Illegal trade News

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The Lear’s macaw had been at the center of two recent wildlife trafficking cases.

Brazil police seize devices from bird expert in trafficking probe linked to Vantara zoo

Fernanda Wenzel 7 May 2026
A Bengal tiger from Rajasthan, India. Poaching is one of the biggest threats to tigers, an endangered cat in Asia.

Facebook is a hub for illegal wildlife trade, and that’s by design, report says

Spoorthy Raman 5 May 2026

Nigeria arrests suspected pangolin trafficking kingpin on the run

Spoorthy Raman 27 Apr 2026
Lanal Banten (Banten Navy Base) displays hundreds of kilograms of pangolin scales seized from a Vietnamese-flagged vessel.

Investigators eye organized crime links in 3-ton pangolin scale haul at Jakarta port

Anggita Raissa 24 Apr 2026
Black rhinos are critically endangered.

Chinese court cases reveal most trafficked rhino horns come from Southern Africa

Spoorthy Raman 21 Apr 2026
Joy as a baby. Image courtesy of Gibbon Conservation Society.

To tackle trafficking in gibbons, experts probe what drives demand

Ana Norman Bermúdez 20 Apr 2026
Gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon in 2011. Photo by Rhett Butler.

The Amazon’s silent crime crisis (commentary)

Carlos Nobre, Robert Muggah, Ilona Szabo 15 Apr 2026

Two-month-old bear cubs rescued from Facebook sale in Laos

Naina Rao 14 Apr 2026

Malawi says there’s been no illegal crayfish smuggling for a year

Charles Mpaka 8 Apr 2026
Pangolins are one of the most in-demand wildlife in Asia, used in traditional chinese medicine preparations. After Chinese pangolins plummeted by about 90% in the 2000s, traffickers shifted to African species.

Asia now hub of growing illegal wildlife trade across 100+ countries, study shows

Spoorthy Raman 30 Mar 2026

Zambia seizes half-ton of ivory in major illegal wildlife crime operation

Charles Mpaka 28 Mar 2026
Hooded vultures are small, scruffy-faced vultures native to sub-Saharan Africa.

‘Staggering’ trade for belief-based use drives hooded vultures to near-extinction in Benin

Spoorthy Raman 25 Mar 2026
The endangered Sumatran laughingthrush is another masterbird species threatened by trade. Image by Simon Bruslund

Songbird trade threatens lesser-known ‘master birds’ with secondary extinctions: Study

Sean Mowbray 23 Mar 2026
Officers display pangolin scales intended for smuggling into Cambodia.

Jakarta port authorities seize 3 tons of pangolin scales in Cambodia-bound container

Anggita Raissa 20 Mar 2026
Every year, up to 100 tonnes of glass eels, worth €2.5-3 billion, are smuggled out of Europe.

Eight arrested as Europe cracks down on lucrative eel smuggling syndicates

Spoorthy Raman 19 Mar 2026

Facebook shuts Indonesia groups after Mongabay and Bellingcat report illegal wildlife trade

Achmad Rizki Muazam, Foeke Postma 19 Mar 2026
Juvenile Sumatran orangutans like this are highly sought by traffickers. Image courtesy of Onrizal Onrizal.

Indonesia’s orangutan trafficking cases reveal need for a change in approach (commentary)

Onrizal Onrizal 12 Mar 2026
With striking orange and black streaks on their wings, painted woolly bats are one of the most colorful bats in the world.

U.S.’ hunger for Halloween trinkets is killing Vietnam’s painted woolly bats

Spoorthy Raman 9 Mar 2026

Online ads reveal scale — and gaps — in amphibian pet trade into US

David Brown 27 Feb 2026
A judge watches a cockfight in Peru.

How cockfighting imperils Peru’s critically endangered sawfish

Mongabay.com 27 Feb 2026
A radio-collared slow loris in Bangladesh.

Out of captivity, into conflict: slow lorises struggle to survive after release

Carolyn Cowan 26 Feb 2026
Eastern shingleback lizards in New South Wales, Australia.

Australia hands record prison sentence to reptile smuggler in trafficking crackdown

Gloria Dickie 25 Feb 2026
A captive sand cat in Nushi, Pakistan. Illegal trade is occurring amid a paucity of information about population sizes of small cat populations, says Sheikh. “It's going under the radar to a big extent, and hardly anything is being done to actively stop it or to mitigate this threat.”

Big cats get the press, but small wildcats are being poached and trafficked in silence

Sean Mowbray 25 Feb 2026
A woman standing in a street carries a basin filled with a colourful variety of plastic bottles while in the background there are busy stalls and shoppers in the street. Image by Elliot Ovadje via Flickr.

Recycling startups test limits of private solutions to deluge of waste in Lagos

Abdulwaheed Sofiullahi 20 Feb 2026
Collage featuring Jeffrey Lendrum

The man who risked everything to steal bird eggs

Sandy Watt 11 Feb 2026
Rainforest in Brunei in 2025. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

The year in rainforests 2025: Deforestation fell; the risks did not

Rhett Ayers Butler 26 Dec 2025
Artisanal fishing boats. Image by Mongabay Latam.

Drug gangs in Ecuador and Peru also involved in shark fin trafficking: Report

Shanna Hanbury 19 Dec 2025
A logging worker stands on Mukula logs

New technologies offer hope in fight to save the world’s imperiled rosewoods

Katarina Zimmer 15 Dec 2025

Birds, bugs and butterflies netted in global seizures by Interpol

Spoorthy Raman 12 Dec 2025
Iain Douglas-Hamilton. Image courtesy Save the Elephants.

Iain Douglas-Hamilton, elephant protector, has died at 83

Rhett Ayers Butler 9 Dec 2025

Stricter rules adopted to protect sloths from pet trade and selfie tourism

Fernanda Wenzel 9 Dec 2025

South Africa withdraws abalone listing even as illegal trade threatens species

Victoria Schneider 8 Dec 2025

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