Wildlife Crime News

JAKARTA — A second orangutan has been found killed in Indonesian Borneo in as many months, this time shot more than 100 times with a pellet gun, a conservation group…

The United States, a major ivory market The sale of ivory across international boundaries has been banned since 1990, when the African elephant was listed among species prohibited for commercial…

JAKARTA — Police in Indonesia have arrested and charged two rubber farmers for allegedly shooting and beheading a Bornean orangutan whose body was discovered last month in a river. Investigators…

In a historic move, 49 Hong Kong lawmakers voted on Jan. 31 to end all domestic ivory trade by 2021 and passed the Endangered Species of Animals and Plants (Amendment) Bill…

Officials in Ivory Coast have announced the seizure of over half a ton each of elephant tusks and pangolin scales following a crackdown on a transnational trafficking network. Authorities also…

South African Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa announced in a press briefing today that 1,028 rhinos were illegally killed in the country in 2017. That figure represents…

For the last two years, a U.S. non-profit and local partners in South Africa have quietly been catching wildlife poachers using remote cameras connected to a unique cross-continent volunteer monitoring…

Police in Thailand last week detained a key figure in one of the world’s most notorious wildlife trafficking syndicates, accused of smuggling large numbers of rhino horns and elephant tusks…

The global poaching crisis has induced large segments of the conservation community to call for far tougher law enforcement. Many look to policing lessons from decades of counter-narcotics efforts for…

JAKARTA — Indonesian authorities have retrieved 17 air gun pellets from the body of an orangutan found decapitated and seemingly tortured in Indonesian Borneo earlier this week. The discovery was…

Facebook has emerged as a major market for trafficking in live reptiles in the Philippines, according to a new report by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade and monitoring network. In a…

JAKARTA — Conservation authorities in Indonesia are investigating the death of an orangutan whose headless and apparently tortured body was found earlier this week in a river in central Borneo.…

PALEMBANG, Indonesia -- Wildlife activists in Indonesia suspect poachers poisoned an elephant found with its tusks hacked off in a protected forest in southern Sumatra. The body of the male…

MEDAN, Indonesia — A court in Indonesia has sentenced three men, including a former soldier, to two years in jail for illegally trading in body parts from a critically endangered…

Authorities protecting rhinos in Africa now have a tool to help them catch poachers based on fine-scale differences in the DNA of different individuals. The Rhino DNA Index System, or RhODIS…

China's ivory trade ban is now in effect, making it illegal to sell and buy ivory in the country. China, one of the world's largest markets for both legal and…

The Indonesian government will next year launch a 10-year program to save the critically endangered helmeted hornbill (Rhinoplax vigil), a bird driven to the verge of extinction because of poaching…

The USAID Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge announced three winners of an Acceleration Prize worth US $100,000 for demonstrating rapid progress in developing a wildlife crime solution system. The Challenge previously…

PADANG, Indonesia — Two soldiers were caught trying to smuggle dozens of Malayan porcupines (Hystrix brachyura) across provincial borders, the latest arrest of a military officer for wildlife trafficking. The…

Ballooning demand for pangolin scales and meat has driven the hunting of these armored animals up at least 145 percent in Central Africa since before 2000, according to a new…

Early this year Kenyan authorities tightened restrictions on the trade and export of several snake species, including two of the world's deadliest vipers. The decision follows a resolution to list…

Wildlife crime plagues nearly half of the world's natural UNESCO World Heritage sites, according to a new WWF report. Illegal harvesting -- poaching, illegal logging and illegal fishing -- of…

A top court in South Africa just made it legal to trade in rhino horns within the country. The South African government, in 2009, imposed a moratorium that banned domestic…

In the dead of night on February 15, gunshots blasted the guards into action in India’s Kaziranga National Park. Rangers stationed in a nearby camp quickly spread out, searching for…

KABANJAHE, Indonesia — Zulbaidah used to take her family’s pet orangutan on road trips. He’d ride in the back with the kids. “He was like my own son,” the 55-year-old…

One might assume that the biggest challenge in managing an ambitious, multinational initiative like the Barcode of Wildlife Project (BWP) stems from the cross-cultural dimensions of the enterprise. But the…

An ambitious global initiative, the Barcode of Wildlife Project unites research biologists, investigators, prosecutors, and members of law enforcement in partner countries in using DNA barcoding to combat wildlife crime.

On January 20, Indonesian law enforcement officials and the country’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry confiscated 19 Javan slow lorises from an online trader in Cirebon, West Java. Results of…

Nestled on the banks of the River Brahmaputra, lost to tall thickets of elephant grass, marshlands and wooded hills, is a teeming world of biodiversity: the Kaziranga National Park (KNP)…

The Critically Endangered Hawksbill sea turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) is being hunted to extinction for its shell. Colored in hues of gold, amber, and brown, the animal's striking shell is carved…