages, jackals in Johannesburg, leopards in Mumbai, wild boar...
Everything a costly high-level panel appointed by the Department of Environmental Affairs is tasked to find out about wildlife is already known... so what’s going on? Millions of...
DA spokesperson on Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs, Heinz de Boer, has called for an urgent portfolio committee investigation into the state of affairs at...
There are growing concerns around the South African government’s wildlife high-level advisory panel, which will evaluate the captive lion breeding and canned hunting...
Twelve rangers and four civilians were killed late last week in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s Virunga National Park, home to the highly endangered mountain gorilla....
The legal global wildlife trade is worth roughly $300 billion. Of more than 31,500 listed terrestrial birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles, approximately 5,500 are...
‘Sustainable use’ ideology ignores the complexity of ecological systems and the impact of repeated over-extraction on the functionality of those systems over time....
If anything has become patently clear from the Covid-19 pandemic it is that we need to change the way we think and live. Current paradigms are failing us. While we know humans...
TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR THE HIGH-LEVEL PANEL OF EXPERTS FOR THE REVIEW OF POLICIES, LEGISLATION AND PRACTICES ON MATTERS OF ELEPHANT, LION, LEOPARD AND RHINOCEROS MANAGEMENT,...
Netflix's "Tiger King" makes for good television drama but it fails miserably in exposing the truth about captive tigers and other animals in captivity. Netflix’s “Tiger King”...
Captive lions in South Africa could face starvation or euthanization as tourist revenues disappear amid the COVD-19 pandemic, according to animal welfare groups.Conservationists...
Dear Subscriber, The Coronavirus outbreak is having a significant and unprecedented effect across the globe. Countries have had to resort to extraordinary measures to combat this...
'75 per cent of emerging infections come from the animal kingdom... It’s partly the markets, but it’s also other places where humans and animals are in close contact,'...
As the world staggers under the catastrophic impact of eating a wild animal, probably a pangolin, the South African government has reclassified 130 wild animals as meat. The next...
Botswana hides behind national “sovereignty” while selling off its natural heritage to foreign hunters and treating elephants as mere commodities. In February 2020 the government...
COVID-19 is one of countless emerging infectious diseases that are zoonotic, meaning they originate in animals. About 75% of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic,...
South Africa is replicating China’s policies that resulted in the Covid-19 outbreak, including mandates promoting domesticating and breeding wild species. South Africa’s captive...
The world is witnessing an unprecedented, human-induced collapse of biodiversity and is in the middle of a global pandemic caused by the consumption of wild species often kept in...
High level panel - Elephant, Lion, Leopard, and Rhino - Call for submissions. Department of Environmental affairs, National environmental management act.
China’s latest ban on the trade and consumption of wild animals will wipe out wet markets, but they are just the tip of the icebergTo avoid simply driving the problem...
Republic of South Africa: Ranking E EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The main animal welfare legislations in South Africa are the Animal Protection Act No. 71 of 1962, which prohibits animal...
Despite a scientific consensus pointing to China’s wildlife trade as the most likely cause of the coronavirus pandemic, the country’s Government is currently touting a treatment...
South Africa is turning towards the implementation of new laws that fully allows the economic exploitation of wildlife. The intention is to market the use of all kinds of wild...
As the Covid-19 pandemic spreads its tentacles across all continents except Antarctica, scientists in China and the US are racing to pin down its biological origins. Mounting...
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MINISTER OF THE ENVIRONMENT, FORESTRY AND FISHERIES BARBARA CREECY 25th March 2020 Dear Honourable Minister Creecy, Since at least as far back as the...
When Botswana banned hunting in 2014, proponents of ‘sustainable utilisation’ of wildlife claimed the government was pandering to emotions and ignoring science. The decision,...
The flip side to Covid-19 is first the understanding that we are not invincible and are just another species on this planet. That the world is round and a crisis in one place can...
SPCA calls for permanent closure of Bloemfontein Zoo after discovering starving animals At least five animals - including a buffalo, an impala and three Barbary sheep - were...
