July 2012 It always surprises me that female elephants can be so aggressive with one another. It’s every family for itself when it comes to securing a rare resource. Even within the family, it’s every mother pitted against another for access to fresh water, with Wynona always getting the short end of the stick. And […]
January 1, 2012 The 13 largest hauls of ivory intercepted by customs officials around the world in 2011 weighed in at a combined 23 tons, probably taken from more than 2,500 slain elephants, according to Traffic, an international organization that monitors wildlife trade. Despite efforts by enforcement agencies and campaigners, overall demand shows no sign of […]
For two decades, TRAFFIC’s Tom Milliken has tracked the illicit ivory trade that has led to the continued slaughter of Africa’s elephants. Milliken, who has lived in Africa since 1991, attributes the latest spike in ivory seizures to a seemingly insatiable demand for ivory in Asia and the increasingly sophisticated network of criminal gangs that […]
March 2012 Soldiers in Cameroon are losing the battle to save the last elephants in a remote frontier park from marauding horsemen believed to be invading from Sudan. “The forces arrived too late to save most of the park’s elephants, and were too few to deter the poachers,” said Natasha Kofoworola Quist, director of the […]
April 2012 While ordinary Spaniards cope with harsh austerity, recession and soaring unemployment, the country’s royal family has been enjoying expensive hunting trips, one of which resulted in King Juan Carlos ending up in hospital. The 74-year-old monarch’s fall in a park in Botswana provided an excuse for Spanish newspapers, who normally treat their royal family with […]
April 2012 “Elephant whisperers” try to soothe traumatized elephants in war-torn Africa. See the video here
June 2012 Defending a oil palm plantation may have been the justification behind poisoning three critically endangered Sumatran elephants, Elephas maximus sumatranus. The poisoned pachyderms’ corpses were found last week on a palm plantation in Aceh province of Sumatra in western Indonesia. The same forces threatening much of Indonesia’s wildlife are pushing the Sumatran elephant closer […]
June 2012 Kenya security dogs at Nairobi airport Friday sniffed through a layer of pepper to uncover 600kg of illegal ivory bound for Nigeria. “Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) Canine Unit together with Police and Customs officials at Kenya’s main airport in Nairobi have intercepted 345 pieces of raw ivory weighing 601kg destined for Lagos, Nigeria. Authorities […]
June 2012 The owners of a circus elephant will go on trial on Monday charged with causing unnecessary suffering. Bobby and Moira Roberts are accused of keeping Anne, a 58-year-old elephant brought from Sri Lanka to the Bobby Roberts Super Circus in Peterborough in the 1950s, chained to the ground at all times. Read the full […]
