Trump wildlife protection board stuffed with trophy hunters

By Michael Biesecker, Jake Pearson, and Jeff Horwitz 16 March 2018 WASHINGTON (Associated Press) – A new U.S. advisory board created to help rewrite federal rules for importing the heads and hides of African elephants, lions and rhinos is stacked with trophy hunters, including some members with direct ties to President Donald Trump and his […]

Trump administration quietly makes it legal to bring elephant parts to the U.S. as trophies

By Michael Biesecker 6 March 2018 (Associated Press) – The Trump administration has quietly decided once again to allow Americans to import the body parts of African elephants shot for sport, despite presidential tweets decrying the practice as a “horror show.” President Donald Trump personally intervened in November 2017 when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife […]

36 exotic animals disappear from Florida wildlife sanctuary after fake “help yourself” ad – “They took the dollar animals. They knew exactly what they wanted.”

By Richard Luscombe 6 March 2018 MIAMI (The Guardian) – The advertisement on Craigslist was specific: “Free exotic animals. We’re a sanctuary going out of business. Go around back and help yourself.”Early on Sunday morning, somebody did just that, driving a truck up to the rear gate of the We Care Wildlife Sanctuary in Miami […]

Scientists hatch bold plan to save polar bears – “There’s no future for polar bears in an Arctic without the sea ice”

By David Cox 27 February 2018 (NBC News) – For the past two decades, scientists have been monitoring the effects of a warming Arctic on the world’s polar bears — and the bears’ future has looked increasingly bleak.The latest estimates suggest that Arctic sea ice is disappearing by 14 percent a decade, drastically limiting the […]

Costa Rica prepares to export 10 tons of fins poached from endangered hammerhead sharks – “Once again, Costa Rica is evading its CITES obligations in order to favor private interests”

2 March 2018 (The Costra Rican Times) – Ten tons of hammerhead shark fins have been in storage in Costa Rican warehouses since 1 March 2015, when the government issued a ban on the export of hammerhead shark fins as part of its Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora […]

New maps reveal industrial fishing in more than half of world’s oceans

By Shreya Dasgupta 24 February 2018 (Mongabay) – Industrial fishing takes place across more than 55 percent of the world’s oceans, according to a new study published in Science.Fishing is vital for food security and livelihoods across the globe, yet the extent of industrial fishing has remained largely unknown. Now, a team of researchers has […]

North Atlantic right whales face extinction by 2040 after no new births recorded – “At the rate we are killing them off, this 100 females will be gone in 20 years”

By Joanna Walters 26 February 2018 (The Guardian) – The dwindling North Atlantic right whale population is on track to finish its breeding season without any new births, prompting experts to warn again that without human intervention, the species will face extinction.Scientists observing the whale community off the US east coast have not recorded a […]

China’s lust for jaguar fangs imperils big cats

By Barbara Fraser 23 February 2018 (Nature) – The jaguar was found floating in a drainage canal in Belize City, Belize, on the day after Christmas last year. Its body was mostly intact, but the head was missing its fangs. On 10 January 2018, a second cat — this time, an ocelot that may have […]

How human coping mechanisms for global warming are impacting endangered animals

By Jennifer Fabiano 21 February 2018 (AccuWeather) – While most are familiar with the impact of climate change and rising temperatures on animals such as polar bears, few are aware of one of the biggest threats to endangered animals: the climate change coping mechanisms initiated by humans. A serious, mostly unknown impact of climate change […]

A veterinarian looks at an X-ray photo of the Bornean orangutan, showing 130 pellets in its body. The male Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) was found barely alive on 5 February 2018 by officials from Kutai National Park in East Kalimantan. It died the next day from its extensive injuries. Photo: Centre for Orangutan Protection

Four Indonesian farmers charged in killing of orangutan that was shot 130 times – “All took turns shooting at the orangutan”

JAKARTA, 18 February 2018 (Mongabay) – 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 Borneo, detained the four men on 15 February 2018 and charged them the following day. They have been identified as 36-year-old […]

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