When travelling in South Africa, please THINK before you VISIT, CUDDLE, WALK, VOLUNTEER or SHOOT FACT – There are 350+ predator...
Symptomatic of the Botswana government’s shaky relationship with reality is its letter to the United Kingdom’s Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). A full...
Blood Lions Campaign The Blood Lions goal is to bring an end to canned hunting and the exploitative breeding of lions and other predators on farms across South Africa. The...
A refugee is by definition a human—but should elephants and other animals qualify, too? Consider what life is like for so many African elephants: family and friends killed,...
Irked by widespread local and international opposition to its decision to reopen elephant trophy hunting the Botswanan government has become increasingly strident and populist in...
Peacocks, porcupines and pangolins among species bred on 20,000 farms closed in wake of virus Nearly 20,000 wildlife farms raising species including peacocks, civet cats,...
Beyers Coetzee had a dream to see the elephants of Mawana Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal live out their days in peaceful co-existence. He hoped to establish a reserve where...
A coalition of 35 conservation organizations, in a letter to the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA), requests the removal of Dries van Coller, president of the...
China today announced a ban on buying and selling wild animals for food, taking its most decisive action yet to halt a trade that has been implicated in the global coronavirus...
The Chinese government yesterday placed an immediate ban on the illegal trading of wildlife and the consumption of wild animals. This follows a link between pangolin meat and the...
The Botswana government has again demonstrated to the world that it either does not understand or does not care that elephants play a critical role in maintaining healthy...
The Botswana government has auctioned off the last of its big tuskers to hunters despite offers from conservationists to buy the licences to save the elephants. There are...
GENEVA — Giraffes may well tower over all other animals in the natural world — but in the wild, their numbers are rapidly dwindling, and they are desperately in need of...
Cape Town — Unethical hunting has exposed a community to dangerous, aggressive elephants rather than solving Human Elephant Conflict (HEC) Following the recent killing of a...
As the death toll climbs in the China pandemic, researchers reveal new origins for the coronavirus in Earth’s most threatened mammal. The deadly novel coronavirus pandemic has...
In a world where global understanding of true conservation and the interconnectedness of all life on the planet is growing at an exponential rate, Botswana cannot afford to be...
TheGovernmentGazette No.42464 dated 17 May 2019 amended Table 7 of the Animal Improvement Act (Act no.62of 1998), which lists breeds of animals, to include at least 32 new wild...
In listing 32 wild animal species as farm animals under the Animal Improvement Act in 2019, the Department of Agriculture went against the recommendations of the government’s own...
The evidence suggests that ethical, economic and ecological problems with trophy hunting warrant a trophy import ban. Trophy hunting is a deeply controversial topic and the...
BEIJING (AP) — Chinese authorities temporarily banned the trade of wild animals Sunday following a viral outbreak in Wuhan, saying they will “severely investigate and punish”...
A tool to help you make good choices. Use this Decision Tree, that follows a process of elimination via 6 sequential questions, to assist yourapidly select which...
It was a bizarre and disturbing sight. About 100 sharks – beheaded, finned and gutted – dumped on Strandfontein beach along the False Bay coast. Why were they there? What was...
Through what appear to be wilfully ignorant policies, South Africa is facilitating the illegal trade in lion bones, not only enabling the activities of notorious international...
Trophy hunting is reinforcing deep apartheid-era social and racial inequalities in Africa, an economist will tell the UK government this week as it...
WENXIA WANG,2 Research Institute of Forestry Policy and Information, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 100091, China LIANGLIANG YANG,2 Research Institute of Forest...
Task team Dr Jeanetta Selier, South African National Biodiversity Institute Mr Andy Blackmore, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife Mr. Brent Coverdale, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife Mr. Johan Kruger,...
When President Mokgweetsi Masisi opened up Botswana’s rich wildlands to hunting, it helped gain him the essential rural votes he needed to get re-elected. But the ‘unethical’...
For a Western hunter to pay to kill an African animal and expatriate its parts is a form of objectification, dehumanising and therefore morally reprehensible. It may entrench a...
