South Africa News

The team works quickly. As soon as a rhino is safely sedated, they motor up a chainsaw and begin shearing off the animal’s signature horns. White flakes of keratin fly…

In 2019, animal welfare inspectors visited Pienika Farm, a captive-lion facility in the North West province of South Africa. They found sick lion after sick lion living in conditions inspectors…

Contributors/Endorsed by: Colleen Begg (Mozambique/South Africa), Ethel Sharon Sillah (Sierra Leone), Moreangels Mbizah (Zimbabwe), Muyang Achah (Cameroon), Shivani Bhalla (Kenya), Thandiwe Mweetwa (Zambia),  Alayne Cotterill (U.K./Kenya/Zambia), Amy Dickman, (U.K./Tanzania)  Annsarah…

On Oct. 22, four gunmen shot and killed anti-mining activist Fikile Ntshangase in her home in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province. The murder points to escalating pressure on communities across South…

DURBAN, South Africa — South Africa is home to around 1,300 of the world’s roughly 7,100 remaining cheetahs. It’s also the only country in the world with significant cheetah population…

“Sorry, I need to take it,” says Leitah Mkhabela, supervisor for the Black Mamba Anti-Poaching Unit, when her phone buzzes a few minutes into our interview. When she calls back,…

Ally arrived at the veterinary hospital the way most rescued pangolins do: underweight, dehydrated and suffering from pneumonia. But a routine ultrasound revealed that Ally wasn’t a typical patient —…

When the wild pangolin was rescued, she was in bad shape: dehydrated, emaciated, and weighing a mere 4.9 kilograms (10.8 pounds). She was also very young, but this was a…

On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we’re taking a look at two examples of how bioacoustics studies have allowed us to discover things we never knew before about marine…

Three critically endangered African white-backed vultures saved from poisoning last year have been released back into the wild in Zululand, South Africa. Those involved in local vulture conservation have welcomed…

Pangolins have been locally extinct in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province for the last 30 or 40 years, experts say. But now, local conservationists are working to slowly reintroduce these shy,…

CAPE TOWN — South Africa’s great white shark population has been the subject of international scrutiny since 2017, when cage-diving operators reported a sudden, sharp decline in sightings around False…

Scraping sounds fill the nights at Mapungubwe, a national park at the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers, where the borders of Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa meet. Families…

Wildlife conservation and animal welfare groups say the COVID-19 pandemic ought to spell the end for one of South Africa’s most controversial businesses: the captive breeding of lions. Industry representatives…

Tyrone Ping had ample opportunity to admire reptiles and amphibians as a child, and this initial herpetological hobby has led to a life-long fascination. At some point when he was…

South Africa reports that rhino poaching has declined for a fifth straight year in the country, with 594 rhino poached in 2019, down from the 769 rhino killed for their…

CAPE TOWN — In and around Cape Town, expanding urban communities press right up against the protected area of Table Mountain National Park. This gives residents and tourists alike easy…

DURBAN, South Africa — Another mass vulture poisoning incident has ended the year on a sour note for Wildlife ACT rangers in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal. Soon after…

As countries around the world experience rapid urbanization, many animal species have been forced to adapt to the encroachment of humans into their habitats. For species like the vervet monkey,…

Howick, SOUTH AFRICA – The first of at least five new “vulture safe zones” in Southern Africa are about to take off as private landowners and other partners join the…

DURBAN, South Africa — There is a scene at the start of the film Last of the Big Tuskers where a man is having his upper arm tattooed. As the…

Recent studies of Twitter posts have shown that people can be quick to shrug off extreme weather as normal. However, researchers are also finding that some wildlife — maybe better…

Traditional Asian medicine is driving the growing international trade in big cat products and leading to the mistreatment of thousands of animals, according to a recent report. Bones, blood, and…

When economist Adrian Lopes read a recent report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a question popped into his mind. The report, which described rhino poaching and counter-poaching measures, talked…

Communities around the world often pay a hidden toll in the global wildlife trade. Across its 17 minutes, Sides of a Horn, a new film released June 25, aims to…

If people knew about pangolins and how special they are, says documentary filmmaker Bruce Young, “they might begin to care enough to help save and conserve them, and put an…

In the fourth and final story of this exclusive Mongabay series, entomologists around the world offer far ranging solutions to curb and reverse the great insect die-off.

Tropical insects are wildly diverse, but most species are unstudied or unknown, even as they’re heavily impacted by deforestation, climate change and pesticides.

It’s hard to imagine how the oceans might operate without the sway of human activity. The recent assessment by the U.N. Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services found…

Everyone loves camera trap photos. Remotely installed cameras triggered by motion or heat of a passing person or animal, have helped research projects document the occurrence of species or describe…