Tony Weaver has defended Botswana’s decision to reintroduce trophy hunting. Personally, he doesn’t ‘quite understand what motivates hunters’, but intellectually, he fully...
The African Penguin is in serious trouble. Its population has fallen by more than 95% over the last century and, despite ongoing conservation efforts, its numbers...
A new report by global NGO, World Animal Protection, provides a damning indictment on the captive predator breeding industry. Big cats are being bred for the use of...
Pangolin numbers are dwindling at alarming rates – in South Africa and across the globe – and the future appears bleak for these small, relatively unknown creatures. On...
Botswana has a growing population of humans and cattle, not elephants. Outside protected areas, desertification caused by cattle over-grazing too often gets ignored. Hunting will...
The hunting of Voortrekker, an iconic Namibian desert elephant, for just R120 000 has sparked the debate on whether Namibia's wildlife is thriving or flailing. A recent...
Despite mounting evidence that elephants find captivity torturous, some American zoos still acquire them from Africa — aided by a tall tale about why they needed to leave home....
The trophy hunting industry is on the wrong side of history, serves the macabre leisure pursuits of a handful of the wealthy elite and yet, bizarrely, we environment writers are...
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,...
National Director of Public Prosecutions To: National Prosecuting Authority VGM Building123 Westlake Avenue Weavind Park, Silverton Pretoria, 0184...
Should the future of educating the public about exotic animals be in sanctuaries and virtual zoos, not places where animals are kept in cages? The high-profile death of the...
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...
Public Participation Submission of the Coalition To Stop the Captive Breeding and Keeping of Lions and Other Big Cats for Commercial Purposes June 2019 Content Introduction...
The Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries’ determination to set yet another export quota for lion bones flies in the face of several ongoing processes ...
A controversial contract to hunt at least 1250 hippos under the pretext of culling in Zambia's world-renowned Luangwa Valley has been cancelled following global criticism and...
After Barack Obama came Donald Trump, a bigoted populist prone to crass outpourings and some peculiar legislative ideas. His time in office has reminded the world how prone...
Botswana has lifted its ban on hunting based on five myths about that country’s elephant population. The decision has as much to do with Botswana’s upcoming elections and the...
Botswana has now committed to a policy built on myths, while the rest of the world takes stock of the implications ecological crisis. Botswana’s Ministry of Environment, Natural...
Botswana president, Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi, recently hosted a summit in Kasane for five southern African heads of state to forge a common regional elephant conservation policy....
A gun manufacturer in the Czech Republic is implicated in flooding Africa with thousands of high-calibre hunting rifles. Now poachers are even more deadly, writes Don Pinnock A...
Splashing in the Zambezi River at Botswana’s Chobe National Park. Shutterstock Ross Harvey, University of Cape Town Botswana has reinstated trophy hunting after a 5-year...
Minister of Environmental Affairs: Honourable Ms Nomvula MokonyaneEmail: nmokonyane@environment.gov.za c/c: Ministerial Communication Services: Ms Zanele Mngadi Email:...
Photo credit: ISS Today Are Southern African governments allowing resentment against perceived Western finger-wagging to cloud their judgement? If Botswana’s elephants could...
THA BAK, Laos — He was up there somewhere, at the top of the hill, the man Karl Ammann had come to see. It would soon be night. The forest was all shadows and sounds. Ammann...
PRESS RELEASEGeneva, 10 May 2019 – An updated assessment by the CITES programme Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) has confirmed that poaching continues to...
A male white lion, part of a rare white lion pack, in the wild in South Africa. (PHOTO: EPA/LIESL EICHENBERGER) Trophy hunting has historically been the preserve of...
WASHINGTON— After a prod from a lawsuit filed by conservation groups, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today that giraffes may qualify for protection under...
Photo: Francis Garrard The Joburg Zoo continues to make unilateral decisions regarding Lammie the elephant’s future while the DA led City council turns a blind eye. The zoo...
WILL giraffes survive humanity? They are as iconic as lions, rhinos and elephants and their long-term existence in the wild is under similar threat. However, the world’s tallest...
Wildebeest crossing the Mara River in Tanzania during their annual mass migration. Jane Rix/Shutterstock Bill Laurance, James Cook University and Penny van Oosterzee, James Cook...
