By RANDY LEE LOFTIS8 January 2014 (Dallas Morning News) – Two worlds collide this weekend when the Dallas Safari Club auctions a permit to kill an endangered black rhinoceros in Namibia. In one world, a legal trophy hunt helps fund an African nation’s well-regarded conservation programs. That view says losing one aged male would not […]
By David Smith, Africa correspondent 31 December 2013 (The Guardian) – Elephant deaths in Tanzania have risen dramatically since the government abandoned a shoot-to-kill policy against poachers, officials admit. Lazaro Nyalandu, the deputy minister of natural resources and tourism, said 60 elephants were “butchered” in November and December, compared with two in October. Soldiers, police, […]
By John Vidal18 December 2013 (theguardian.com) – 2013 was the seventh warmest year on record and saw one of the strongest cyclones, some of the longest heatwaves and the most topsy-turvy weather experienced in decades. Nowhere is thought to have witnessed faster change than Nikkaluokta, a small Lapland village above the Arctic circle in northern […]
Contact: Mart Dixon (1-347-840-1242; mdixon@wcs.org) Stephen Sautner (1-718-220-3682; ssautner@wcs.org)3 December 2013 NEW YORK – A new study led by the Wildlife Conservation Society and Zoological Society or London warns that the world’s largest tropical desert, the Sahara, has suffered a catastrophic collapse of its wildlife populations. The study by more than 40 authors representing 28 […]
By Jeff Barbee and Mira Dutschke in Nata, Botswana, David Smith in Johannesburg 17 November 2013 (The Guardian) – Botswana has been accused of sacrificing the Kalahari, one of the world’s most precious wildlife reserves, to commercial fracking while ignoring the concerns of environmentalists and communities who could lose access to scarce water. Hydraulic fracturing, […]
19 November 2013 (AFP) – Poachers slaughtered a rhino in one of Kenya’s best guarded wildlife parks, officials said Tuesday, in a brazen attack highlighting the risks gunmen are taking during a surge of killings. “Poachers infiltrated Lewa’s borders during the full moon on November 17 and killed Meluaya,” a 17-year-old black rhino suspected to […]
GAROWE, Somalia, 16 November 2013 (Garowe Online) – The survivors of a severe cyclonic storm that rammed into Somalia’s northeastern region of Puntland are desperate for food, medicines, and clean water but, with so much anxiety and chaos in the hardest-hit areas, the distribution is limited, Garowe Online reports. Despite the efforts of Puntland government, […]
By Jon Swaine17 November 2013 (Sydney Morning Herald) – A US television presenter has prompted outrage after boasting online that she had killed a lion in South Africa. Melissa Bachman, a keen hunter who produces programs on the American outdoors, posted a photograph on Facebook and Twitter of her holding a rifle and smiling beside […]
By Abdiqani Hassan11 November 2013 BOSASSO, Somalia (Reuters) – At least 100 people were killed when a tropical cyclone hit Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region at the weekend, the government said on Monday, declaring a state of emergency and appealing for international aid. The government said hundreds of people were missing after the storm made landfall […]
By Oliver Joy16 October 2013 (CNN) – Using military-grade helicopters, night-vision equipment and guns fitted with stealth silencers, organized crime syndicates are taking rhino poaching to a whole new level and conservation parks are struggling to keep up. Sabi Sand — South Africa’s oldest private game reserve — is now spending half of its annual […]