The concept of carrying capacity gets thrown around a lot when countries and parks complain about having too many elephants. However, carrying capacity has no relevance in highly...
Meeting Summary Committee Report on Colloquium on Captive Lion Breeding for Hunting in SA 21 & 22 August 2018ATC181108: Report of the Portfolio Committee on Environmental...
In the matter of guarding the chicken run, there’s a big difference between giving the job to a chicken or a fox. In October the government appointed a high-level panel ‘to...
Eleven elephants were successfully transferred from Blaauwbosch Private Game Reserve to their new home near Makhanda on Thursday. After being darted and loaded at Blaauwbosch,...
Interactions with all infant wildlife, walking with predators or elephants, interacting with predators and the riding of wild animals are no longer acceptable practices,...
South Africa struggles to manage wildlife ranching: why it's a problem Game farms in South Africa often supply the canned hunting sector. Shutterstock Tariro Kamuti, University...
Tony Weaver has defended Botswana President, Mokgweetsi Masisi, who decided to reintroduce trophy hunting to that country ahead of the upcoming October election. Weaver writes...
Tourism is extremely important for Tanzania and Kenya, both of which share the Serengeti ecosystem. Tanzanian tourism, for example, accounts for half a million jobs in...
The trophy hunting lobby and its ideological hangers-on will do whatever they can to defend the right of members to shoot wild animals and display their stuffed carcasses. ...
In their Letter “Trophy hunting bans imperil biodiversity” (30 August, p. 874), A. Dickman et al. warn that banning trophy hunting, a practice many of them deem “repugnant,”...
30th October 2019 Reclassification of 33 wild mammal species under the Animal Improvement Act On the 17th May 2019, the former Minister Senzeni Zokwana of Agriculture, Forestry...
Tony Weaver has defended Botswana’s decision to reintroduce trophy hunting. Personally, he doesn’t ‘quite understand what motivates hunters’, but intellectually, he fully...
By the stroke of a legislative pen, a list of iconic and in some cases endangered wild animals can now be manipulated as farming stock. What happens next is anyone’s guess....
The Southern Africa Tourism Services Association (SATSA) has welcomed the move from global tourism heavyweights Airbnb and TripAdvisor to shun wildlife interactions and...
The continual poaching of rhinos in southern Africa for their horns, in particular in Botswana, has raised the argument yet again of whether it isn’t time to reintroduce an...
A Chinese ground crew has just arrived to prepare 33 baby elephants for imminent shipment to China, according to sources near Hwang National Park. These elephants have...
Ninety scientific institutions led by the South African National Biodiversity Institute have released a shock report that unveils waves of unprecedented climate impacts tearing...
Cape Town (14 Oct. 2019) – Animal welfare campaigners have expressed their deep concern that Zimbabwe may be in the process of secretly shipping off to China more than 30...
The arguments for trophy hunting contained within a recent letter published in the journal Science simply don't stack up. A new letter published in Science argues...
Anti-hunting campaigners have said they will seek the expulsion of pro-safari groups from the world's most authoritative conservation organisation after a new report concluded...
Cape Town — The overwhelming message from a global conference on elephants in captivity, hosted in Hermanus on September 6, was that elephants belong in the wild. Given what...
2.3.8 The wildlife product section in Skukuza The Wildlife Product Section (WPS) is an abattoir and processing plant located between the Skukuza Airport and Sand River in the...
No new elephants should be placed in captivity and elephants currently in captivity should be rewilded, was the overwhelming conclusion of the Captive Elephant Indaba held in...
The Community Resources Boards (CRB) in Zambia on Thursday released a press statement expressing their deep concern over the fact that the communities have not been given their...
The Wildlife Justice Commission (WJC) was es- tablished in March 2015 with the goal of disrup- ting and helping to dismantle transnational or- ganised criminal networks...
Meeting Summary ATC181108: Report of the Portfolio Committee on Environmental Affairs on the Colloquium on Captive Lion Breeding for Hunting in South Africa: harming or promoting...
A Florida man has been allowed to import a Tanzanian lion's skin, skull, claws and teeth, a first since the animal was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act,...
