LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of Congo — Three chimpanzees have been kidnapped and are being held for ransom after intruders broke into a primate sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of Congo.…
JAKARTA — Researchers in Indonesia have harnessed the power of big data to monitor the flourishing online trade in songbirds, proposing it as a critical conservation tool in the absence…
Funding for the research and writing of this series of articles was provided by Amazon Aid Foundation. “We’ve been fighting the government of Suriname for almost 25 years, for recognition…
Nearly a decade ago, poachers used cyanide to slaughter more than 135 elephants for their ivory in and around Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park. In the wake of these poisonings, the…
On April 10, 2019, a fishing vessel known as Da Wang left Taiwan to sail out into distant waters in search of tuna. Two months into the voyage, a disturbance…
Another primate species has now slipped into the endangered species category – the long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis). During its latest assessment in March 2022, the IUCN declared the species as…
MAPUTO — Authorities in Mozambique have arrested two men for allegedly attempting to sell rhino horn in the country’s capital, Maputo. Hilario Lole, a spokesperson for the National Criminal Investigation…
Having spent 27 years as a wild cat scientist, I have been fortunate to run my fingers through the coarse fur of a 170 kg tiger while wrapping a GPS…
In a sterile room, Bertalan Lendvay wields an electric drill that flicks off tiny flakes of precious coral skeletons. Lendvay, a research associate at the University of Zurich’s Institute of…
A hawksbill turtle’s protective shell is in some ways its greatest weakness. Exquisitely patterned and thick enough to sculpt, hawksbill shells are the most popular type of tortoiseshell, a material…
KATHMANDU — The “vulture restaurant” in southern Nepal received a new lone diner on July 12, leaving the people serving the food puzzled. An American black vulture (Coragyps atratus), a…
Lying at the nexus of South Asia, Southeast Asia and China, Myanmar hosts an extraordinary mix of ecosystems that represent some of the last refuges of an ever-lengthening list of…
International wildlife trade regulator CITES recently decided to allow an aquaculture company in Mexico to export captive-raised totoabas, a large fish categorized as being in danger of extinction under Mexican…
In late June 2002, the container ship MOL Independence docked at a Singapore port after a voyage of almost a month from Durban in South Africa. On board was a…
With its bright green plumage and range of vocalizations, the rose-ringed parakeet is one of the most sought-after birds in the pet trade. To supply ongoing demand for these birds,…
KATHMANDU — Ornithologist Hem Bahadur Katwal, who studies farmland birds, says he’s excited about an upcoming trip to visit Nepal’s plains when the monsoon rains end in September. This is…
Mahogany is everything you would want in a tree: tall and majestic, with leaves up to half a meter wide that cast cooling shade on the forest floor below. It…
JAKARTA — If you own a luxury fashion item made with snakeskin, there’s a good chance it came from a blood python in Indonesia, where the species isn’t considered threatened.…
Cannabis, marijuana, pot, bud, grass or herb — no matter its nickname, this go-to drug has long been associated with the essence of “green” and connected to eco-friendly movements. Yet,…
HWANGE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe’s government recently concluded a conference to attempt to rally international support for the sale of its ivory stockpile. It argues that selling some of the 136…
Anything goes in a Laotian “Special Crime Zone,” a haven for illegal wildlife, narcotics and human trafficking. Asia’s wild tigers remain imperiled, say conservationists, as “tiger farming” continues in Asia.
“Initially we were all excited because we had intercepted a record-breaking ivory shipment,” says veterinarian Charlene Fernandez of Singapore’s new Centre for Wildlife Forensics. “But when we started carrying the…
For over 20 years the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center (PTWRC), run by the Cambodian Forestry Administration and supported by the international NGOs Wildlife Alliance and Free the Bears (covered by…
Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo have seized 2 metric tons of ivory in the city of Lubumbashi, a hub for ivory trafficking. The May 14 seizure is one…
Trade in endangered species online is an increasingly popular avenue for traders and traffickers. A recent review, published in the journal Oryx, highlights a related trend: lesser-known species that have…
Daniel Kabichi’s telephone has been ringing a lot lately. As head of law enforcement operations within Malawi’s Department of Forestry, he represents the country’s latest strategy to fight deforestation and…
COLOMBO — For decades, the small population of Indian pangolins found in Sri Lanka has faced a single consistent threat: the domestic meat market. Pangolin meat is considered a delicacy…
Myanmar’s military-led regime exported more than $190 million worth of timber in 2021, including to countries with active sanctions on the country’s state-controlled timber monopoly, according to a recent report…
New conservation efforts for critically endangered hawksbill sea turtles are starting to make a difference in the status of global hawksbill populations, although the continued illegal trade of tortoiseshell in…
The planetwide cocaine supply chain — its production, trafficking and consumption — causes deforestation and pollution, and impacts biodiversity, as do other criminal activities associated with illegal drugs.
