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 …
The White House said on Thursday that it will review the public petition to extradite the American dentist who allegedly killed "Cecil," a Zimbabwean lion. The petition has exceeded the required 100,000 signatures, and the White House has said it will respond to all petitions that meet that level. White …
This would all be perfectly legal had the lion not been a resident of Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park, a protected area. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature estimates that trophy-hunting tourists legally kill 600 lions each year. Jane Smart, the global director of IUCN's Biodiversity Conservation Group, said …
Lion numbers are in steep decline across Africa, but trophy hunting is only partly responsible for the long-term losses, say conservationists. According to UK-based charity Lion Aid, trophy hunters in Zimbabwe killed around 800 lions in the 10 years to 2009, out of a population in the country of up …
A Zimbabwean court on Wednesday charged a professional hunter with failing to prevent an American from unlawfully killing 'Cecil', the southern African country's best-known lion, in a case that has triggered widespread revulsion at trophy hunting. The American, Walter James Palmer, a Minnesota dentist who paid $50,000 to kill the …
Conservationists and politicians have called on the EU to ban the import of lion heads, paws and skins as hunters’ trophies from African countries that cannot prove their lion populations are sustainable, following the killing of Zimbabwe’s most famous lion by a European hunter with a bow and arrow. The …
As countries build more hydropower projects, new research warns that massive dams pose an extinction threat to mammals, birds and tortoises—at least in the Amazon. Brazil’s Balbina Dam has turned what was once undisturbed forest into an artificial archipelago of 3,546 islands where many vertebrates have disappeared, according to a …
RAS AL KHAIMAH // More than 1,500 violations of environmental laws were discovered by inspectors in the first half of 2015. The violations were logged by the Department of Public Works’ Raqeb (monitor) service, which was set up in 2012 to monitor the Corniche, main streets and beaches in Ras …
Windhoek — The escalation in the poaching of rhinos, elephants and other valuable wild animals in the Etosha National Park and around the country's parks has prompted the Namibia Wildlife Resorts (NWR) to commit itself to join forces in the fight against the illegal hunting of game. With the current …
Large landscapes encompassing reserves and areas with other human uses are necessary for conservation of many species. Generating information for conservation planning over such landscapes may be expensive and time-consuming, though resources for conservation are generally limited and conservation is often urgent. We developed a sign-based occupancy survey to help …
Persecution and overexploitation by humans are major causes of species extinctions. Rare species, often confined to small geographic ranges, are usually at highest risk, whereas extinctions of superabundant species with very large ranges are rare. The Yellow-breasted Bunting (Emberiza aureola) used to be one of the most abundant songbirds of …
Poachers hunting Africa’s elephants and rhinos are getting tougher, killing the animals at an alarming rate. In their quest to profit from international black markets where ivory and rhino horn can be worth more than cocaine, these armed groups are getting their hands on bigger, more powerful weapons. But so …
Anthropologists and ecologists investigating the dialectical relationship between human environments and the cultural practices that shape and are shaped by them have been talking past each other for too long: the one looking purely at metaphor and the other purely at function. Our mixed-method data analysis set out to explore …
Bushmeat hunting threatens biodiversity and increases the risk of zoonotic pathogen transmission. Nevertheless, limited information exists on patterns of contact with wildlife in communities that practice bushmeat hunting, especially with respect to social drivers of hunting behavior. We used interview responses from hunters and non-hunters in rural hunting communities in …
Zambia has lifted the ban on the hunting of leopards and will allow lion hunting next year after it established that the population of the big cats was higher than previously thought, its tourism minister said on Wednesday. Zambia in 2013 banned the hunting of lions and other endangered wild …
Despite concerns from conservationists, Zambia is preparing to lift a 2013 ban on the hunting of wild lions and leopards in order to raise funds. This move may seem "extremely outrageous," however, tourism and arts minister Jean Kapata assures critics that the profits gained from hunting these big cats could …
Global aviation giant, Emirates Airlines, has sent shock-waves through the South African hunting industry after it became the second major airline to place an embargo on the transport of elephant, rhino, lion and tiger hunting trophies in less than a month. The embargo becomes effective on Friday 15 May, a …
Global pressure is building to end the importation of lion trophies from "canned" hunts in Africa. But those hunts are getting more popular. When Australia banned the importation of lion trophies this year, it became the first country to take legislative action against the lucrative business of hunting captive lions, …
Large grass-eating animals including elephants, rhinos and hippos are facing extinction, a new study has warned. As many as 60 per cent of large herbivores are struggling to survive, with all of the threatened species living in the developing nations in Africa and Asia, with the exception of the European …
(Reuters) - Hunters on the Mediterranean island of Malta have won a referendum to let them continue to hunt migrating birds in spring, a centuries-old tradition not allowed anywhere else in the European Union. The referendum on Saturday was called by environmentalists who wanted to end an EU exception that …
The most extensive genetic analysis of mountain gorillas ever conducted has found the critically endangered apes burdened with severe inbreeding and at risk of extinction but the researchers still see reasons for optimism about their survival. Twenty-three scientists from six countries unveiled on Thursday the first complete genetic map of …
