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...
South Africa is The World’s Largest Exporter of Live Tigers
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Behind bars — South Africa’s tiger farming crisis and its hidden global implications
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....
Hand over your lion bone stockpiles for destruction, minister tells breeders
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...
Wild Assertions: Why a legal trade in rhino horn won’t work
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...
Eating elephants and the assault on our waning wildlife
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...
South Africa exports millions of creatures great and small in shadowy global wildlife trade
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....
Namibia: Are Politics and Profit Behind Plans to Cull Elephant
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...
Why we should burn the ivory
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....
How frightful failures and feuding set up KZN elephant herd for destruction
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...
What the welfare? When industry interest trumps wellbeing
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...
Namibia: Why Is Namibia Going to Kill its Endangered Desert Elephants?
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...
Botswana: Sharp Spike in Elephant Poaching – ‘Someone is Dropping the Ball Here’
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...
Killing of five elephants, said to be ‘super-tuskers’ from Kenya’s Amboseli, sparks major row
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...
The myth of “Too Many Elephants”
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...
South Africa’s contradictory plan to open rhino horn trade will encourage poaching
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: Masisi’s Threat to Send 30,000 Elephants At Odds With Trophy Hunting Threat to Elephants, and People
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....
The Billion Dollar Ivory Illusion
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...
A disturbing journey into the human psyche and trophy hunting
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...
Elephant poaching in Africa is on the decline — but there’s no room for complacency
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...
Biodiversity Bill – a high-water mark for the environment and Minister Barbara Creecy
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...
BirdLife and Sanccob take government to court over penguin feeding grounds
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,...
In South Africa, Tigers and Other Captive Predators Are Still Exploited for Profit. Legislation Offers Pitiful Protection
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...
The numbers don’t support Botswana’s threat to send 30,000 elephants to Europe
Botswana and Zimbabwe have long claimed that their elephant populations are exploding, making hunting a necessity to curtail ‘unsustainable’ growth, but a recent survey...
New National Biodiversity Economy Strategy is a curate’s egg — only good in parts
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...
Government to slam the brakes on captive lion breeding
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...
Government trying to slam through plan that will result in massive exploitation of wildlife
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...
Let it burn, says animal welfare NGO about South Africa’s 75-tonne rhino horn stockpile
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...
Economic benefits of trophy hunting are dubious — a colonial sport for the privileged few
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...
South Africa cited in global report that seeks to end captive tiger breeding
Leading environmental organisations, including the WWF, Environmental Investigation Agency, Panthera, Wildlife Justice Commission and Four Paws, have produced a roadmap to...
Kruger’s rhinos continue to face unrelenting threats and catastrophic population declines
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,...
Blurred boundaries – can trophy hunting and tourism coexist in the Greater Kruger?
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...
How to steal a game reserve: poach animals, sell plots and threaten those in your way
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...
Balule trophy hunt — how not to shoot an elephant
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....
Trophy Hunting Propaganda Is One More Form of Greenwashing
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...
Poorly supervised captive carnivores in South Africa are killing people
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 –...
The camouflage of hunting for sport
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...
Report raises alarm over state of provincial nature reserves
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...
‘Shift in conservation thinking’: A new biodiversity White Paper could make SA a world leader if it becomes law
Campaign Against Canned Hunting activists march in Johannesburg against canned lion hunting on 15 March 2014. (Photo: Gallo Images / Foto24 / Mary-ann Palmer) ...
Horses dropping dead as government fumbles vaccine production at crumbling Onderstepoort Biological Products
With Onderstepoort Biological Products unable to supply vaccines, horses are dying of deadly African Horse Sickness and bluetongue is threatening the red meat industry....
Letting the cat out of the can on captive lion breeding and hunting
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,...
State caves in to game farmers and hunters over key wildlife protection
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...
Kruger Park ensnared in corruption linked to criminal syndicates – report
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...
Horrific cruelty – legal trade and lack of protection are decimating South Africa’s primates
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...
Pioneering conflict-avoidance study asks elephants what works for them
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...
Running for their lives – last-minute bid to stop cheetah export to India
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...
An elephant’s value beyond the hunt for cash is loaded with tricky trade-offs for conservationists
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...
Grisly report on captive lions shocks Parliament
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...
Grisly report on captive lions shocks Parliament
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...
Kruger National Park’s rhinos are headed for extinction, we must declare emergency
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...
Political parties agree — captive lion breeding must end
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....
Endangered wild animals traded by commercial Asian zoos
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...
Deadly avian flu hits endangered penguin colony on Cape Peninsula
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...
Claws out — catfight looms on lion breeder exit strategy
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....
End trophy hunting in South Africa, or we won’t visit your country, say tourists
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...
Hidden government report exposes security gaps amid surging KZN rhino bloodbath
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...
Botswana’s wildlife management fails communities — report
Investigation shows that trophy hunting in Botswana continues to impoverish local communities, causes the decline in species and heightens human-elephant conflict...
The myth of too many elephants in Kruger Park, and why culling is redundant
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...
SA in ground-breaking rethink on protection of biodiversity
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...
African countries nix Zimbabwe’s efforts to sell live elephants and its ivory stockpiles
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...
International elephant corridor put at risk by killing of Botswana’s largest tuskers
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...
Two dead elephants raise questions on relocation from Mpumalanga ‘sanctuary
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...
Value of trophy hunting to conservation massively overstated: report
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...
Challenge to leopard hunting quota proof that the DFFE should change its spots
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...
South Africa’s war on wild animals
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...
Are the government’s animal welfare moves progress or ‘spookasem’?
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...
The welfare of South Africa’s wild animals is in the hopelessly wrong hands of the food police – this has to change urgently
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...
Environmentalists and hunters slam government over proposals for the trophy hunting of elephants, leopards and rhinos
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,...
Dangerous precedent: CITES sows confusion over live elephant exports
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...
World Elephant Day: How are the pachyderms doing in Africa?
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...
A matter of pride: South Africa proposes banning intensive breeding of lions and rhinos — and ending captive lion hunts
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...
Creecy’s expected wildlife policy position paper sparks hope for the future of South Africa’s wild animal management
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...
Who Cares about Animal Welfare?
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,...
SA at a crossroads on wildlife welfare and sentience
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...
Canned hunting canned: Minister Creecy announces ‘new deal’ for South Africa’s wildlife industry
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...
Southern Africa’s Ivory Delusion
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...
Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries blows nearly R3bn in irregular expenditure
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...
Something to hide? Department of Environment takes the path of least disclosure
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...
Breeding and trading endangered wild animals is not conservation – it threatens their survival
Conservationists have demonstrated that legalised trade and commercial breeding of wild animals stimulates demand, encourages poachers and smugglers and ultimately pushes species...
No shade, no company, no exercise – that’s no life for sad elephant Charlie
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...
Namibia selling 170 wild elephants despite outcry
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...
Paradise is closing down: The ghastly spectre of oil drilling and fracking in fragile Okavango Delta
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...
Ex-volunteers expose cruelty in the name of big-cat conservation
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...
Are we starving great whites to death?
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...
NSPCA slams ‘slap on the wrist’ sentence for Dr convicted of amputating monkey’s limbs
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...
Redefining the right of the NSPCA to prosecute for cruelty
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...
Namibia To Sell Wild Elephants
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...
Unregulated international trade in reptiles threatens South Africa’s vulnerable species
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...
Captive lion breeding damages SA’s tourism reputation
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...
The sad story of a one-limbed monkey and the battle to hold vets accountable
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...
It’s high time SA shut down the captive lion breeding industry
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...
Ramaphosa petitioned to halt big cat breeding
While government, wildlife farmers and NGOs remain locked in discussion about the future of lions, elephants, rhinos and leopards, the British conservation organisation, Born...
Zoonotic disease: Study warns about cuddling, keeping and slaughtering farmed lions
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...
CITES protection of animals no longer fit for purpose, says wildlife filmmaker
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...
Urgent questions about the welfare of wildlife that Parliament needs to ask
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...
CITES silent as Zimbabwe dooms elephants to living hell in China
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...
African forest plunder condemns chimpanzees to miserable lives in zoos
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....
How government is supporting captive lion breeding
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...
Elephants are still in trouble on World Elephant Day
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...
World Lion Day: No reason to celebrate in South Africa
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...
Zimbabwe slated for live elephant export in contravention of treaty
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...
International Tiger Day: Still no protection for these majestic cats under SA law
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...
Wildlife experts spurn invite to serve on environmental panel, indicating bias and co-option
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...
Over 400 Botswana elephants killed in mystery mass die-off
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...
‘Unfair Game’ reveals the cruel reality of canned lions
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...
Are trophy hunters serial killers? Book review.
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...
The Breaking Point: Could this report spell the end of SA’s wildlife trade?
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...
Why the wildlife trade convention failed to prevent Covid-19
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...
