Tigers once roamed throughout the dense forested interior of mainland Southeast Asia and several islands of Indonesia. Positioned at the pinnacle of the food chain, tigers maintain ecosystem balance, and…
In the rapidly shrinking lowland forests of Palawan Island, the Philippine porcupine (Hystrix pumila) can be found under tree buttresses, foraging for fallen root crops and fruits. Endemic to Palawan and…
Hariyo "Beebach" Wibisono studies Javan leopards, the last remaining apex predator on Indonesia's island of Java, which, with a land area about the size of Alabama, is also home to…
The Mexican government will no longer protect the habitat of the critically endangered vaquita in the Upper Gulf of California, but has opened the area up to fishing, according to…
JAKARTA — The unmonitored illegal trade in porcupines across Indonesia has prompted calls from conservationists for stricter protection for the species’ population in the wild. A new study examining seizure…
MANILA — The Philippines’ most traded turtle species, and among the world’s rarest, received a bit of a population boost as researchers introduced two juveniles in the wilds of the…
Wild elephants are awe-inspiring — even if they’re trying to kill you, as I discovered in 2004. At the time I was studying how poachers and loggers threaten native mammals…
In Brazil, as in many other biodiverse countries around the world, the commercial trade of some species of wildlife is allowed — as long as the animal was bred in…
Filip Wojciechowski moved to the island of Bohol in the Philippines in 2014 to study one of the country’s most elusive nocturnal primates, the Philippine tarsier. But he hadn’t reckoned…
The Javan pied starling (Gracupica jalla) is a captive in its own home. Thousands of these endemic songbirds once congregated in the safety of tall trees to roost after spending…
One of the world's most infamous ivory traffickers will remain in prison in Tanzania after an appeal judge sent her case back to a lower court. The high court accepted…
Once known as the world’s elephant killing fields, Tanzania appears to have halted the worst ivory poaching within its borders, making more than 2,300 arrests of poachers and traffickers over…
SINGAPORE — Special economic zones set up to promote trade between China and its Southeast Asian neighbors are facilitating a black-market trade in wildlife products, according to watchdog group TRAFFIC.…
Gibbons, hornbills, komodo dragons and even Sumatran orangutans — these are just a few of the animals once kept illegally behind bars at a small zoo in North Sumatra, Indonesia.…
Despite a 2019 self-imposed ban, Facebook continues linking wildlife traffickers with buyers around the globe, while the U.S. government has so far done little to regulate trade facilitated by Facebook and other social media firms.
It might sound nihilistic and harsh to describe Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia (Indochina) as forming a kind of buffer zone against the onslaught of snaring and the defaunation of forests…
Parrots, inhabiting pan-tropical and temperate regions across the world, are highly sought after as pets due to their attractive colors, calls and clever nature. But some of the trade in…
MANILA — When COVID-19 emerged in early 2020 in Southeast Asia, its governments took rapid containment actions: lockdowns, travel restrictions and trade suspensions, alerting the public about the virus. The…
Two of the Democratic Republic of Congo's most prolific wildlife traders have been handed jail terms this year, in a rare spell of conservation wins for Congolese law enforcement. Salomon…
Within months of newly discovered species of snakes, geckos and turtles being described (along with their locations) by scientists, traders find and harvest the animals for sale on the Internet.
In 2019, Hong Kong customs authorities inspected a cargo ship bound for Vietnam. Hidden beneath slabs of frozen meat were 8.3 metric tons of illegal scales from about 13,800 pangolins,…
Toxic Bubble Bounce Mushrooms or Green Iguana Disco Mushrooms may sound like psychedelic drugs, but they are, in fact, names of live corals available for sale online. These brilliantly colored…
When Viktor Nikiforov heard about the dead Caspian seals along Russia’s Dagestan coast near the city of Makhachkala, he and a group of researchers went to have a look. On…
The South African government has made a landmark decision to end the nation’s captive lion breeding industry. This includes closing down facilities that offer touristic experiences like canned hunting and…
Since his breakthrough book, The Lizard King, and his National Geographic feature on “The Kingpin”, Bryan Christy has established himself as one of the best-known wildlife crime writers. In 2012,…
Shoes, watches, wallets and bags — anything made from exotic reptile skins — were plucked from the shelves in Selfridges, a high-end department store in the U.K., in February 2019.…
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…
PALAWAN, Philippines — In a span of six months, Philippine environmental authorities have seized 150 tons of giant clam shells from a string of operations across the island province of…
This is the story of how Indonesia is losing its spots. In a recent paper published in Nature Conservation, researchers found that the archipelagic nation has a significant illegal trade…
MANILA — Palawan is an outlier in the Philippine archipelago, its topography and habitat closer to that of Borneo than the rest of the country’s major islands. This so-called last…