Swati Thiyagarajan is a conservation journalist and author of book Born Wild: Journeys in the Wild Hearts of India and Africa (Bloomsbury India). What do you say when...
Environmental Affairs, Department of/ Omgewingsake, National Environmental Management Act (107/1998): Advisory Committee to Review Policies, Legislation and Practices on Matters...
The African Penguin is in serious trouble. Its population has fallen by more than 95% over the last century and, despite ongoing conservation efforts, its numbers...
EMS FOUNDATION PRESS Release, 3 September 2019 ELEPHANTS IN CAPTIVITY TO COME UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT ln Hermanus on 6 September, at the Municipal Auditorium, elephant specialists...
Debunking myths about the impact of elephants on large trees African elephant in Kruger national park, South Africa. PACO COMO/Shutterstock Ross Harvey, University of Cape Town...
Abstract The loss of large trees (> 5 m in height) in Africa’s protected areas is often attributed to the impact by savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana). Concerns have been...
CITES continues to apply pressure to countries with open domestic ivory markets and strengthens compliance measures for countries with ivory stockpiles. 1. On closure of domestic...
Let's be clear - tigers are perilously close to extinction. There are fewer than 4,000 wild tigers in the world. The last sighting of a Javan tiger was in...
South Africa, DRC, Namibia and Zimbabwe believe they should be able to sell threatened wildlife species on global markets, just like mass-produced trinkets. The South...
The Johannesburg Zoo finds itself embroiled in another legal controversy after three elephants were caught on video in seeming distress on Elephant Day, according to animal...
Lammie’s 40th birthday celebrations and World Elephant Day at Johannesburg Zoo were marred by scenes of highly stressed elephants. In a viral video shared online, Lammie is...
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY (For written reply) QUESTION NO.410 (NW1382E) INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER NO. 7 of 2019 DATE OF PUBLICATION: 26 July 2019 Ms H S Winkler (DA) to ask the Minister of...
PREVIEW AND OVERVIEW The CITES CoP 18 begins tomorrow in Geneva, Switzerland and runs through 28 August. The CITES Secretariat reports that the 183 Parties to the...
"Botswana Has A Unique Opportunity To Extend Existing Efforts For Co-existence With Elephants" 7 August 2019 Dr. Mokgweetsi Eric Keabetswe MasisiHis Excellency, President of the...
The Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries Environment House 473 Steve Biko Road Arcadia Pretoria 0083 email: fshaik@environment.gov.za...
The Gauteng High Court in Pretoria has ruled in favour of the NSPCA regarding the welfare of lions in captivity and how that should affect the setting of an export quota for lion...
A REPORT BY THE ENVIRONMENTAL INVESTIGATION AGENCY Contrary to what the governments of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe have suggested ahead of the...
Welfare problems have always characterised the captive lion industry, but have proliferated over the past few years due to a shift in the markets as lion breeders actively...
Judgment-Lion-Bone-case-6-August-2019-1Download Today's landmark decision was reached in the High Court in the matter NSPCA vs Department of Environmental Affairs. The decision...
Further scenes of animal abuse were unearthed at Jan Steinman's lion farm in Lichtenburg, while the local SAPS fails to act on the charges laid against him by the National...
US zoos now plan to import baby elephants from Zimbabwe, undeterred by the international furore over their 2016 import of 18 wild elephants from Swaziland. The US Association of...
A new report by global NGO, World Animal Protection, provides a damning indictment on the captive predator breeding industry. Big cats are being bred for the use of...
Pangolin numbers are dwindling at alarming rates – in South Africa and across the globe – and the future appears bleak for these small, relatively unknown creatures. On...
A B.C. conservation group is on a mission to purchase all the commercial hunting licences in the Great Bear Rainforest, where animals like black bears, wolves and cougars can...
Trophy hunting has occupied a prominent position in recent scholarly literature and popular media. In the scientific conservation literature, researchers are generally supportive...
Botswana has a growing population of humans and cattle, not elephants. Outside protected areas, desertification caused by cattle over-grazing too often gets ignored. Hunting will...