Neoliberalism and sustainable use are cut from the same paradigm
Where neoliberalism subjugates the natural world and people to the commercial whims of markets and globalisation, sustainable use has ensured the international commercialisation...
How overfishing is threatening SA’s shark eco-tourism industry
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...
Enabling the dealers in death
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...
Horrific scale of SA’s live wild animal trade to China exposed
Chimpanzees, Bengal tigers, wolves, wild dogs and lions are among thousands of endangered wild animals exported, sometimes in contravention of CITES regulations, often in...
How the Coronavirus changes poaching strategies
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...
Is the environment minister captured by vested interests?
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...
Why SA’s courts place ecological sustainability ahead of government’s reductionist sustainable use – Part 2
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...
12 rangers from Virunga park killed while trying to save civilians from FDLR ambush
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....
What is the wildlife trade? And what are the answers to managing it?
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...
Wildlife trade: The unsustainability of ‘sustainable use’ (Part 1)
‘Sustainable use’ ideology ignores the complexity of ecological systems and the impact of repeated over-extraction on the functionality of those systems over time....
In urgent need of an environmental ethic
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...
Living with wild animals (Part Two): Eat them like there’s no tomorrow
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...
Elephant Hunts for Sale During a Pandemic
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...
Living with wild animals, Part One: Cash cows or fellow beings?
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...
Animals starved to death in Bloemfontein Zoo
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...
Botswana government won’t let the truth get in the way of its trophy hunting narrative
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...
There are less harmful ways of ensuring people and elephants can live together
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...
Conservationist killed by elephants in KwaZulu-Natal, but family pleads with authorities to spare herd
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...
China’s ban on wildlife consumption is an overdue death knell for lion bone industry
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...
Botswana auctions off the last of its big tusker elephants
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...
Hunting auction: Botswana government rides roughshod over conservationists
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...
Botswana: Raffled Elephant Hunts Backfire on Community – Conservationists
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...
Government ignored its own science task team by redefining 32 wild species as farm animals
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...
UK must ban trophy hunting imports
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...
Headless sharks, scarce great whites and the danger of fish and chips Down Under
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...
South Africa’s legal lion bone trade exploited by criminals
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...
Outrage over ‘unethical’ Botswana elephant hunt
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’...
No place for trophy hunting in the sixth extinction
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...
New ‘expert’ panel may be weighted to duck Parliament’s call to shut down canned hunting
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...
Radical changes rattle the cage of SA’s wildlife interaction industry
Interactions with all infant wildlife, walking with predators or elephants, interacting with predators and the riding of wild animals are no longer acceptable practices,...
Trophy hunting of Elephants in Botswana has no place in conservation
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...
Trophy hunting: A new front opens in the War of Words
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. ...
Trophy hunting of elephants in Botswana has no place in conservation: A reply to Tony Weaver
Tony Weaver has defended Botswana’s decision to reintroduce trophy hunting. Personally, he doesn’t ‘quite understand what motivates hunters’, but intellectually, he fully...
SA reclassifies 33 wild species as farm animals. A list of iconic and in some cases endangered wild animals can now be manipulated as farming stock.
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....
SATSA applauds Airbnb and TripAdvisor for shunning wildlife interactions
The Southern Africa Tourism Services Association (SATSA) has welcomed the move from global tourism heavyweights Airbnb and TripAdvisor to shun wildlife interactions and...
Trading in rhino horn is not going to solve our extinction crisis
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...
Zimbabwe To Send Baby Elephants to China in Defiance of International Resolution
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...
Trophy hunting is not sustainable
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...
Taking the Elephant out of the Room
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...
Elephants taken out of the room
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...
Zambian communities halt trophy hunting in dispute over fees
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...
Debunking myths about the impact of elephants on large trees
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...
South Africa Pushes For Trade In Endangered Wildlife
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...
Joburg Zoo Threatens To Sue Animal Rights Group Over ”Distressed” Elephants Video
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...
#WorldElephantDay horror: Video shows traumatised elephants at Joburg Zoo
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...
Court victory for NSPCA over welfare of captive lions, bone exports
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...
RULING THAT LION SKELETON EXPORT QUOTAS ARE ILLEGAL IS A VICTORY FOR ETHICAL CONSERVATION
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...
Emaciated cubs, freezer full of carcasses uncovered at North West lion farm
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 to support Zimbabwe’s trade in baby elephants
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...
Captive lion breeding in South Africa: the case for a total ban
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...
The Great Elephant Debate: Myth-busting jumbo fallacies
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...
Yes, I’m a hunter. My targets are duplicity, lies and cruelty
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...
The Great Elephant Debate: Legalising ivory trade will be a giant mistake
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....
Iconic Namibian Elephant Killed By Hunter
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...
Botswana has an elephant poaching problem, not an overpopulation problem
The Botswana government recently reintroduced trophy hunting after a five-year moratorium. It did so on the pretext that Botswana has “too many elephants”....
Joburg Zoo squanders R1,25 million on new 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,...
Trophy hunting ‘imperial’ and ‘unsustainable’
Trophy hunting elephants has negative consequences for conservation and local communities. A colonial attitude remains pervasive among those who defend the trophy hunting...
South Africa selling tiger and lion hunts to Chinese nouveau riche
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 poison hundreds of Botswana vultures
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...
Killing elephants in Botswana is a vote-catcher that could go badly wrong
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,...
Botswana trophy hunting poached 385 elephants
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...
SA plans for 2019 lion bone export quota a ‘big middle finger to conservation’
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 ...
Call for Disney to donate Lion King profits to conservation
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...
Octopus fishing in False Bay is putting whales at risk and costing taxpayers
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...
Despite calls to #FreeLammie, Joburg Zoo takes two more elephants
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...
Zambian pseudo hippo cull cancelled
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...
Botswana shoots itself in the foot
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...
The elephants in the room – the myths informing Botswana’s hunting policy
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...
Botswana brings back trophy hunting
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’s elephants: myths vs facts
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....
Kruger poachers get power rifles.
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...
Botswana lifts ban on elephant hunting
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...
Elephants reduced to a political football as Botswana brings back hunting
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...
More confusion over the fate of Botswana’s elephants
Elephant poaching, Mozambique President Mokgweetsi Masisi of Botswana categorically denies that his government would ever cull elephants, contradicting the Parliamentary Report...
Shock report about life on Earth: We’re in deep trouble
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...
Animal cruelty charges laid against lion farmer
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...
Trophy Hunting, Part Two: End of the game
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...
Trophy Hunting, Part One: The nasty colonial sport of shooting wild animals
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...
Joburg Zoo To Get Second Elephant In Spite Of Public Outcry
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...
Tall order to save the giraffe
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...
Canned lion hunting campaign muzzled at World Travel Market
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...
Young elephant shot 13 times: Tourists watched in horror
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...
Kleinmond ‘Safari Park’ Elephant Plans Approved Despite Objections & Environmental Risks
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...
US poll says ‘No’ to Botswana plans to hunt and cull elephants
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...
DEA bactracks on parliamentary resolution on captive lion breeding
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...
Government kicks the can forward yet again as the fate of thousands of lions remains in limbo
Two lionesses rub against a cage fence at a captive breeding centre for large predators at an undisclosed location in South Africa's Free State Province in an undated picture...
Botswana elephants caught in the middle of a scramble for votes
Photo credit: Francis Garrard President Mokgweetsi Masisi of Botswana said last week that “elephants bleed [the] government coffers”, as “Botswana is indirectly subsidising...
Troubled times for Namibian wildlife
The seasonal flood plains of the Kwando River. (Photo by Gallo Images/GO!/Toast Coetzer) There are worrying signs that Namibia’s legendary wild game numbers may be...
Botswana hunting proposal could put its tourism industry at risk
Botswana’s proposals to lift its hunting ban and to introduce elephant culling has fuelled political posturing, denials, misinformation, and lobbying from pro hunting and culling...
Extinction looms for Namibia’s Wild Horses
Nambia's wild horses. Photo: Christine-Wulff-Swiegers The desert sun is setting on the Wild Horse population that has roamed Namibia’s Garub plains for over a hundred years as...
Botswana proposes hunting and trade as elephant population declines
The results of the recent and most extensive elephant population survey of Botswana estimates the country’s population at 126,000 elephants, a further decline from 131,600...
Syndicates move south; Botswana president calls it fake news
Image supplied A report by Elephants Without Borders claiming ‘a significant poaching outbreak is ongoing in at least four distinct hotspots’ in Botswana has provoked government...
Escalating poaching worrying
Killing of elephants for their tusks crisis is not a new issue Photo credit: Mike Chase After months of controversy, the results of the most extensive elephant population survey...
Where wild things are under threat, wildlife trade needs to be dealt with
Tigers rub against a cage fence at a captive breeding centre for large predators at an undisclosed location in the Free State, South Africa, in this undated Before more...