The Blood Lions presentation by Campaign Director, Nicola Gerrard, at WTM Africa in Cape Town last week was abruptly cut short after only five of a planned 20 minutes. “Blood...
Minister Priscah Mupfumira Kavango-Zambezi Trans-Frontier Conservation Area (KAZA-TFCA) countries have resolved to adopt a scientific wildlife management system in national...
The Government of Philip Nyusi, which has as one of its priorities "Ensuring the Sustainable and Transparent Management of Natural Resources and the Environment" and receives...
Starting July 1, anyone in Japan who wishes to register and sell a whole elephant tusk must first prove its age through carbon dating. According to Ministry of the...
This encyclopaedic book sends out a powerful message to give elephants the highest protection status, writes Elise Tempelhoff. The LAST ELEPHANTS Compiled by Don Pinnock &...
The life of an elephant that faces being shot for being a 'nuisance' is hanging in the balance as animal campaigners in South Africa fight in court to keep him alive. Riff Raff's...
Balule Associated Nature Reserve has justified the killing of a young elephant bull in front of tourists as an ‘act of self-defense’, backtracking on an original announcement...
Did you know that in Africa there is one elephant for every 20 000 people; fewer than 450 000 according to the (most recent) Great Elephant Census of 2016, down from the 3 to 5...
A new safari park near the small town of Kleinmond in the Western Cape may hold economic gains for its owners – but at what cost to the sensitive Overstrand environment or...
As tourism is a mainstay of Botswana’s economy, lifting the hunting ban could, the poll suggests, have severe economic consequences and damage Botswana’s international...
Namibia's current and Kenya's former ministers for environment engaged in a lively discussion about the polarising issue of trophy hunting at a debate held in at The Arts Club in...
Picture: Martin Meja/AP A Parliamentary Resolution to end the Captive Breeding of Lions in South Africa has been ignored by the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA), who...
Sub-Saharan Africa has enormous tourism potential: leopards lounging in acacia trees, elephant herds drifting across vast savannah plains, gorillas and chimps rioting in deep...
"By shutting down the movement of ivory of unknown origin, the domestic market is moving closer to an effective closure," Environment Minister Yoshiaki Harada said at a press...
Once cubs in captivity get too big to be stroked and cuddled by tourists, they’re sold into the canned hunting and Asian bone trade industries. Shutterstock Ross Harvey, South...
Photo credit: Francis Garrard President Mokgweetsi Masisi of Botswana said last week that “elephants bleed [the] government coffers”, as “Botswana is indirectly subsidising...
Non-governmental and conservation organizations are highly upset that the Department of Environmental Affairs has not shown the "political will" to close the Canned Lion Breeding...
In an article to mark World Wildlife Day, Leith Meyer, a veterinarian at the University of Pretoria, writes about the danger of poorly informed social media campaigns mounted by...
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 has about 122,000 elephants left. Mike Dexter/Shutterstock Ross Harvey, South African Institute of International Affairs Botswana has an elephant poaching problem. The...
Elephants Without Borders, who conducted an aerial research survey in Botswana, has had their wildlife research licence suspended by the Botswana government. See original...
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...
Two elephants play in the Mara Triangle, the north-western part of Masai Mara. Image: Getty, YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP Technology has made a tremendous difference in the world, in...
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....
Thirty-five young elephants are to be flown from Zimbabwe to zoos in China after being forcibly separated from their mothers in an operation "designed to disorientate, exhaust...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
PREAMBLE Demands for competing land uses that are not compatible with conservation practices, make the need for viable conservation incentives more urgent. Well governed trophy...
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...
The study by Hong Kong Wildlife Trade Working Group, a coalition of local groups, offers one of the most detailed analyses yet on smuggling rackets in the city. FILE: Seized...
CONVENTION ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN ENDANGERED SPECIES OF WILD FAUNA AND FLORA Eighteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties Colombo (Sri Lanka), 23 May – 3 June 2019 Read...
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...