The hunting of Voortrekker, an iconic Namibian desert elephant, for just R120 000 has sparked the debate on whether Namibia's wildlife is thriving or flailing. A recent...
Trophy-hunting businesses targeting big-game hunters in Britain have been banned from a shooting show after public objections. The NEC in Birmingham said that it would no longer...
Despite mounting evidence that elephants find captivity torturous, some American zoos still acquire them from Africa — aided by a tall tale about why they needed to leave home....
The trophy hunting industry is on the wrong side of history, serves the macabre leisure pursuits of a handful of the wealthy elite and yet, bizarrely, we environment writers are...
For most experts concerned about the survival of elephants, the idea that a global ivory market could be part of the solution was discarded as fundamentally unsound decades ago....
Namibia's most famous elephant bull known as Voortrekker ("Pioneer") to thousands of tourists was shot last week by a trophy hunter, ten years after he first escaped the...
The Botswana government recently reintroduced trophy hunting after a five-year moratorium. It did so on the pretext that Botswana has “too many elephants”....
The Zoo paid almost R1milion more than the market rate for its two new elephants from Inkwenkwezi Private Game Reserve. The City's funds have been grossly overspent,...
Males of many species slow down in their pursuit of females as they age. Not so with elephants. A new study published today reveals that bull elephants increase the energy they...
The Tanzanian Government is teetering on the edge of committing irreversible environmental damage with aggressive plans for a dam in one of the world’s most famous wildlife...
The City of Cape Town is calling on the National Minister of Environment,Forestry and Fisheries to place a moratorium on the Exploratory OctopusPermit until such time as a...
National Director of Public Prosecutions To: National Prosecuting Authority VGM Building123 Westlake Avenue Weavind Park, Silverton Pretoria, 0184...
Trophy hunting elephants has negative consequences for conservation and local communities. A colonial attitude remains pervasive among those who defend the trophy hunting...
Tigers, leopards, lions, elephants and rhinos were among the many species of wild animals on offer by South African hunting outfitters at the first-ever Chinese hunting show in...
Poachers have poisoned hundreds of raptors in northern Botswana using three elephant carcasses as bait. The information has just been released by the Botswana Department of...
Should the future of educating the public about exotic animals be in sanctuaries and virtual zoos, not places where animals are kept in cages? The high-profile death of the...
Poachers are known to poison carcasses to target vultures as the birds circle in the sky and help rangers to track poaching activity. Gaborone (Botswana): More than 500...
Elephants have become a hot political issue in Botswana, with President Mokgweetsi Masisi beating the hunting drum, a sure vote-catcher in rural communities. But the country,...
At least 385 elephants were poached in the last year, however the Botswana government has just set an annual quota of 400 elephants to be killed by trophy hunters and...
The Council of Elders of the African Elephant Coalition (AEC) comprising 32 African countries and the majority of African elephant range states is calling on the government of...
To: Honourable Minister Barbara Creecy 14th June 2019 Dear Honourable Minister Creecy, Honourable Deputy Minister Sotyu and Ms Phoshoko, Thank you for the opportunity to provide...
Public Participation Submission of the Coalition To Stop the Captive Breeding and Keeping of Lions and Other Big Cats for Commercial Purposes June 2019 Content Introduction...
PREAMBLE For more than a decade, South Africa has been actively supporting and growing the international trade in big cat bones, despite local and international outrage and...
DETERMINATION OF THE 2019 LION BONE QUOTA SUBMISSION FROM TWENTY-FIVE NGOs REPRESENTED BY THE WILDLIFE ANIMAL PROTECTION FORUM SOUTH AFRICA TO MINISTER AND DEPARTMENT OF...
DETERMINATION OF THE 2019 LEOPARD TROPHY HUNTING QUOTA SUBMISSION FROM MEMBERS OF THE WILDLIFE ANIMAL PROTECTION FORUM SOUTH AFRICA TO MINISTER AND DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT...
THE ECONOMICS OF CAPTIVE PREDATOR BREEDING IN SOUTH AFRICA GLOSSARY OF TERMS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY SECTION 1: PICKING A BONE WITH CAPTIVE PREDATOR BREEDING IN SOUTH AFRICA...
The Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries’ determination to set yet another export quota for lion bones flies in the face of several ongoing processes ...
A second Lion King movie is due for release this month and wildlife conservationists are urging Disney to share its billion-dollar profits to fund wild lion conservation in...
Highlights In northern Botswana, fresh elephant carcasses increased by 593% from 2014 to 2018In 2018, we confirmed 156 elephants as poached for ivory based on damage to...
Research by Elephants Without Borders (EWB) published 13 June in the journal Current Biology describes a new outbreak of elephant poaching for ivory in northern Botswana. They report that poachers killed an estimated 385 elephants in one year prior to EWB’s 2018 aerial survey. The paper includes photographic documentation of 156 poached elephant carcasses.
Another dead 12-metre Bryde’s whale was found in False Bay near Cape Town last week after becoming entangled in octopus trap ropes. The traps have been in use by a single...
Two free-roaming elephants from the Eastern Cape have been relocated to a small barren enclosure in Joburg Zoo. The move cynically ignores over 300 000 signatures to...
A controversial contract to hunt at least 1250 hippos under the pretext of culling in Zambia's world-renowned Luangwa Valley has been cancelled following global criticism and...
After Barack Obama came Donald Trump, a bigoted populist prone to crass outpourings and some peculiar legislative ideas. His time in office has reminded the world how prone...
Botswana has lifted its ban on hunting based on five myths about that country’s elephant population. The decision has as much to do with Botswana’s upcoming elections and the...
Exclusive: Organisation has been heavily involved in Cites and IUCN for up to 20 years, winning campaigns to allow African lions and other species to still be killed. Trophy...
Botswana has now committed to a policy built on myths, while the rest of the world takes stock of the implications ecological crisis. Botswana’s Ministry of Environment, Natural...
Botswana president, Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi, recently hosted a summit in Kasane for five southern African heads of state to forge a common regional elephant conservation policy....
A gun manufacturer in the Czech Republic is implicated in flooding Africa with thousands of high-calibre hunting rifles. Now poachers are even more deadly, writes Don Pinnock A...
Lifting of ban attributed to ‘political play’. The Botswanan government announced yesterday that it was “lifting the hunting suspension in an orderly and ethical manner” – a...
Splashing in the Zambezi River at Botswana’s Chobe National Park. Shutterstock Ross Harvey, University of Cape Town Botswana has reinstated trophy hunting after a 5-year...
Minister of Environmental Affairs: Honourable Ms Nomvula MokonyaneEmail: nmokonyane@environment.gov.za c/c: Ministerial Communication Services: Ms Zanele Mngadi Email:...
Elephant poaching, Mozambique President Mokgweetsi Masisi of Botswana categorically denies that his government would ever cull elephants, contradicting the Parliamentary Report...
The carcass of a poisoned elephant decomposes in the Masai Mara. The National Academy of Sciences published a report in August 2014 citing that 100,000 elephants had been...
The United Nations Special Report on Global Warming in 2018 sounded a sharp warning few could disagree with: Earth has a problem. A new UN report on Biodiversity released this...
Photographic camps are more beneficial to communities than hunting. Shutterstock Muchazondida Mkono, The University of Queensland For decades, the public has been fed the myth...
Photo credit: ISS Today Are Southern African governments allowing resentment against perceived Western finger-wagging to cloud their judgement? If Botswana’s elephants could...
View the film trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2QKPJC0CQY Eye of the Pangolin, the ground-breaking new documentary about the most trafficked mammal on earth, will...
THA BAK, Laos — He was up there somewhere, at the top of the hill, the man Karl Ammann had come to see. It would soon be night. The forest was all shadows and sounds. Ammann...
PRESS RELEASEGeneva, 10 May 2019 – An updated assessment by the CITES programme Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) has confirmed that poaching continues to...
White-bearded wildebeest migrate through the Mara. Jane Rix/Shutterstock Joseph Ogutu, University of Hohenheim Across the world, migratory animals like wildebeest – which rely on...