Zambia forges ahead with hippo cull despite global backlash
South African hunting outfitters are eagerly awaiting the end of the Zambian rainy season in April to start a killing-spree of up to 1250 hippopotamus living in the...
Parliament slams Kruger Park for defying directive not to sign agreement with neighbours
Kruger National Park has been condemned by Parliament for signing an agreement which it had been expressly forbidden to sign by the Portfolio Committee on Environmental Affairs....
Elephant experts at Joburg Zoo? Keep looking
Johannesburg Zoo claims that Lammie the lonely elephant is getting the best care and that there’s no need to mover her to a sanctuary. Who’s doing the caring is cause for...
The hidden iniquity of the African Ranger Awards
Rangers risk their lives while Chinese tech giants facilitate illegal wildlife trade. Instead of dealing with the problem, last year the former head of Alibaba, Jack Ma, was in...
Does trophy hunting really benefit conservation and local communities?
Every year, thousands of tourists visit South African private nature reserves to see wild animals in unspoilt surroundings. But how many of these travellers know that some of the...
Seismic oil surveys on West Coast pose threat to marine food chain
A Norwegian company has applied to conduct seismic surveys for oil along the Cape’s West Coast using air-gun blasts known to be highly damaging to marine life. Petroleum...
Elephant experts call on Joburg Mayor Mashaba to #FreeLammie
Photo: South African Breaking News Thirteen of the world’s most respected elephant behavioural specialists and researchers have supported calls to release Lammie to a rewilding...
Zoos need a radical rethink — a plea for Joburg’s Lammie the elephant
Image supplied. We need to talk about the future of zoos. There are about 1,500 formal and many more informal ones in the world, holding between three and four million...
NSPCA quits Joburg Zoo ethics committee in protest over Lammie the elephant
The furore over the zoo’s solitary elephant has increased as the NSPCA (National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) resigned from the...
CITES – The trade system that doesn’t know that it doesn’t know
A picture made available Wedensday 22 September 2004 shows young black rhinoceros staring at the camera in this undated file photo. EPA/JON HRUSA CITES, the United Nations...
Pangolins in Peril
Slowly, the tiny ball in the wooden crate began to unwind. Its scales moved and a pointy nose followed by two black button eyes emerged. Natalie was entranced. The baby pangolin...
East London Zoo animals remain confined in small barren enclosures
East London Zoo - Photo: SABC News This is a story about a lonely bear in a pit, a jaguar with nowhere to run or trees to climb, a vulture with nowhere to fly and the cruelty of...
Young Balule Elephant shot 13 times before horrified visitors
Just as the furore about the trophy hunting of the pride male named Skye began abating, another incident has highlighted the ethics of hunting in the Associated Private Nature...
Confusion over Botswana’s elephant population
Botswana’s parliament recently passed a motion considering lifting the ban on elephant trophy hunting, citing an increase in both the elephant population and human-elephant...
Parliament moves to put the brakes on ‘unethical’ captive lion breeding and bone trade
Are we about to see the end of one of South Africa’s most infamous practices – captive lion breeding for hunting and trading of their parts? If Parliament adopts the...
Johannesburg Zoo ignores calls to free Lammie the Lonely Elephant
This is despite animal welfare specialists’ renewed calls on The Johannesburg City Council to relocate the grieving elephant from the zoo to a free-roaming area after the...
Selling rhino horn: It’s time to ask hard questions about the Department of Environmental Affairs
South Africa is playing a dangerous double game with rhinos and it’s time to ask why. The department doesn’t appear to have a clue how to save them from extinction. Last week the...
Reserve shoots roaming elephant, despite admitting its fences are not secure
Dinokeng Game Reserve's dominant elephant bull was recently shot as a ‘problem animal’ for breaking fences and escaping from the reserve, even though management admits that the...
DAFF ignores science, wastes public funds in appealing High Court Rock Lobster ruling
The Department of Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries (DAFF) plans to appeal the recent Western Cape High Court ruling against fishing quotas for West Coast Rock Lobster...
CITES lets world’s worst elephant poaching countries off the hook
Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, China, Thailand and the Philippines, some of the world's worst countries for poaching and illegal trade in ivory have been allowed to exit a key...
NSPCA heads for court to halt trade in lion skeletons
The NSPCA has made an urgent application to the Gauteng High Court which contains photographic evidence of alarming and persistent neglect by a game farmer in Alldays....
Has rhino poaching decreased, or are we running out of rhinos?
A strategic report on poaching just released by the Department of Environmental Affairs shows that fewer rhinos but more elephants are being killed. Of concern,...
Do test tube lions help conserve wild lions?
Lion experts dispute conservation value of test tube lions questioning whether this merely supports lion breeders’ claims that they contribute to the conservation of lions....
Botswana’s elephant poaching crisis under scrutiny
Reports of elephant poaching in Botswana are under the spotlight with various claims in national and international media that the current adverse situation is driven by...
Controversy over Skye the lion
THE controversy deepens around the death of a magnificent male lion in Umbabat Private Nature Reserve (PNR) as Parliament was given the wrong pictures last week, which may have...
Permitting authority shows Parliament photo of dead lion it claims is not famous pride male – but experts say it is
The authority that licensed the lion trophy hunt which became the focus of a parliamentary inquiry last week has been at pains to assure everyone it was not the pride male named...
Free captive-born Lammie the Elephant now: Experts’ plea to Joburg Zoo
While Lammie the elephant languishes alone since the recent death of her partner, Kinkel, elephant experts are calling for her release from Johannesburg Zoo to a sanctuary,...
Kruger Park gets grumpy over lion hunting and bad PR with it’s errant neighbour
It was in Umbabat that a lion was recently hunted and ended up being discussed in Parliament, following accusations that it was an under-age pride male and was baited illegally....
Welfare of SA’s ‘bone lions’ side lined by DEA, DAFF
Captive Bred Lions destined for canned hunting or slaughter for their bones are not protected by South Africa’s animal welfare laws. The Departments responsible for their welfare...
A nail in the coffin of the captive lion breeding industry?
There was an overwhelming consensus for the need to bring an end to the controversial captive lion breeding industry in South Africa at a two-day Parliamentary Colloquium of the...
Largest lion bone carrier, Singapore Airlines, stops cargo from South Africa
The largest airline exporter of lion bones from South Africa to Southeast Asia will no longer support SA’s bone trade from captive-bred big cats. Following a recent internal...
Captive lion breeding in Parliament’s sights amid global ‘outcry’
"MPs must be concerned when reputable conservation agencies turn their backs on SA and deplore its policies [regarding captive lion breeding],” said Mohlopi Mapulane, Portfolio...
Captive-breeding lion industry is killing Brand South Africa
Canned lion hunting and trading in lion skeletons is having ever-widening negative ramifications for Brand South Africa. More than 40 airlines are refusing to transport trophies,...
Skye is the Limit – The Kruger Lion Hunt Saga Continues
Outrage, secrecy, abomination, controversy, suspicion, and cat and mouse game, are some of the verbalisations around the events linked to the lion hunt in the Umbabat Private...
SA licenses leopard hunting
South Africa has opened hunting season on leopards after two years of grace. The Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) has given permission to shoot two leopards in...
OP-ED: Lion bones and predator farming – picking on the carcass of SA tourism
Predator breeding using lions and other species could cost South Africa over R54-billion over the next 10 years in loss of tourism brand attractiveness. This is according to a...
Kruger threatens to re-erect game fences over private reserves’ poor governance
A number of the private reserves in the Greater Kruger National Park appear to be violating the protocols and regulations that permitted them to drop fences with Kruger and hunt...
SA’s macabre captive lion breeding industry to be investigated by Parliament
South Africa's unregulated captive lion breeding industry will shortly be reviewed by the Portfolio Committee on Environmental Affairs in a two-day hearing open to the public....
Elephant poaching on the increase in Botswana
Last week, the carcass of a 40-year old elephant bull was found in Ngamiland, northern Botswana, partly covered with still green Mopane bushes and half of its skull hacked away...
Cheetah cub petting offered under the guise of conservation
At least 600 cheetahs are kept in captivity in South African tourism facilities, offering interactions and cub petting in the name of conservation and education. Do these...
Bribery in Namibia: Government forced community into silence
Dogged by allegations of bribery and unethical operators, a dodgy permitting system, and the contentious hunting of so-called ‘problem animals’ – Namibia’s hunting community has...
Time to end lion bone trade
A DAMNING report on South Africa’s lion bone trade has called for the end of the trade, a forensic investigation into the affairs of lion breeders and a restriction on the...
Dodgy skeleton traders and lion slaughterhouses exposed in damning report
The Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) has increased South Africa’s lion bone export quota from 800 to 1,500 a year, despite being aware that some skeletons are being...
African law is failing to protect its wildlife
Given the importance of wildlife in South Africa’s tourism industry and its international reputation, it may come as a surprise that the legal protection of wild animals in South...
