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Lear’s macaw had been at the center of two recent wildlife trafficking cases. Image courtesy of Fernanda Fontoura.

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
This red-tailed monkey was photographed at a hotel in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

As wildlife trade expands, so do pathways for disease spillover to humans

Cate Twining-Ward 4 May 2026

Indonesia busts wildlife trafficking ring targeting Komodo dragons

Naina Rao 1 May 2026

Nigeria arrests suspected pangolin trafficking kingpin on the run

Spoorthy Raman 27 Apr 2026
Two suspects were arrested in Kenya in January with 110 kg of ivory. Image courtesy of Freeland.

After 110-kilo ivory bust, familiar questions over Kenya’s follow-through

Charles Mpaka 23 Apr 2026

Colombia announces plan to cull Pablo Escobar’s feral hippos

Naina Rao 17 Apr 2026
A yellow-fronted canary from South Africa. The songbird tops the list of wild birds exported from Africa to Asia.

Nearly a million birds shipped from Africa to Asia in 15 years; canaries top the list

Spoorthy Raman 15 Apr 2026

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

Naina Rao 14 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
Birds crowded and under severe stress make open-air markets like the Parangaba Fair in Fortaleza ideal locations for the spread of diseases.

Open-air markets: hotspots for a lethal virus infecting macaws and parrots

Fernanda Wenzel 27 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

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

Achmad Rizki Muazam, Foeke Postma 19 Mar 2026
The eye of a jumbo flying squid (Dosidicus gigas), photographed off Calfornia, U.S. Image by joescience1 via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Modest controls put on freewheeling squid fleet at South Pacific fisheries meeting

Francesco De Augustinis 12 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
A wholesale seafood market

Seafood fraud is rampant, imperiling fish populations, report finds

Edward Carver 5 Mar 2026
A pack of lions in Botswana.

DNA fingerprinting convicts Zimbabwe lion poachers in landmark case

Spoorthy Raman 5 Mar 2026

China’s Pacific squid fishery rife with labor, fishing abuses: Report

Francesco De Augustinis 3 Mar 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
Collage featuring cockfighting and a largetooth sawfish

Why is cockfighting a risk to Peru’s rarest fish?

Romi Castagnino 25 Feb 2026
A photo of Zeytin posted by the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry on Facebook in December 2024. No further updates have been provided since the country's announcement to not send Zeytin to Africa.

Baby gorilla seized from traffickers languishes in Turkish zoo

Spoorthy Raman 13 Feb 2026

Five detained over alleged hunting in Javan leopard habitat

Basten Gokkon 29 Jan 2026
Lion. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

Poaching African lions for black market could pose existential threat

Bobby Bascomb 27 Jan 2026

Birds, bugs and butterflies netted in global seizures by Interpol

Spoorthy Raman 12 Dec 2025

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

Fernanda Wenzel 9 Dec 2025

Countries overwhelmingly support bid to bar Galápagos iguanas from international trade

Spoorthy Raman 3 Dec 2025
A juvenile orange-fronted parakeet seized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in California.

It’s ‘whack-a-mole’: Alarming rise in pet trade fuels wildlife trafficking into California

Spoorthy Raman 25 Nov 2025
Banner image: Adult male peregrine (F. p. brookei) in Rann of Kutch, Gujarat, India. Peregrine falcons almost disappeared across North America and Europe in the early 1900s because of DDT and other pesticides.

Scientists slam Canada-US proposal to lower trade protections for peregrine falcons

Spoorthy Raman 18 Nov 2025
turtle

In Mexico, world’s smallest turtle faces big threats from trafficking, habitat loss

Sandra Weiss 18 Nov 2025
A male Vallarta mud turtle, one of the 40 seized as part of the operation, cared for at the Guadalajara Zoo.

Massive turtle bust in Mexico reveals ‘Wild West’ of wildlife trafficking

Spoorthy Raman 14 Nov 2025

Landmark conviction exposes Sri Lanka’s deep-rooted illegal elephant trade

Malaka Rodrigo 29 Oct 2025
Two members of the Prey Preah Roka Community Network – a grassroots activism group made up of communities around the wildlife sanctuary - document an illegally logged tree in the wildlife sanctuary. The grassroots group regularly patrol the wildlife sanctuary, documenting any illegal logging they come across by marking GPS coordinates, as well as taking a note of the species and diameter of the trees. Image by: Andy Ball / Mongabay.

New book unearths environmental crime’s psychological roots

Mike DiGirolamo 21 Oct 2025

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