An investigation that began with an obscure Limpopo game farm has uncovered a shadowy international network of proxies, offshore firms and shelf companies concealing the Saudi...
Photo credit: Conservation Action Trust The NSPCA has laid criminal charges against Jan Steinman, a lion farmer in North West, for several contraventions of the Animal Protection...
Lions seen at Willie Jacobs’ farm, Ukutula Lodge, on 31 July 2015 in Brits, South Africa. Jacobs’ farm was heavily criticised after the release of the doc Conservationists who...
A male white lion, part of a rare white lion pack, in the wild in South Africa. (PHOTO: EPA/LIESL EICHENBERGER) Trophy hunting has historically been the preserve of...
WASHINGTON— After a prod from a lawsuit filed by conservation groups, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today that giraffes may qualify for protection under...
Photo: Francis Garrard The Joburg Zoo continues to make unilateral decisions regarding Lammie the elephant’s future while the DA led City council turns a blind eye. The zoo...
WILL giraffes survive humanity? They are as iconic as lions, rhinos and elephants and their long-term existence in the wild is under similar threat. However, the world’s tallest...
Wildebeest crossing the Mara River in Tanzania during their annual mass migration. Jane Rix/Shutterstock Bill Laurance, James Cook University and Penny van Oosterzee, James Cook...
The Blood Lions presentation by Campaign Director, Nicola Gerrard, at WTM Africa in Cape Town last week was abruptly cut short after only five of a planned 20 minutes. “Blood...
Some ranches are effectively battery farms CREDIT: FERGUS THOMAS he growing appetite for 'conservation holidays' has shone a light on the dark – and poorly...
Minister Priscah Mupfumira Kavango-Zambezi Trans-Frontier Conservation Area (KAZA-TFCA) countries have resolved to adopt a scientific wildlife management system in national...
On April 11, Chief Magistrate Francis Kyambia is set to make judgement in a Mombasa, Kenya court on the ivory trafficking prosecution against Ephantus Mbare Gitonga. A not-guilty...
The Government of Philip Nyusi, which has as one of its priorities "Ensuring the Sustainable and Transparent Management of Natural Resources and the Environment" and receives...
HSI helps dogs, cows, pigs and other animals in Malawi and Mozambique after Cyclone Idai devastation BEIRA, Mozambique (11 April 2019)—A team of animal rescue experts from animal...
Starting July 1, anyone in Japan who wishes to register and sell a whole elephant tusk must first prove its age through carbon dating. According to Ministry of the...
This encyclopaedic book sends out a powerful message to give elephants the highest protection status, writes Elise Tempelhoff. The LAST ELEPHANTS Compiled by Don Pinnock &...
The Serengeti-Mara ecosystem is home to the famous wildebeest migration. Susan Schmitz/Shutterstock The 40,000 sq km Serengeti-Mara plain that straddles the border of Kenya and...
The life of an elephant that faces being shot for being a 'nuisance' is hanging in the balance as animal campaigners in South Africa fight in court to keep him alive. Riff Raff's...
Balule Associated Nature Reserve has justified the killing of a young elephant bull in front of tourists as an ‘act of self-defense’, backtracking on an original announcement...
Did you know that in Africa there is one elephant for every 20 000 people; fewer than 450 000 according to the (most recent) Great Elephant Census of 2016, down from the 3 to 5...
A new safari park near the small town of Kleinmond in the Western Cape may hold economic gains for its owners – but at what cost to the sensitive Overstrand environment or...
Wildlife Rights, a group of concerned citizens, call on like-minded persons to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves, especially with regards to the proposed Lamloch...
As tourism is a mainstay of Botswana’s economy, lifting the hunting ban could, the poll suggests, have severe economic consequences and damage Botswana’s international...
Namibia's current and Kenya's former ministers for environment engaged in a lively discussion about the polarising issue of trophy hunting at a debate held in at The Arts Club in...
Picture: Martin Meja/AP A Parliamentary Resolution to end the Captive Breeding of Lions in South Africa has been ignored by the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA), who...