Suspicious tender at heart of Zambian hippo culling scandal
The proposed hippo culling spree in Zambia’s world-renowned Luangwa Valley has a dodgy tender process at its core and appears to be an attempt by Zambian Government to cover...
Digging for the truth about Skye
The hunting of a lion in Umbabat Reserve alongside the Kruger National Park has been cloaked in secrecy ever since it was discovered. With the worldwide outcry at the killing of...
Outrage after Kruger lion baited and shot by trophy hunter in neighbouring reserve
An American is believed to have paid R1-million to bring down a Kruger Park lion from a pride beloved of tourists. On Friday a male lion was shot by a trophy hunter...
SA hunters to shoot 2000 Zambian hippos
South African hunters will take part in the slaughter of 2 000 hippos in the pristine Luangwa Valley in Zambia next month. This follows a shock move by the Zambian government,...
Lions in limbo at Free State abattoir while DEA and DAFF point fingers
Captive-bred lions at a recently exposed 'lion-abattoir' in the Free State are waiting for their fate to be decided as both the Departments of Environmental Affairs (DEA) and...
Urgent call to save parks in the North West
EMBATTLED North West Premier Supra Mahumapelo has set his sights on the wildlife reserves within the province, proposing a bill last week repealing the North West Parks Board...
East London Zoo plans to cage endangered Wild Dogs for ‘conservation’
The troubled East London Zoo’s plans to buy Wild Dogs as soon as a moratorium on purchasing animals at the zoo is lifted are facing criticism from conservationists. The Zoo is...
Endangered Species Day – What you need to know to help save SA’s natural heritage
HAVE WE FORGOTTEN THAT WILDERNESS IS NOT A PLACE BUT A SEASON AND THAT WE ARE IN ITS FINAL HOUR? – IAN MCCALLUM, WILDERNESS This Friday, 18...
Like the fossil fuel industry, trophy hunting is unsustainable
Trophy hunting is like the fossil fuel industry. They’re both messy, unsustainable, in need of an alternative approach and, ultimately, fail to deliver on their promises. ...
Two SA hunting organisations expelled over canned lion hunts
Lion cubs bred in captivity. Picture: Audrey Delsink Two South African hunting associations that embrace canned lion hunting have lost an appeal to retain their membership...
OPINION | How our lions are cruelly slaughtered – with government consent
It's been a bloody time for the South African canned lion industry. Last week‚ a lion 'abattoir' was exposed on a farm in the Free State‚ where close to 100 lions were...
#SaveRiffRaff: Here’s how you can help save the bull elephant in trouble
The life of an elephant bull in his prime is hanging in the balance as a tug of war ensues between private reserve owners and conservation groups. Riff Raff, a 40 year-old...
Tigers being bred in Gauteng backyards for petting and bone export
South Africa is one the world’s biggest exporters of endangered tigers, almost all of which end up as floor mats, wall hangings or skeletons submerged in vats of Asian tiger-bone...
The problem of an elephant that just wants to stay home
In Africa an elephant dies from a poacher’s bullet every 15 minutes. But in South Africa’s private reserves they’re breeding like bunnies and there’s trouble up ahead. The...
Captive cheetahs being exploited
The practice of breeding the animals in captivity as ‘ambassadors’ is doing the species more harm than good, Louise de Waal reports A WORRYING trend is emerging in South Africa...
Farewell to Sudan as another key species fades into extinction
In this photo taken on May 3 last year, a ranger takes care of Sudan, the world’s last male northern white rhino, at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Laikipia county in Kenya. Sudan...
Cash Before Conservation – A damning report on the commoditization of our lions
Criminal syndicates may use the legal trade in lion bones from our captive lion population, as a cover for illegal wildlife trade, reveals new report. A damning report titled...
Angola’s elephant population is declining despite 14 years of peace
More than 25 years of civil war in Angola between 1975-2002 not only took its toll on people, with huge losses of life and the displacement of millions of people, but it also...
Born Free Foundation: SA support for lion bones trade is damaging its image
The Department of Environmental Affairs has been slammed for allowing canned lion hunting and the export of lion bones without evidence that it has any scientific or conservation...
The second Giants Club Summit addresses the survival of our elephants
The second Giants Club Summit meets in Kasane over the next few days, uniting African leadership with global science, finance and influence to accelerate anti-poaching efforts,...
Op-Ed: Legal Eastern markets are gutting Africa’s wildlife – Traffic
Quite apart from the decimation of illegal poaching, legal export to Asian markets is tearing the wild heart out of Africa. Each year thousands of tonnes of live animals, bones,...
Is transformation only possible through a consumptive wildlife economy?
Parliamentary wildlife colloquium ignores benefits of non-consumptive wildlife utilisation as ecological sustainability is obscured by the increasing commodification of SA’s...
DA calls for urgent action in rhino poaching crisis
DA MP Ross Purdon tabled a parliamentary motion this week calling on government departments to revisit this national rhino poaching crisis with the urgency it deserves....
Australians crush ivory possessions to protest slaughter of elephants
"The only value ivory has is on a living elephant," said Karen Pomeranz as she handed in six 20-year-old napkin rings to be crushed. "I was never comfortable owning ivory items....
Op-Ed: Travellers of the wind and the curse of nurdles
This is the story about near-magical seabirds that criss-cross the globe, and small, lentil-sized blobs of plastic called nurdles. It is both astounding and worrying, writes DON...
After the death of a woman and a female elephant, Dinokeng Reserve has a lot to answer for
All is not well at the Dinokeng Game Reserve in Gauteng. As the reserve weathers the furious storm of criticism after a lion belonging to local owner Kevin Richardson killed...
Has the Department of Environmental Affairs condoned canned lion hunting?
Changes to Cites legislation in 2016 allowing South Africa to establish ‘annual export quotas for trade in bones, bone pieces, bone products, claws, skeletons, skulls and teeth...
East London Zoo plans to get more animals despite global petition to shut down
Cape Town - The East London Zoo has again come under fire for the poor care of its captive animals with experts saying the neglect has been going on for years. Despite these...
Unbanning US trophy imports: Trump jams a spanner in the works
In a surprising move, President Donald Trump has left-footed his own Department of Interior’s attempts to overturn former president Barack Obama’s ban on the import of wildlife...
Zimbabwe: Selling elephants to questionable Chinese destinations damages country’s tourism, say critics
By the time Zimbabwe’s new political winds of change reach its wildlife practices – the heart of its potential tourism industry – they appear to ebb to a light Chinese breeze. It...
Rhino Poaching Stats: Slight Decrease But still Far Too High
The small decrease in overall poaching in 2017 has been overshadowed by a growing concern for the increase and broadening of poaching elsewhere in South Africa as only 1 in 10...
Tourism heavyweights stop wildlife interactions at SA resort
All wildlife interactions, including walking-with-lions and cheetah petting at the Polokwane Ranch Resort has been stopped. Following an article highlighting the...
Confusion as Zimbabwe promises review of elephant exports amidst global condemnation
Cape Town - Three weeks after 31 young elephants were exported, presumedly to China, Zimbabwe’s office of the president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, announced the nation would...
Major SA hotel group continues to promote lion walks
Cape Town - Human-wildlife interactions with iconic big cats including lions, cheetahs and their cubs are being promoted via the Ranch Protea Hotel in Limpopo, owned by Marriott...
Elephant calves exported from Zimbabwe as China bans ivory trade
China has reportedly imported more than 30 wild caught elephant calves from Zimbabwe in a controversial if not cynical move which took place on the very day China banned the sale...
International concern over welfare of wild baby elephants in trade
Cape Town - Regulations governing the extensive trade in wild caught baby elephants require only that they are housed in suitably equipped facilities, in appropriate and...
Op-Ed: Hunters and predator breeders take aim at Star journalist
The South African Predator Association (SAPA) – whose members breed for hunting, among other creatures, what it terms “managed ranch lions” – has set its cross-hairs on another...
Trophy Hunting: US pro-hunting lobby moves to legitimise the ‘sport’ of a wealthy elite
US policy on trophy hunting has descended into a confusion of mixed messages following a tweet by President Donald Trump that it’s a “horror show”. This coincided with an...
Uproar among professional hunters as some continue to embrace canned lion hunting
A split in the ranks as some professional hunters still side for canned lion hunting and the debate continues in South Africa. “Canned hunting is fake hunting for people who...
African Elephant Coalition renews call for global ivory trade ban
European and American conservation leaders today called on governments worldwide to support requests from African nations to end all trade in elephant ivory to safeguard the...
US conservation groups sue over Lion and Elephant trophy import confusion
Two major US conservation NGOs are suing the Trump administration for allowing American hunters to import elephant and lion trophies from Zimbabwe and Zambia. Two major US...
