Wildlife Crime News

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam – Conservation organizations in Vietnam sent a letter to the Prime Minister last week asking for an update on planned measures to curtail the trade…

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, popularly known as CITES, is a rare animal: an international environmental treaty with teeth. It regulates the global trade in some of…

No one knows the exact origins of COVID-19, but the most agreed-upon story is this: a diseased animal, likely a pangolin, was slaughtered or consumed at the Huanan Seafood Wholefood…

Customs authorities in Malaysia have made one of their biggest ever seizures of African pangolin scales, recovering 6 tons of the contraband in a container at the country’s busiest port.…

If someone in Madagascar spots illegal logging, mining or slash-and-burn farming, they often have difficulty reporting the crime to authorities. Wrongdoers can pressure or threaten them to stay silent, and…

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — As the coronavirus pandemic continues its deadly onslaught around the world, the Vietnamese government has moved to ban the wildlife trade. Amid scientific theories…

The World Health Organization has categorized the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as a pandemic in light of its spread around the world. Ever since the first cases emerged in the…

MANILA — Governments across Southeast Asia have vowed to strengthen cooperation in curbing the illegal wildlife trade, suspected to have sparked the novel coronavirus epidemic. The issue will be at…

MEDAN, Indonesia — Conservation and wildlife activists have called on Indonesian authorities to press criminal charges against a local politician found to have kept a threatened baby orangutan as a…

JAKARTA — A months-long joint investigation by Indonesian media has shed new light on the ploys used by fishermen and traders to illegally export endangered shark species. Investigative magazine Tempo…

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…

In myths and carvings, sea turtles are reverent creatures, carrying wisdom and worlds on their backs. In Hindu cosmology, the earth is supported by four elephants on the back of…

MEDAN, Indonesia — A court in Indonesia has sentenced a boat captain to 15 months in prison for attempting to smuggle thousands of horseshoe crabs out of the country to…

There may be a glimmer of hope for the extremely rare vaquita porpoise, the world’s smallest cetacean, a group that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises. The vaquita is also the…

In May of 2015, ten people were arrested and three charged in Yunnan, China.  They had killed a Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) and were selling its meat. The panda’s paws…

Scientists and conservation activists conducting a survey for the critically endangered vaquita in October witnessed more than 70 fishing boats within the porpoise’s protected Gulf of California refuge, according to…

TAPULAGA, Indonesia — Over the past several years, Bakring, 56, has bought more than 20 live sea turtles. According to the law, each of these transactions could earn him five…

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…

Watching a helmeted hornbill (Rhinoplax vigil) swoop through the canopy of a tropical forest sits atop the bucket list of many bird lovers. The prodigious bird cuts a striking silhouette…

I've been working on combating the illegal and unsustainable international wildlife trade for more than 30 years. There have been successes and setbacks along the way, but I can say…

JAKARTA — Authorities in Indonesia have seized 72 highly prized hornbill casques and arrested a woman for allegedly attempting to smuggle them out of the country. The seizure occurred at…

VICTORIA FALLS, Zimbabwe — A decade ago, what was supposed to be a one-off sale of 102 tonnes of ivory from southern African states raised $15 million for conservation and…

According to a report this week by Quartz, two Chinese nationals were arrested last month in the state of California with $3.7-million-worth of totoaba swim bladders that they had smuggled…

Diego Cardeñosa wasn’t expecting any work calls on a Saturday, and certainly not one from the Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department. The urgency of the matter, however, became quickly…

On World Otter Day 2019, a new documentary film has been released that shines a spotlight on the illegal trade in the Asian small-clawed otter, a species listed as vulnerable…

It might seem harmless enough at first. The big eyes and the rambunctious, bounding play of the tiny cats and monkeys on your social media feed draw you in, and…

Gliding over the moors of England in search of prey, the hen harrier (Circus cyaneus) may never have suspected it would itself fall prey to a greater predator—man. Scientists have…

JAKARTA — Indonesian authorities have arrested seven suspected members of a trafficking ring believed to have used Facebook and other social media to sell at least 40 Komodo dragons and…

JAKARTA — Authorities in Indonesia have launched an investigation into the mass die-off of captive-bred sharks earlier this month at a facility in a marine national park off Java. In…

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — A recent seizure of two young orangutans from households in Indonesia has once again highlighted the lack of legal consequences for people who keep the near-extinct…