In 2019, the illegal wildlife trade reached staggering levels. Pangolin scales and ivory were being trafficked in massive quantities from Africa to Asia, exposing a network of crime syndicates operating at an industrial scale. The sheer volume of these shipments marked a disturbing milestone, one that revealed the global reach …
participants from over 20 countries gathered in Bali, Indonesia, from September 11-13, 2001, to strategise on how to battle the myriad of problems of forest management, including illegal logging on a national and international scale. Officially known as the Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (fleg) East Asia Ministerial conference, the …
A supposedly scientific expedition into the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve (ndbr) has stirred the minds of people in Lata village of district Chamoli, in Uttaranchal. They say the expedition was a farce. They claim it was a surreptitious attempt to open the region to high-end tourism with tour operators and …
the Himalayan state of Sikkim is a paradise for nature lovers. It is also thronged by those who want to exploit the area's biodiversity for financial gains. Two Russians were arrested on July 30, 2001, for illegally collecting insects in large quantity from the remote Yuksam forest of the Kanchenjunga …
Poachers recently killed 15 sea lions in Ecuador's Galapagos Islands. The carcasses of the animals, four females and 11 males, were found on the southern shore of San Cristobal. All the animals had fractured skulls and missing teeth. "The sexual organisms of the males had been removed, most probably for …
The world's three biggest caviar-exporting nations have agreed to stop sturgeon fishing in the Caspian Sea for the rest of this year to save the fish from extinction. Sturgeons of the Caspian Sea are threatened due to the increasing demand for their pickled unfertilised eggs called caviar. The sea is …
a report by the Wildlife Trust of India ( wti ) and the International Fund for Animal Welfare ( ifaw ) says that despite a worldwide ban, shahtoosh trade continues unabated. Union power minister Suresh Prabhu recently released the report, which is based on investigations that were carried out by …
A sum of us $42,000 was raised in Singapore during an auction of 25,000 pieces of illegally imported snake skin. The skin pieces belong to the endangered banded rat snake. Custom officials found the skins, which were illegally imported, in a warehouse. The company that imported the skins was later …
A BOUTIQUE in Los Angeles, USA, will pay a fine of us $175,000 for importing and selling shahtoosh shawls made from the wool of the endangered chiru (Tibetan antelope). Under an agreement with the US government, Maxfield Enterprises Incorporation, the boutique located on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood, will also …
An international wildlife smuggler has been sentenced for 71 months by a San Francisco federal court. He has also been directed to pay a fine of US $60,000. Keng Liang
Members of Taiwan's triads (secret societies) are using wild animals to test weapons purchased from smugglers. Their targets are boars, flying squirrels, wild rabbits, red deer and macaques. Reporters from Taiwan's China Times Express recently came across one such group, which told them that what they were doing was common …
The government of the state of Jammu and Kashmir (j & k) is in a fix on the issue of trade in shahtoosh, high-quality wool from the neck-hair of the endangered Tibetan antelope, known as chiru. On May 1, 2000, the High Court of j & k had ruled that …
Breeding of wild animals in India has been unsuccessful, point out several wildlife conservationists. However, several similar ventures have succeeded in other parts of the world. While China has successfully bred musk deer, India has failed to do so despite three breeding farms (see box: Musk deer: smell of failure …
Very little scientific literature is available on the chiru (Tibetan antelope, Pantholops hodgsoni ). Most articles about the animal, if not all, are based on the research conducted by George Schaller, director of science at the Wildlife Conservation Society, New York. Schaller found in 1995 that there are around 75,000 …
The death of wild animals in a zoo is, indeed a shocking phenomenon. On one hand the government and international agencies spend crores of rupees to save the tiger and on the other we murder 12 tigers due to gross negligence. The highly qualified doctors who vaccinated the tigers at …
the sturgeon population is fast declining due to poaching, illegal trade, habitat loss, dam constructions, pollution, damaging aquaculture practices, lack of regional cooperation in conservation programmes and poor law enforcement. This was revealed during a recent international meeting of more than 40 experts, including scientists, representatives of government and non-governmental …
Walking through the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary on a misty morning is a cherishing experience. Pushing through the bed of grass bathed in morning mist, hearing the melancholic strains of the Malabar Whistling Thrush (Myophonus horsfieldi), one can spend a solitary morning in communion with nature. The reverie, however, might be …
The red alert in Corbett after the killing of five tuskers is only fuelling the growing cynicism over state managed conservation programmes in India. It is only giving more credence to the school of thought that insists that only poachers will thrive in an era of wildlife rules and regulations …
At least 317 cases of killing and trafficking of protected wild animals have been reported in the Guangdong province of China during a recent five-day special inspection campaign. "At least 17,582 wild animals were confiscated during the campaign,' said Zhou Bingnan, deputy secretary-general of the province. According to Zhou, the …