Trump halts lifting of import ban on elephant trophies following global outcry
US President Donald Trump and his Department of Interior Affairs Secretary, Ryan Zinke, have halted the reversal of a ban on importation of elephant hunt trophies...
Rhinos and elephants: Australia does what South Africa won’t
Australian MP Jason Wood, who introduced the motion last month, says an Australian domestic trade ban “is about stopping illegal poaching and illegal trading in elephant ivory...
Young elephants fleeing Mozambique poachers shot on SA farm
Two young elephants were shot in the Komatipoort region close to the Kruger National Park after their herd was reportedly terrorized by poachers across the Mozambican border....
Elephant cake wins ‘Cake Oscar’
SA master baker has won an international 2017 Cake Master Awards for her life-size elephant and calf cake South African master baker Dot Klerck has won the Best Showpiece award...
Alarm at seabed destruction from SA phosphate mining
If you imagine fish as birds of the ocean, they fly through forests and over fields which grow in the rich soil of the continental shelf. Just as on land, it’s Earth teeming with...
Criminal charges sought for R183 million game donation
Parliament’s Environment Committee has called for criminal charges against top North West officials following a R183m (€11,1m) donation of rare wildlife species to ‘politically...
Op-Ed: Did Oxford University researchers sanction hunting of Cecil the lion and his son, Xanda?
When thousands of people donated nearly R20-million to the Oxford University Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) after the killing of Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe, their...
Op-Ed: The hunting forum you didn’t know existed
The South African government has formed an alliance with organisations which kill wildlife for gain to the exclusion of those who wish to protect it. By JANINE AVERY. In 2005 the...
Too soon to celebrate: Elephant poaching declining, but populations in Africa still plummeting
A report from the Convention in the Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) shows that in 2016, the overall trend of elephant poaching in Africa has declined. However,...
The plight of baby elephants in Zimbabwe
The cruelty of the capture of baby elephants from their families in the wild has been revealed in disturbing photos and videos secretly taken in Zimbabwe last month, writes Adam...
Namibian Tourism Ministry brushes off questionable killing of desert elephants
Two of the only five remaining mature desert elephant bulls that occupied the Ugab region of Namibia have recently been hunted and killed. Tsaurab and Tusky, along with another...
West Coast phosphate mine interdicted to stop drawing fossil water
A dodgy phosphate operation mining bordering the West Coast National Park and near the environmentally sensitive Langebaan Lagoon has been slapped with an interdict to stop it...
Emissions from Eskom and Sasol killing Highveld residents – report
People on the Highveld are dying prematurely and suffering from respiratory and cardiac illnesses because of the government’s controversial non-enforcement of minimum emission...
Elephants and mango crops saved in difficult rescue near Kruger
Cape Town - Three bull elephants were saved from being shot and further damage to mango orchards averted after the bulls broke through the fences of a game reserve bordering the...
Australia and New Zealand – Letting Elephant and Rhino Down
With a lack of appropriate enforcement tools at the border and unregulated domestic markets, if you manage to get your ivory or rhino horn into New Zealand or Australia, you are...
R100m North West game donation illegal as Agriculture MEC told to pay repatriation costs
Cape Town - Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Environmental Affairs has slammed the donation by the North West Province of wild animals worth over R100-million’s to private...
Captive elephant industry fails to ride wave of change
126 captive elephants in 26 facilities. All used for human entertainment of which 14 facilities offer elephant back riding and only a handful of facilities show signs of...
Namibia’s desert elephants back on the butcher’s block
Three of Namibia's iconic desert elephants have become moving targets after the Ministry of Environment & Tourism (MET) earlier this month approved permits to hunt them. The...
Eco-scamming: Making a killing on kindness
While many good people and fine organisations raise public funds to support conservation, there are others who use conservation issues to raise money for themselves. The...
Pressure mounting to ban wild animal interactions in SA
The walls are closing in on animal interaction operators in South Africa as international tourism role-players distance themselves from unethical wildlife experiences....
First Legal Rhino Horn auction scheduled in South Africa
With the Department of Environmental Affairs stalling the first legal rhino horn auction actually happening remains to be seen. Update August 30th: On August 20th the DEA did...
The Morality of Octopus Hunting in False Bay
Are we taking an environmental risk for Japanese sushi? This is a story about a filmmaker, a fisherman, certain government officials and one of the most intelligent animals on...
Lion trophy hunting: The death of Xanda in Zimbabwe
The death of Cecil’s son, Xanda at the hands of trophy hunters on 7 July is mired in confusion. He was shot just outside Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, near the spot his father...
Molewa outlines plans to sell rhino horn and wildlife
OPINION: Rhino - a commodity for sale? South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs is increasingly seeing wildlife as a commodity to be marketed rather than protected and...
Op-Ed: Time to rethink leopard hunting norms?
“Our primary mandate is to protect these animals (leopards) so that we don’t open them up to a situation where they will be hunted and where they will perish,” said Mr P...
Big cats worldwide threatened by SA lion bone trade
Cape Town - Asian demand for tiger wine and other products is creating a crisis for big cats across the world, according to a study just released by the Environmental...
Op-Ed: Where are the rhino poaching stats?
Rhino poaching might be on the decrease, elephant poaching is on the rise, but without up to date poaching figures from the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA), how do we...
Op-Ed: Molewa’s lion bone quota sends the wrong conservation message
The Minister of Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa, has permitted an annual sale of 800 skeletons of captive-bred lions. Conservation organisations say the quota has been...
Don’t get us wrong about rhinos says Environmental Affairs
Author: Don Pinnock The DEA is concerned that we’re getting it wrong about the legalization of domestic rhino horn trade. But it is they who are getting it wrong about the...
Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife in turmoil after political interference
Durban - How did a 27 year-old ANC Youth League official and an army sports instructor - both with limited work skills and experience - end up as nature conservation...
SA ignores outcry and gives go ahead to sell 800 lion skeletons to Asia
Cape Town - The South African Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) has blatantly ignored public opinion by formally approving the export of 800 lion skeletons to Asia this...
Op-Ed: Tough choices ahead for Kruger National Park
What is the purpose of national parks in modern South Africa and where will the money come from to protect and sustain them? asks TONY CARNIE. What will South Africa’s national...
More elephants poisoned in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park
More than 14 elephants, including a mother and her young calf, have been poisoned in and around Zimbabwe’s premier game reserve, Hwange National Park. Most of the poisoned...
World outrage at planned export of baby elephants from Namibia
Permission granted by the Namibian government to a game farm owned by a Swedish national to capture and export to Dubai five wild young elephants has raised a storm among...
Bushmeat hunting threatens tourism in Botswana’s Okavango Delta
The threat posed by illegal bushmeat hunting to the Okavango Delta‘s tourism industry in Botswana has been exposed in a recently published report. Botswana is not normally...
Alarm over ‘new gag’ on elephant poaching stats
First there was a clampdown on rhino poaching statistics. Now the same is happening with information on elephant ivory poaching. SA National Parks has refused to provide...
Namibia flouts elephant export laws
Namibia’s environmental authorities confirm that they have issued the necessary CITES (Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species) export permit for the sale of...
How SA can lose the second rhino war
As South Africa continues to lose rhinos in the poaching war, it seems that the government is failing those fighting it. Although there has been some success in protecting rhinos...
Rescued elephant calf thriving in new herd
AN orphaned baby elephant has been fully accepted into a semi-wild elephant herd at Camp Jabulani outside Hoedspruit in a rare success story. The baby elephant, Timisa, which...
Hwange lion killings ‘undermine conservation efforts’
Cape Town - Two endangered lionesses have been killed after being lured out of Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe to a hunting trap set up using meat from a cow...
Mpumalanga tightens up on trophy elephant hunts
Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency (MTPA) has confirmed that it will not issue permits to hunt trophy elephants with unlimited tusk weights. In a surprise development MTPA...
Poaching and budget crises spur dehorning move in Africa’s “rhino conservation cradle”
Cape Town - It would have been unthinkable just a few years ago that rhinos would be dehorned for their own protection in a park as large and famous as the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi...
Botswana Budget Cuts Imperil Anti-Poaching
Botswana's world acclaimed anti-poaching success story is being threatened by budget cuts that have forced the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) to curtail patrols...
Last of the big tuskers in danger (South Africa)
VERY few tourists will have the privilege of seeing a real tusker in Africa’s game reserves today. Historically, a tusker was defined as an elephant with tusks each weighing at...
Dear Simon Espley: Let’s talk elephants and fake reporting
Photo: Elephants in Timbavati Game Reserve, 2 Jan 2013. Photo by Maureen Barlin via Flickr In response to “insults” from Simon Espley, DON PINNOCK responds that his article on...
New trade ruling spells end for rhinos say conservationists
With the Sumatran rhino officially extinct in the wild, are South Africa’s rhino doomed to the same fate? With the Sumatran rhino officially extinct in the wild, are South...
