Poacher Profile: Spotlight on Vidal Armadores

25 February 2015 (Sea Shepherd Global) – In our Poacher Profile series, we take a closer look at the criminal profiteers who are behind Illegal, Unregulated, and Unreported (IUU) fishing operations in the Southern Ocean. You may have heard the name Vidal Armadores linked to the 2 poaching vessels that were intercepted by the Sea […]

Work on California’s Imperial County solar project halted to protect lizard, while San Benito County solar project is approved, despite threat to endangered species

By Chris Clarke   12 March 2015 (KCET) – Work has halted on a solar power facility in Imperial County due to the possibility that a rare lizard on site may be listed as an endangered species by the state. Construction halted Wednesday at the Tenaska Imperial Solar Energy Center West, being built by Tempe, Arizona-based […]

New Zealand chief testifies before Parliament to explain why the Navy failed to board any of three vessels found fishing illegally in the Southern Ocean in January

By Captain Paul Watson13 March 2015(Facebook) – This week, the Chief of the New Zealand Defense Force, Lieutenant-General Tim Keating, had to appear before a Parliamentary Committee meeting to explain why, in January, the New Zealand Navy did not board and arrest an Interpol-listed toothfish poaching vessel in the Southern Ocean within the area controlled […]

Rhino poaching grinds to a halt under drones’ watch – ‘Since October 1, not one rhino has been killed where we’re flying’

[Air Shepherd brings rare good news from the poaching front. –Des] By Ben Guarino 2 March 2015 (The Dodo) – Rhino poaching in parts of South Africa has dropped to essentially nil, thanks to a combination of cheap drones and complex number-crunching. “Since October 1,” said Thomas Snitch, Ph.D., the University of Maryland professor who […]

China bans ivory imports for 1 year to protect elephants – ‘The announcement is largely a window-dressing exercise’

BEIJING (AP) — China imposed a one-year ban on ivory imports that took immediate effect Thursday amid criticism that its citizens’ huge appetite for ivory has fueled poaching that threatens the existence of African elephants. The State Administration of Forestry declared the ban in a public notice posted on its official site, in which it […]

San Diego’s Frozen Zoo gets grant to sequence genome of northern white rhino

By Tony Perry26 February 2015 (Los Angeles Times) – Los Angeles-based philanthropic organization is providing money to help San Diego’s Frozen Zoo find ways to bring the northern white rhino back from the brink of extinction, zoo officials announced Thursday. The Seaver Institute, which provides funds to assist in the arts, education and science, has […]

Video: Loggers chop down tree with koala family still in it

[Sadly, this is very common: Deforestation in Australia killing and mutilating koalas – Loggers say finding dead koalas is ‘like a daily thing, sometimes a couple every hour’ –Des] By Stephen Messenger4 February 2015 (The Dodo) – A distressing new video shows a gum tree being felled by loggers while a koala and her baby […]

Hunting the ghost fleets: Pirate ships poach endangered Antarctic fish with impunity – Australia and New Zealand refuse to intervene

By Captain Paul Watson3 February 2015 (SSCS) – Since mid-December, 2014, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has been engaged in shutting down the illegal operations of four Antarctic toothfish poaching ships. The Sea Shepherd ship Bob Barker located the Nigerian-flagged poacher Thunder on December 16th on the Banzare Bank off the coast of Antarctica. The […]

Panda habitat threatened by recent forest tenure reforms in China

By Apoorva Joshi27 January 2015 (mongabay.com) – Since the 1950s, plantations and second-growth forests in China have been locally managed by village communities as collective forests, which today account for 58 percent of China’s forestland. Many of these collective forests lie within mountainous rural areas, some of which are also home to the 1,600 or […]

¡Vive Jairo! protesters demand justice (again) for slain Costa Rica conservationist

29 January 2015 (Tico Times) – Hundreds of protesters gathered Thursday in front of a court complex in the Costa Rican capital to express outrage over a verdict earlier this week that acquitted seven defendants of the 2013 murder of sea turtle conservationist Jairo Mora, who has quickly become an environmental martyr in this small […]

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