The killing of an alpha elephant bull at Omatjete last week has been highly criticised by Namibian conservation and tourism groups. The elephant, named 'Voortrekker' of the rare Ugab desert-adapted herd, was put down last Tuesday by a government-appointed hunter for N$120 000. To Omatjete's Ohungu Conservancy, who claim to …
Hunting wild animals for food and recreational sports like hiking and mountain biking pose the two biggest threats to the world’s protected areas, a new study shows. Ten researchers studied data collected over the last decade by managers at about 2,000 protected areas, including untouched forests and national parks or …
Protected areas (PAs) represent a cornerstone of efforts to safeguard biodiversity, and if effective should reduce threats to biodiversity. We present the most comprehensive assessment of threats to terrestrial PAs, based on in situ data from 1,961 PAs across 149 countries, assessed by PA managers and local stakeholders. Unsustainable hunting …
About 57 508 people across the world have signed a petition for the Ministry of Environment and Tourism to stop the hunting of desert elephants in Namibia. Iris Koch from Esslingen, Germany, started the online petition on Change.org website. She stated in the petition that Namibia’s desert elephants are iconic …
Hunters tend to target the animals that have largest tusks, horns or antlers, and this could be a disaster for wild populations AFP/Getty Images When hunters kill animals for trophies, they often target the biggest and the best individuals. Unfortunately, according to a new study these individuals are not only …
Trophy hunters, as well as poachers who “harvest” the big males—antelopes and deer with the largest horns and antlers, elephants with the longest tusks, or lions with the most impressive manes—are putting those species at greater risk of extinction with climate change. That’s the finding of a new study published …
Cape Town – While the world awaits US President Donald Trump’s decision on elephant trophy imports, the Centre for Biological Diversity and Natural Resources Defence Council in the US sued the Trump administration for allowing US hunters to import elephant and lion trophies. Although Trump and his Department of Interior …
(Reuters) - The U.S. government will suspend the use of so-called cyanide bombs to kill wild animals on public lands in Colorado as well as plans to kill dozens of mountain lions and black bears there, federal officials and conservationists said on Monday. The legal agreement was struck between Wildlife …
More than 6‚000 lion skeletons have been exported from SA to Southeast Asia in the last decade. The bones come mainly from lions killed in canned hunting — animals bred in captivity and shot by paying hunters — according to research led by a University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) academic. …
In recent years, there has been growing controversy surrounding the evolutionary effects of trophy hunting in big game animals worldwide. An article published in the Journal of Wildlife Management explains why the removal of males possessing large horns and antlers does not inevitably cause harmful artificial selection. James Heffelfinger, author …
VANCOUVER (Reuters) - British Columbian plans to stop all grizzly bear trophy hunting throughout the western Canadian province as of Nov. 30, a government minister said on Monday. Hunting for meat would be allowed to continue, Doug Donaldson, the minister for forests, lands, natural resource operations and rural development, said …
The majority of the world's terrestrial large carnivores have undergone substantial range contractions and many of these species are currently threatened with extinction. However, there has been little effort to fully quantify the extent of large carnivore range contractions, which hinders our ability to understand the roles and relative drivers …
Overexploitation is one of the main pressures driving wildlife closer to extinction, yet broad-scale data to evaluate species’ declines are limited. Using African pangolins (Family: Pholidota) as a case study, we demonstrate that collating local-scale data can provide crucial information on regional trends in exploitation of threatened species to inform …
Windhoek-The Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET) has revealed that conservancies on average generate about N$100 million a year through trophy hunting. MET spokesperson Romeo Muyunda recently told New Era that revenue generated through trophy hunting in conservancies goes directly to the communities and noted that revenue generated through trophy …
Cape Town - The issue of canned lion hunting has never received as much attention than before the death of Cecil the lion or the controversial SA based-documentary Blood Lions. And while many strides have been made over the last two years against the unethical practices of canned lion hunting …
Many conservationists are becoming increasingly alarmed about a spate of controversial proposals by Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa they feel could jeopardise attempts to conserve the Big Five animals. Over the past two months Molewa has published draft regulations which, if approved, would allow the export of 800 lion skeletons …
The State has laid a further charge against former professional hunter Theo Bronkhorst, in connection 'Cecil the lion's death. Harare – The state has laid a further charge against former professional hunter Theo Bronkhorst, in connection with the death of “Cecil the lion” which became the world’s most famous animal …
A new report released by the Humane Society International finds that trophy hunters are “grossly” overstating the economic benefits of big game hunting in Africa. Trophy hunters overstate contribution of big game hunting to African economies: Report Humane Society International (HSI) timed the release of the report to coincide with …
Human-nature relations are diverse, multifaceted and often contradictory, especially the relationships with animals. Mishmi people living on the Sino-India border claim tigers to be their brothers and take credit for tiger protection as they observe taboos against hunting tigers. Drawing on this notion of relatedness with tigers, local residents of …
The pangolin, now recognised as the world’s most trafficked mammal, is currently undergoing population collapse across South and Southeast Asia, primarily because of the medicinal value attributed to its meat and scales. This paper explores how scarcity and alterity (otherness) drive the perceived value of these creatures for a range …
Reconstructions of the vegetation of Europe during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) are an enigma. Pollen-based analyses have suggested that Europe was largely covered by steppe and tundra, and forests persisted only in small refugia. Climate-vegetation model simulations on the other hand have consistently suggested that broad areas of Europe …