SA animal welfare groups devastated after 15-year Lotto lifeline cut off
Cape Town - Animal welfare organisations are reeling from an unexpected announcement that they will no longer receive funding from by the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) - a...
Leopards in the crossfire: Trophy hunting and the 7 year rule
Cape Town - If cats do have nine lives, leopards are on their last. Especially the big, strong males of the species as the DEA seems set on reintroducing leopard trophy hunting...
More questions than answers as Kruger park continues shooting buffalo
Confused explanations at a public meeting in Skukuza on Saturday are concerning stakeholders as the Kruger National Park forges ahead with its program of shooting buffalo as part...
Timbavati risks tourist backlash to hunt a super tusker
Main photo: There are only about 25 to 30 super tuskers in the world and all in Africa. (Don Pinnock) Synecdoce is an interesting but seldom used word of Greek origin which means...
Rhino sale bombshell hidden in new draft regulations
Photo by Steve Evans via Flickr. The public has until March 10 to respond to draft regulations by the South African Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) which seek to...
We can sell rhino horn, says Minister Molewa
File picture Parliament - According to the Department of Environmental Affairs, the time has come to sell rhino horn. Speaking in a Parliamentary portfolio committee on Tuesday,...
Government delays announcement of rhino poaching stats
The fate of South Africa’s rhinos continue to hang in the balance as the South African government dithers over releasing rhino poaching statistics. Three times in as many...
South Africa opens the door to the sale of wildlife parts
Photo by Don Pinnock. There’s a thin line between the marketing of, and the genuine conservation of, wildlife. In the past few weeks that line was definitively crossed by the...
Permission to drink a lion
There is something extremely bizarre about drinking a lion. But maybe in this world of post-truth it’s a new normal. After all, the cruelty we do to creatures in factory farms...
Marine experts say decision could wipe out SA’s fish stocks
SA’s top marine scientists are shocked by the Environmental Department’s (DEA) recent decision to allow fishing in the Tsitsikamma Marine Protected Area (MPA) and have announced...
Lion bones: SA public has no time to contest sale
South Africa is about to permit the export of lion bones to produce fake tiger wine but has given the public almost no time to object. The permit will allow an annual export of...
SA’s plan to export 800 lion skeletons ‘misguided and shameful’
Cape Town - In a move clearly supporting the canned lion hunting industry, the South African Government plans to permit the annual export of 800 lion skeletons to manufacturers...
Beyond the China ivory ban
The recent announcement by the central government of China to ban all domestic ivory trade and processing by the end of 2017 offers a glimmer of real optimism in the fight...
Constitutional Court Breakthrough for Animal Welfare
A new Concourt ruling recognises the intrinsic value of animals and allows NSPCA to prosecute. Melissa Reitz In a land mark move for animal welfare in South Africa the...
573 dead jackals in search of a reason
Main photo: Jackal cull in Karoo 2012. It may be a story of extreme cruelty in the name of science. It may also be about fraud. You be the judge, writes DON PINNOCK. This story...
Governments are not doing enough to stop wildlife crime
A scathing new report shows that key countries affected by wildlife crime have failed to halt poaching and illegal trafficking of endangered animals as a result of widespread...
Namibians challenge Chinese over wildlife crime
Outrage at the looting of Africa’s wildlife and environmental destruction by Chinese nationals boiled over in Namibia last month in a strongly worded letter of protest to the...
North West Province ducks R100m game donation questions
Parliament is struggling to get answers out of the North West province’s Department of Rural, Environmental and Agricultural Development about a suspicious “donation” of 130...
Trophy Hunting: unethical Namibian hunters to blame for poor image
Hunters who engage in unethical and illegal practices are largely to blame for the decline in the “overall acceptance” of trophy hunting by the general public and influential...
Botswana bans elephant-back rides
According to the NGO World Animal Protection, most tourists go on elephant rides because they love elephants. They don’t know about the intense physical and psychological pain...
Elephant Dawn: The high cost of hanging out with elephants
How could you tell males from females? Were the elephants left-tusked or right-tusked? Who were the matriarchs? Who belonged to which family? How did they communicate? Would she...
South African arrested in Mozambique’s Limpopo National Park on poaching charge
A South African, Pieter Jansen van Rensberg, has been arrested on a charge of poaching inside the protected buffer zone of the Mozambique’s Parque Nacional de Limpopo (PNL),...
Brian Boswell Circus fights laws that protect elephants
Circus owner, Brian Boswell, is challenging the legality of elephant protection laws after his attempt to sell African elephants to a zoo in the United Arab Emirates was blocked...
Elephant ambassador ‘Charlie’ felled by poachers’ gun
Tracking collars and sophisticated telemetry are a good way to see where wild elephants roam. They can also lead to grisly discoveries about where they die. The world-famous...
Brutal methods for dealing with troublesome wildlife
Draft legislation proposes cruel and unethical methods for dealing with problem wild animals, including the use of poison, hunting dogs, gin traps as well as extermination in...
World Cheetah Day – Spare a thought for the world’s fastest cat
People around the world celebrate cheetahs annually on 4 December. These beautiful animals have paced and graced human existence for thousands of years. There are not many of...
Botswana resolute under fire from EU and SADC Hunters
Tshekedi Khama,Botswana Minister of Natural Resources and Environment says his country is under unprecedented pressure from the pro-hunting lobby in the European Union and...
Problems with trophy hunting in Zimbabwe exposed
Trophy hunting in Zimbabwe’s Matetsi Safari Area is not sustainable at current levels as trophy sizes are declining, there is little scientific data supporting quota sizes and...
NW Province snubs Parliament – Ignores call to account for R100million wildlife ‘donation’
A row is brewing in Parliament over a donation of 150 buffaloes, 50 rhinos and 50 sable antelopes worth R100-million to politically connected private individuals in North West...
Elephants and local people both benefit from ecotourism
Credit: pexels.com New research shows that elephant numbers increase when more ecotourists visit the areas with elephant populations. This is in stark...
The struggle over Japan’s ivory market
Japan has ensured the continued existence of its deeply flawed internal ivory market through sly diplomacy at the CITES conference in Johannesburg. However, reports in the...
Ten spotted Hyenas saved from illegal export to China
Ten hyenas that were seized by customs authorities at the Harare Airport from a Chinese businessman as he tried to smuggle them out have been returned to Hwange National Park. In...
Wild apes traded in CITES false permit scam
CITES corruption killing Africa's apes Africa's wild apes are being illegally exported to China using fraudulent permits from the Convention in International Trade in Endangered...
Ivory: When is a ban not a ban?
The failure to effectively shut down domestic ivory markets at the recent COP17 in Johannesburg leaves the ban on international ivory trade as little more than an ineffective...
US bans canned lion trophy imports from South Africa
Because South Africa was unable to demonstrate the conservation value of canned lion hunting, the United States last week banned the import of all trophies from captive lion...
Giving right of way to elephants
Some cities have good bicycle lanes, some towns have excellent footpaths, but Kasane in Botswana has well-stomped elephant corridors. Of course they’re also used by warthogs,...
Mass poisoning in Limpopo National Park
Johannesburg - The ongoing Asian demand for lion bones has led to an horrific wildlife poisoning in the Limpopo National Park, just over the Mozambican border from Kruger Park....
Wildlife under threat from legal trade in Southern Africa
Photo: ©conservationaction.co.za Southern Africa is losing protected wild plants and animals at an alarming rate. Between 2005 and 2014, around 18,000 individual species worth...
The Captive Lion Industry: A Sustainability Scam?
The notion of 'sustainability' has become the most overused and consequently meaningless phrase within conservation and wildlife circles. Used in equal measure by those...
Do or die – deciding the pangolin’s fate at CoP17
September 28th 2016 will be remembered by many delegates attending CITES CoP17 as a bitter-sweet day for pangolins – an ancient species that has earned the unfortunate label of...
Exposed: The Dirty Secrets of Japan’s Illegal Ivory Trade
Cape Town - New evidence of Japan’s failure to control illegal ivory trading at a time when Africa’s elephants face extinction is revealed in a damning report just released. The...
Op-Ed: Namibia ducks elephant census
Photo: Namibian elephants (Eric Bauer via Flickr) The results of the most comprehensive survey of African elephants ever undertaken – the Great Elephant Census (GEC) announced...
Meet Charlie Elephant
We first spotted Charlie from about 700 foot up over the arid Mozambique savannah and it was love at fist sight… A majestic African elephant bull, approaching his...
The Battle over Ivory
The future of Africa’s elephants may be decided in Johannesburg at the end of this month. When delegates from around the globe arrive at the 17th meeting of the Conference of the...
What can we expect from SA at CoP 17?
As the countdown begins to the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP17) for CITES, which commences in Johannesburg on 24 September, conservationists question the...
