Wildlife Crime News

The trade of live birds in South America is down to its lowest levels in years, according to a report released Jan. 16 by conservation NGOs TRAFFIC and WWF. But…

Two Asiatic black bear cubs have been rescued from the illegal wildlife trade in Vietnam. Vietnamese authorities confiscated the two female bear cubs from wildlife smugglers in Hai Phong province…

JAKARTA — In May 2015, a wildlife smuggler was arrested at an Indonesian port. He had attempted to transport nearly two dozen yellow-crested cockatoos, stuffed in plastic water bottles, aboard…

JAKARTA — On the last weekend in October, thousands of people crowded the field next to Indonesia’s largest sports stadium, Gelora Bung Karno, in the nation’s capital. Visitors streamed through…

Reports of illegal trafficking in elephant ivory or rhino horn abound, but plants are actually more frequent victims of the illicit trade than wildlife. In fact, roughly 30,000 of the…

A multi-national research team has developed a rapid DNA identification method to help customs inspectors detect illegally traded wildlife products, beginning with sharks. The DNA testing protocol, published last month,…

MARAFENFEN/LORANG, Indonesia — Benedictus has to go out just after dark to check his traps. If he goes any earlier, the palm cockatoos will still be awake and hear him…

MANADO, Indonesia — Wildlife photographer Henri Hebimisa remembers the excitement of his first encounter with an elusive songbird inhabiting the montane forest of his hometown in the Sangihe islands of Indonesia’s…

A court in Indonesia’s Aceh province has sentenced two men to four years behind bars for attempting to sell a tiger skin, in the toughest ever penalty handed down for…

JAKARTA — A new decree from Indonesian authorities drops five bird species from a newly expanded list of protected wildlife, and potentially sets the stage for more to follow by…

JAKARTA — Conservationists have underestimated the combined impact of deforestation and capture when assessing the threat to Southeast Asia’s bird populations — a one-two punch that a new report warns…

September 24 marks World Gorilla Day, when humanity celebrates one of its closest relatives, sharing 98 percent of our DNA as we do, plus we also have a common ancestor…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has dropped three popular songbirds from a new list of protected species, amid pressure from owners and breeders. The white-rumped shama (Kittacincla malabarica), the Javan…

Could it have come at a worse time for Kenya’s Tourism and Wildlife Ministry? With Kenya still stinging from the humiliation and embarrassment over the translocation-related deaths of 11 rhinos,…

JAKARTA — Songbird owners in Indonesia are up in arms over the recent inclusion of hundreds of bird species in the national list of protected animals. The owners plan to…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has expanded its list of wildlife species banned from trading and hunting for the first time in nearly two decades, bringing the total number of…

It took Gage roughly six seconds to find the tiny piece of ivory hidden on the underside of our vehicle. Gage, a Labrador retriever, specializes in finding ivory and firearms,…

PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia — Authorities in Indonesia are investigating the killing of a rare orangutan whose body was found riddled with bullet and knife wounds in an oil palm plantation…

Authorities in Indonesia have arrested two of four suspects alleged to have killed a rare Sumatran elephant and hacked off one of its tusks last month. Police in East Aceh…

Shark-fishing outfits have for decades been catching dolphins, seals and other sea mammals to use as bait, helping drive some of those species closer to extinction, researchers have found. In…

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — Authorities in Indonesia have blamed poachers for the death of an elephant found with one of its tusks hacked off, in one of the world’s most…

Poaching of otters, especially juveniles, for the online pet trade is so widespread in Southeast Asia that it has emerged as a major new threat to the survival of Asia's…

On April 9, suspected members of an armed militia gunned down five wildlife rangers and their driver in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was the…

Authorities in Madagascar seized almost 10,000 critically endangered tortoises earlier this month from a house suspected to be a waypoint for funneling them into Asia’s pet trade. The Turtle Survival…

JAKARTA — Environmental advocates have warned that proposed revisions to Indonesia’s conservation act could provide new loopholes for wildlife traffickers, who already enjoy a thriving trade in one of the…

Photographer Suzi Eszterhas was working on a story in Costa Rica when she met sloth researcher Dr. Rebecca Cliffe for the first time. The pair spent weeks in the field…

JAKARTA — The sale of some of the most threatened tortoise and turtle species from around the world continues to flourish at stores and exhibitions across Jakarta, highlighting longstanding concerns…

JAKARTA — Conservation authorities in Indonesia are investigating suspicions that the illegal trade in tiger parts drove the killing of one of the rare big cats earlier this month. The…

JAKARTA — Police in Indonesia have arrested and charged four farmers with the killing of an orangutan found shot more than 100 times. Investigators in East Kalimantan province, in Indonesian…

MAKASSAR, Indonesia — Police in Indonesia have arrested two Chinese men with the illegal possession of 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of valuable turtle shells, believed to have been headed for…