Apart from poaching and habitat loss, climate change-induced droughts have been threatening the rhino population in Africa, pointed out a new report. On the other hand, climate disruptions in Asia can lead to the deaths of rhinos. Increased precipitation, longer monsoons and seasonal floods are already resulting in stranding, drowning …
The BJP came out on the streets yesterday to protests against recent killings of rhinos at the Kaziranga National Park in Assam. The protesters were showing their angst at the recent spur in poaching incidents at the national park. The protesters blamed the Bangladeshi immigrants who have encroached the forestland …
Kaziranga National Park (KNP) is globally known as the home of the one-horned rhinoceros, though it also shelters and attracts a wide variety of exotic birds from all over the world, apart from being the habitat of the wild buffalo, the great Indian swamp deer and other varieties of wildlife …
In a survey of ivory items for retail sale conducted in June 1999 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, almost 10,000 ivory objects were found, the fourth largest in Africa after Abidjan, Harare and Cairo. In 2004 TRAFFIC and the CITES Secretariat gave encouragement and technical help to the Government of Ethiopia …
The heads of sixteen villages bordering the Pakke Tiger Reserve in East Kameng District in Arunachal Pradesh, have formed a committee called the Ghora Aabhe, to protect the reserve where hunting animals illegally has been a common practice. Tana Tapi, a Divisional Forest Officer has helped the villagers in the …
The challenge of saving wild tigers has become a global one and calls for a global solution and commitment. The successful conservation of wild tigers and the natural capital that sustains them are among the key indicators of sustainable development and require greater global resources and attention.
Notice on gir lion deaths: The Supreme Court of India on October 29 sought responses of the Centre and the Gujarat government on a petition seeking steps in Gir forest to contain large-scale poaching and to fence open wells to save Asiatic lions from extinction. An advocate who filed the …
An eleven-member herd of wild elephants has triggered a row between two state governments, trapped forest officials into taking desperate measures which killed two members of the herd and brought the man-elephant conflict into sharp focus. It all started when an all-female herd of elephants crossed into Andhra Pradesh from …
On the night of October 1, 1998, when Salman Khan went hunting blackbucks, he was explicitly warned not to do so in the Bishnoi area because only a few have managed to get away from them. Yet Khan and his co-stars Saif Ali Khan, Tabu, Sonali Bendre and Neelam, along …
Though the Salman Khan case is being actively prosecuted, and is in the public eye, this is no thanks to the legal, judicial and enforcement systems currently in place. There is a strong current of opinion among experts about the need to overhaul the system. Hunting and trading in wildlife …
In Jodhpur range, from 1991 to May 2007, the state's forest department has registered 650 cases under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. Of these, 391 are minor crimes, such as cutting wood or grazing animals in the forest, for which offenders are let off after a fine. Of the remaining …
In 1994-1995, the first author evaluated the status and distribution of the Asiatic Black Bear in India and reported presence of the species in 53 protected areas and 62 other localities. After 10 years, we assessed the status and distribution of the Asiatic Black Bear through a questionnaire survey (n=90), …
poachers shot dead two endangered one-horned rhinos fleeing the flooded Kaziranga Wildlife Sanctuary in Assam. The incident in the second week of August puts the toll of rhinos killed this year at 12
It was a bright sunny morning when I reached the Bakhira lake. Bakhira is reputed to be the biggest natural wetland in Uttar Pradesh and is known for its purple swamphens. The birds are known to be shy. I nurtured hopes of spotting them, nevertheless. They were soon belied. It …
Scientists have developed a new device that will facilitate customs inspectors to do on-the-spot testing and checking for illegal trade in endangered species. The device, actually a dna-kit, has been developed by British dna forensics specialists. It aims to combat the use of tissues from protected animals, especially bile juice …
A question that quizzes the minds of senior and field officials of Wildlife Wing of Madhya Pradesh as well as those of the knowledgeable visitors to the Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary is to why tigers are mere occasional transients and are not establishing even as a small poulation to start with, …
In the latest clash in a decade-old war between wildlife rangers and poachers in Kenya, around three wildlife rangers and four suspected poachers were killed in a shoot-out in Kenya's Tana River district on May 19. Seven Kenya Wildlife Service (kws) rangers were patrolling the Idsowe area when a gang …
The Union Cabinet on May 31 approved the constitution of a multidisciplinary wildlife crime control bureau that would detect and prosecute networks and individuals engaged in poaching tigers and other endangered species. The body called the Tiger and Other Endangered Species Crime Control Bureau will maintain a database on wildlife …