Kruger animals becoming meat for starving neighbours
This is a story about too much hippo poo in the Kruger National Park, hungry neighbours and rain that just won’t fall. It’s also about culling, but the park doesn’t like the word...
SA told to end canned lion hunting
© iafrica.com A motion to terminate the hunting and breeding of captive lions and other predators in South Africa has been approved by the IUCN World Conservation Congress...
Poachers kill 26 elephants in Chobe National Park
At least 26 elephants, their faces hacked off and their tusks removed, lay in congealing blood on Botswana’s Chobe National Park floodplain. Poachers had killed them within sight...
Counting Africa’s beleaguered elephants: Massive two-year census finds alarming declines
The largest wildlife survey ever taken has delivered alarming data for the ongoing survival of elephants. The results should be taken as a major wake-up call. By DON PINNOCK. To...
SA White Shark Numbers Plummet
SA white sharks numbers dropping A proper review of deterrents is needed to keep the species alive, writes Melissa Reitz Recent results of a population count of great white...
Sustainable utilisation of wildlife not so sustainable
A comprehensive new review of the threats facing global biodiversity indicates that a popular approach to saving the planet’s wild animals from extinction may be fatally flawed....
World Elephant Day sees worldwide call to burn ivory stockpiles
Hard to image that presently fewer than half a million elephants are left in Africa. This is the reality World Elephant Day, held annually on 12 August, aims to highlight. In...
Why burn Ivory?
The South African government refuses to destroy its ivory stockpile unlike the 25 other countries that have publically destroyed tonnes of ivory to highlight that ivory should...
Knysna Elephant Park will be prosecuted
Knysna Elephant Park owners will face charges for animal cruelty despite an initial decision to decline prosecution The NSPCA has announced that the National Director of Public...
Poaching upsurge pushes pangolin closer to extinction
Despite the arrests and long-term sentences passed on several Zimbabwean pangolin capturers, dealers and traffickers over the past year, conservationists believe the increased...
A look at Nambia’s rhino horn syndicates
It is not hard to spot the successful rhino poachers in Okahao: at a time when everyone else in Namibia was suffering the effects of a crippling, four-year-long drought, they...
How many elephants are there?
After pangolins, elephants are the most poached animals in Africa. But to get to grips with the implications, we need to know how many there are now, were once and will be in the...
Ivory sales: Fast-track to elephant extinction?
South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia are seeking to overturn a UN ban on ivory trade. If they succeed, it could spell the end for elephants. A United Nations ban on the...
Is SA’s predator breeding industry out of control?
A social media storm expressing public outrage at recent photos of starving lions and video footage of a disastrous wild dog introduction, taken at a farm owned by Walter...
Horns of a Dilemma: Mozambique poaching enriching North Korea’s leadership
The fatal breach in South Africa’s defence against rhino poaching in the Kruger National Park is Mozambique – and corrupt diplomats are continually widening it. According to a...
SA wants to resume trade in Ivory
A working document requesting commercial exports of ivory will be submitted at the next Conference of the Parties (CoP17) of CITES (the Convention on International...
COP17 ivory trade proposal at risk of repeating 2008 mistake – study
On Heritage Day this year South Africa will be hosting the 17th meeting of the CITES Conference of the Parties (CoP) in Johannesburg which will address the international legal...
Trade rings death knell for Africa’s elephant
A paper published last week by the National Bureau of Economic Research in the U.S.A. holds unequivocally that permitting a legal trade in some wildlife species will be those...
Calling out Ivo Vegter’s fractious fulminations
Ivo Vegter passes himself off as an environmental journalist, but consistently backs the right of those with money and power to destroy the environment. I have no other choice...
South Africa and Kenya Seek Consensus on Ivory Trade
South Africa and Kenya will hold talks with other African countries to find a common position on ivory trade ahead of the 17th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on...
Elephant corridors essential for the species and environment
Madikwe Game Reserve is becoming congested and a 75-kilometre corridor is the solution – if only bureaucracy can get out of the way. Whenever a reserve finds it has too many...
SA’s elephant industry under pressure to end elephant rides
A growing number of international tour companies refusing to promote elephant riding is putting South Africa’s elephant back safari industry under pressure to pack in the...
Finding refuge: The untapped potential of Mozambique’s Banhine and Zinave
When researcher Kristoffer Everatt spotted a movement in the grass while conducting field work in Banhine National Park in Mozambique in July 2015, he wasn’t sure what it was....
South Africa Conviction Rate ‘Pitiful’ for Rhino Crimes?
When it comes to statistics, the devil is always in the detail – or in the spin, when it come to politics. The fight against rhino poaching is no exception. On the 8th of May,...
Reserves say it’s fair game to cover costs
Trophy hunters legally shoot wild animals that move from Kruger on to some private reserves, but the Game Theft Act has muddied the waters. Who owns South Africa’s wild animals?...
Captive breeding must end – tour companies
After the international outrage at the cynical killing of Cecil the Lion last year, and the unethical practices exposed in the film Blood Lions - which blew the lid off...
Swaziland accuses SA of backtracking on rhino horn trade
Swaziland conservation authorities have accused South Africa of reneging on an agreement to propose the legalization of rhino horn trade, which draws into question South Africa’s...
Saving Elephants: It’s Not Just About Burning Ivory
Kenya will burn 105 tons of ivory on Saturday 30 April – the largest destruction of ivory in Africa’s history and seven times the size of any ivory stockpile destroyed so far....
Anti-poaching lessons from Tanzania
As the world's largest planned burn of ivory is set to make a massive anti-poaching statementin Kenya on Saturday 30 April, we take a look at a multi-pronged Tanzanian project...
How intelligent law enforcement in Tanzania is saving elephants
The scale of the elephant poaching problem is immense. The global crisis is now well documented, with an estimated 30,000 to 35,000 African elephants being illegally killed...
What is the Real Reason Behind Bubye’s Proposed Lion Cull?
Recent reports say that one of Zimbabwe’s largest private wildlife areas, Bubye Valley Conservancy, is suffering from an overpopulation of lions. The conservancy has more than...
Renewed calls for Yahoo! to ban ivory sales
32 international environmental organisations have appealed to the world’s largest internet ivory seller – Yahoo! Japan, and its major Shareholder SoftBank, to halt all elephant...
Will SA legalise rhino horn trade?
This week, investigative journalist and author Julian Rademeyer revealed that the decision to submit a rhino horn trade proposal to the Convention on International Trade in...
Rhino hunting is not compatible with conservation
South Africa’s official approach to rhino conservation involves a contradiction. While calling for the protection of rhinos as a species, it promotes their use as a resource to...
Will Kruger’s drought policy affect its elephant population?
The ongoing drought is taking its toll on South Africa’s wildlife. In the Kruger National Park, questions have been raised about the possible impact that a potential re-opening...
Swaziland elelephants exported in contempt of US court injunction
The elephants were flown out in defiance of a US court order temporarily freezing the import pending the submission of veterinary statements on the elephants’ physical condition...
Markets of Death, Part Three: How China’s taste for wildlife feeds a killing frenzy
Africa’s extraordinary and charismatic wildlife is clearly under siege from the wrecking ball of Chinese demand. Heading the list of critically damaged species are elephants. As...
Justice system in the crosshairs as alleged rhino poaching kingpin goes to court
While poaching in KwaZulu-Natal is in fast forward, the prosecutorial system in some areas appears to have gone into reverse. Many of the worrying poaching cases are linked to a...
Markets of Death, Part Two: Blood Permits – how cheating officials undermine wildlife regulations
Poachers aren’t the only problem when it comes to wildlife trafficking. Also complicit are the very institutions and rules designed to protect animals, and the people that are...
Saving a little elephant
Elephants Alive received the call at lunchtime on Tuesday, 16 February 2016. An elephant calf had become trapped in a dam at Phalaborwa Copper, Limpopo. The Elephants Alive team...
Elephants Alive called into action as two Kruger elephants go astray
Two elephants have been rescued instead of put down after breaking out of the Balule Private Reserve, bordering Kruger National Park, on Wednesday, 10 February. The two young...
Do the realities of wildlife farming in SA outweigh the good for conservation?
An 18-month national study on the wildlife ranching sector of South Africa by the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), an NGO that protects southern Africa's threatened wildlife...
Markets of Death, Part One: The Asian end of a grisly business
China’s desire for exotic animals, tastes and products will probably push wild elephants, rhinos, pangolins and many other species to extinction within the next 10 to 15 years....
‘Rhino poaching is a crisis of governance,’ says wildlife expert
Wildlife poaching and Illegal Wildlife Trade in Africa is not merely a calamity for animal populations, but has become a serious threat to governance in countries in which it...
Confrontation over Tsitsikamma fishing rights
Community anglers are threatening tourist safety if fishing rights are not granted, spurring the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) on in opening up parts of the...
Ultimate Hunters Market: Will this giant hunting auction benefit African wildlife?