HSI/Africa urges department of environmental affairs to heed Parliament’s call to end captive lion breeding for trophy hunting and the bone trade CAPE TOWN (6 DECEMBER 2018) – In...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Should we be farming lions to slaughter? The Problems No conservation value Inadequate welfare standards Lack of regulation Inability of DEA, DAFF and Provinces to enforce...
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...
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...
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....
Animal numbers in APNR reserves, proposed hunting quotas and basis for recommendations with reservations, does not recommend hunting a male lion. Read SANParks-KNP's...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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. ...
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,...
1. PROJECT BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT Since the early-1980s the number of fenced elephant populations on private property in South Africa has grown considerably, contributing to the...
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...
Abstract The world's biodiversity is shared by countries that are increasingly recognizing the need for effective responses to human influence and climate change impacts through...
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...
RESEARCH ARTICLE Savanna elephant numbers are only a quarter of their expected values Read original report: Robson et al 2017 Savanna elephant numbers are only a quarter of their...
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...
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...
Dear Ambassador Xin Shunkang, During the past few weeks, several Chinese nationals have been apprehended and charged with wildlife crimes, including illegal possession of rhino...
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 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...
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...
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...
Abstract Terrestrial mammals are experiencing a massive collapse in their population sizes and geographical ranges around the world, but many of the drivers, patterns and...
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...
Despite the 1989 ivory trade ban, elephants continue to be killed to harvest their tusks for ivory. Since 2008, this poaching has increased to unprecedented levels driven by...
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...
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...
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...
The world's wealthiest hunting organization, Safari Club International (SCI) and professional hunting groups, met behind closed doors with the South African Department of...
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...
We, the undersigned scientists, conservationists, elephant care, animal welfare and policy experts, are strongly opposed to the proposed import of 18 elephants from Swaziland by...
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...
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...
The report highlights that the economic results of big game hunting is low. Land used for hunting generates much smaller returns than that used for agriculture or...
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...
The following is recommended: 1) Guidelines for the allocation of leopard trophy quotas must be developed and provided to all provinces by the end of January 2015. 2) A...
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...
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...
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...
The NSPCAs Wildlife Protection Unit has compiled an in-depth report on the captive Elephant industry in South Africa. All information contained in this factual report has been...
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...
To save African elephants from extinction, “range states should put their ivory stockpiles beyond commercial use immediately and simultaneously,” says South African economist...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
A new study finds there is little evidence that the Lion bone trade in South Africa is currently adversely impacting wild Lion populations there, but warns the situation needs to...
A hunter recently shot and killed a female elephant whilst trying hunt a bull elephant at Mabalingwe Nature Reserve near Bela Bela in Limpopo. Controversy surrounds both the...
The World Bank has allocated $700,000 bolster trophy hunting of elephants and lions in Mozambique as a way to preserve wildlife. “Hunting, when properly regulated and when...
The recent announcement that Tanzania had lost 60% of its elephants in just five years as well as Zimbabwe’s continued disregard of international opinion on the capture and...
US based bio-engineering firm, Pembient, is one of three companies that plans to flood Chinese and Vietnamese markets with synthetic 3D-printed rhino horn in an effort to stem...
One after the other the carcasses were extracted from the crammed vehicle. Burnt, shrunken-back lips exposed grimacing teeth…a gruesome effect. As the pile of animals mounted up...
A group of international experts comprised of over 30 conservationists, academics, journalists, authors and lawyers from Africa, Europe, Asia and America has warned the Committee...
Virunga National Park is one of Africa’s treasure troves, and one of its most toxic, and intoxicating, killing fields. Under threat from various armed militias as well as...
Cape Town – At a conference here at the end of May, experts from around the world gathered to discuss responses and solutions to the poaching crisis facing South Africa’s...
The African elephant population is already facing unprecedented pressure on its survival from poaching, so added pressure from the captive elephant industry is the last thing it...
The US government has upheld its earlier ban on the importation of elephant trophies from Tanzania and Zimbabwe for the duration of 2014, despite vocal objections from hunting...
The conservation of wild animals is a wrangle that has divided opinion into two diametrically opposed camps, writes Adam Cruise. As today is World Nature Conservation Day, it is...
As a result of shifting wildlife policy, approximately one-sixth of South Africa’s total land has been ‘game-fenced’ and converted for wildlife-based production during the last...