Does trophy hunting support wildlife conservation in Africa? The world’s most influential hunters’ association would like you to think so. The annual convention of the Safari...
US ignores scientific opinion and approves import of Swazi elephants to US zoos
Despite worldwide opposition, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has approved permits to import 18 wild elephants from Swaziland to three US zoos. Conservationists, scientists and...
Rhino Poaching in South Africa Declining, But Still Too Soon to Celebrate
South Africa has announced its first decrease in rhino poaching since 2007: “We are pleased to announce that for the first time in a decade the poaching situation in South Africa...
SA opposes burning of ivory stockpiles
South Africa opposed a resolution that lauded CITES for supporting the destruction of government stockpiles of ivory seized from poachers and traffickers. It asserted that CITES...
Cites reluctant to turn the screws on ivory world’s deadbeat nations – analysis
THE EU has recommended that the conservation treaty organisation Cites enforce an immediate suspension of trade for Angola, Laos and Nigeria. This comes after the three countries...
Tsitsikama Marine Protected Area opened to fishing
Attempt by marine scientists to reverse SANParks permission to fish in the sensitive MPA has been blocked by a High Court judge An application to halt a pilot period for...
New president takes tough action on corruption – is this the turning point for Tanzania’s remaining elephants?
Tanzania's new president, John Magufuli, won the presidential election on the ticket he would take tough action on corruption. A month after taking office it seems he been making...
Carnage! The Business of Killing Elephants
In a powerful and poignant edition of HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel called Blood Ivory to be aired on Tuesday November 24th, has correspondent David Scott not only...
SA Chinese leaders against illegal wildlife trade
Chinese business leaders from the region and experts on China-Africa relations pledged their full support on Monday for intensified efforts to combat the illegal wildlife trade....
SA Scientists slam Swazi Elephant Export
In a statement published this week South Africa’s Elephant Specialist Advisory Group (ESAG) says that the export of the elephants, three adult females and fifteen sub-adults to...
Trophy hunting stronghold on Africa’s wildlife seeping across to SA
The world's wealthiest hunting organization, Safari Club International (SCI) and professional hunting groups, met behind closed doors with the South African Department of...
Export of Swaziland Elephants to US ZOOS : Saving Lives or Making Money
Despite strong opposition and a variety of alternatives, Swaziland’s Big Game Parks appears resolute in its decision to export elephants to US zoos, in what seems to be a...
DEA and US hunting bigwigs ‘plotting’ the future of SA’s wildlife
Cape Town - American hunters and SA’s Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) are meeting behind closed doors at a resort near Polokwane on Tuesday to plan the future use of...
Other options for Swaziland elephants
While pressure mounts against Swaziland’s Big Game Parks’ (BGP) intended export of 18 elephants to zoos in the U.S.A., US Government documents show that the elephants are fenced...
Ignorance is greatest threat to survival of great white shark
Humans are almost never the victims of great white sharks, but great whites are always the victims of our mythology about them. And that mythology is doing damage to their...
Hunters: Killers or saviours?
The oft asked question is: are trophy hunters protectors of biodiversity or are they heartless killers of defenceless wild animals? To make any headway with this question, we...
Swaziland Elephant Export Ignores Alternatives
Controversial plans are progressing to export 18 elephants from Swaziland to US zoos, apparently without proper consideration of relocating them to other reserves in...
Leopard hunting: Restricted but not banned
Leopards are in trouble. But how much is hard to tell. For hundreds of years they were classed as vermin. Today we don’t know how many have survived the guns – they’re elusive...
Proof Trophy Hunters Don’t Save A Single Animal
Are trophy hunters protectors of biodiversity, as hunting associations and some conservationists claim, providing funds and a reason to protect wild areas? Or are they heartless...
Elephant export plan damages Swaziland’s wildlife reputation
With severe drought in Swaziland, US zoos are yet again taking the opportunity to import elephants and 18 wild born elephants have been earmarked for a life of captivity .They...
Driven hunt organizer implicated in land deal irregularities
The playgrounds of trigger-happy trophy hunters are far removed from the fertile fruit farms of the Western Cape and Eastern Cape. But a recent television expose of driven...
Travel conference shirks SA lion film
Travel conference organisers have decided not to screen a documentary that raises critical questions about key tourist attractions that their event promotes. Local delegates to...
ZIMBABWE FAILS TO PUNISH CECIL’S KILLERS
Zimbabwe has all but let Cecil’s killers off the hook as Mugabe’s wife says hunter did nothing wrong. "I say the dentist who killed the lion must be left alone," said Mrs Mugabe,...
Petted cheetahs are biting back
Keeping cheetahs as tourist attractions is widespread in South Africa. But, as a number of attacks have proved, they’re far less tame than ‘cheetah experience’ establishments...
SA lags behind in responsible tourism
The report by the NSPCA on the welfare status of elephants in captivity at 26 elephant back safari and sanctuary facilities nationwide (14 of which offer elephant back riding)...
‘Mak’ jagluiperd is g’n troetel-cheetah
Talle jagluiperds word oor die land heen as toeristetrekpleister aangehou. Maar die getal aanvalle wat voorkom, wys hulle is minder mak as wat hierdie ‘cheetah-ervaring’-plekke...
KZN Cheetah petting park closed to visitors after attacks
Following attacks on a child and two women by cheetahs at KwaCheetah ‘petting park’ in KwaZulu-Natal, Ezemvelo authorities this week suspended all non-staff access to the...
Hunters Bagged 10,000 Lions in Africa Since 2003, Trophy Data Show
Given that in Africa wild lions are in catastrophic decline–the latest International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) figures suggest that fewer than 20,000 remain–it...
Op-Ed: Is trophy hunting really sustainable?
Throughout history, human beings have killed wild animals to defend, avenge, profit or feed themselves. They still do. But there are a few who kill for another reason: pleasure....
Public outcry draws a bead on trophy hunting
The death of Cecil the Hwange lion and a new documentary film have catalyzed a worldwide rethink on trophy hunting. By Don Pinnock Deep in the ancient part of our brains is a...
How to Save Elephants: Obliterate Ivory Stockpiles Simultaneously
To save African elephants from extinction, “range states should put their ivory stockpiles beyond commercial use immediately and simultaneously,” says South African economist...
World Elephant Day: Study calls for domestic trade bans and projects to cut demand for ivory
If you want to save elephants, don’t legalise the international trade in ivory. That’s the message of a major research paper published to coincide with World Elephant Day on...
KZN pupil attacked by cheetah at petting park
A child from Cowan House Preparatory School in KwaZulu-Natal was on Thursday bitten on the shoulder by a cheetah at the KwaCheetah Breeding Project in the Nambiti Private Game...
Trophy hunting fuels Asian lion bone trade
New research suggests things are getting worse for South Africa’s declining wild lion population as the trophy hunting industry is boosting the Asian trade in lion bones. Tiger...
Zimbabwe says Cecil the Lion hunt was definitely illegal
Parks Authority believes that the use of a bow and an arrow “was meant to conceal the illegal hunt by using a means that would not alert the rangers on patrol.” Bow and arrow...
Illegal kill of Cecil the lion sparks worldwide call for trophy hunting ban
Cape Town - The face of Cecil the lion was projected on the Empire State building over the weekend - just one of the protest action movements sparked by the infamous trophy hunt...
Double controversy hits Southern Africa’s trophy hunting industry
In the past week Southern Africa’s lucrative trophy hunting industry received two devastating blows: the release of an explosive new documentary detailing the unsavoury practices...
Professional hunters to reconsider lion hunting policy
In an unprecedented move, the Professional Hunters' Association of South Africa (PHASA) has been told that its "position on lion hunting is no longer tenable". In an email sent...
Emergency declared as elephant poached
Johannesburg - An emergency was declared as the first elephant was poached on the western border of Kruger National Park. Each day in Africa around 100 elephants die at the hands...
SA doccie reveals the shocking truth behind lion breeding
Durban - Blood Lions, a new documentary film delivers a damning verdict on the rapidly growing South African industry that breeds, hunts and trades lions in captivity. Blood...
Unsavoury practices in canned hunting industry prompt government concern
Government appears intent on reforming and sanitising the business of breeding and hunting lions. Critics want to see it dismantled altogether Minister Edna Molewa has just met...
Rhino horn trade central to draft government policy
A legal trade in rhino horns lies at the heart of a proposed new government policy for the conservation of white rhinos in South Africa, despite the fact that an official...
Sport hunters kill Zim’s best known lion
Wildlife enthusiasts say Cecil, possibly Hwanges’s largest lion, was a favourite among visitors to Zimbabwe’s premier national park as he was extremely relaxed around safari...
Congolese ivory kingpin wriggles out of yet another arrest
The video is shaky having been secretly captured. But the image of the table full of polished ivory artifacts and the merchant sitting behind them is clear. “How much?” asks the...