Study reveals Amazon deforestation tends to decrease but remains high – 222,248 square kilometers destroyed between 2000 and 2013

(RAISG) – The Amazonian Network of Georeferenced Socio-Environmental Information (RAISG) reveals in a recent publication that the loss of original forest cover of the Amazon rainforest decelerated between 2000 and 2013 relative to the 1970-2000 period. Despite this deceleration, figures remain high within the entire region for the three periods analyzed (2000-2005, 2005-2010, 2010-2013). The […]

South Africa reports small decrease in rhino poaching, but across Africa 2015 worst year on record – ‘Continent-wide the scale of the rhino poaching crisis is spreading’

Johannesburg, South Africa, 21 January 2016 (Traffic.org) – South Africa today announced the official number of rhinos illegally killed in the country during 2015. The figure of 1,175 represents a slight drop on the 1,215 record total in 2014, but overall rhino poaching figures for Africa total a record high for the continent. “While a […]

World’s leading whale scientists want Japan harpoon fleet to turn back – ‘Japan’s whaling is unscientific’

21 January 2016 (Business Insider Australia) – More than 30 of the world’s top whale scientists have called on Japan to stop its so-called scientific whaling program. In the correspondence section of the international journal Nature, the experts write a letter to the editor under the headline “Japan’s whaling is unscientific”. The experts are mostly […]

Demand for fish bladder may wipe out world’s rarest porpoise – ‘The vaquita’s only hope for survival is that gill nets are permanently removed from its entire range in the Gulf of California’

By Rachael Bale10 January 2016 (National Geographic) – Just last week, a friend at the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) emailed me to ask if I’ve ever written about the trafficking of totoaba swim bladders, adding that she’s been working on vaquita conservation in the Gulf of California. Totoaba? Vaquitas? These were […]

Video: Pilot whale tied and drowned by Japan hunters as entire pod is slaughtered – One whale ‘heard crying out loudly as it swam through the water that had turned red with the blood of its family’

25 November 2015 (SSCS) – A pod of pilot whales driven into the infamous killing cove on Nov. 19 (Japan time) was traumatized and held without food or shelter for three days; one was later taken captive, the remainder were killed or dumped at sea. Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s Cove Guardian volunteers have captured extremely […]

Japan under fire over decision to resume illegal whale slaughter in Southern Ocean – ‘The pristine waters of the Southern Ocean are once again under threat from poachers’

By Paul Gallagher28 November 2015 (The Guardian) – Japan is set to resume whaling early next year, after a break of more than 12 months, in defiance of an international court of justice ruling that it cease the practice. The Japanese government says it has taken into account the court ruling and its “scientific” whaling […]

Poachers attempt to smuggle endangered peregrine falcons out of Russia ‘as playthings of rich Arab sheikhs’

21 October 2015 (The Siberian Times) – Border guards seize 14 birds, as FSB lead search for criminals behind cruelty. The tethered peregrine falcons were hidden in two bags on a freight train bound from Russia to Kazakhstan, said border guards in Altai region. Shocking pictures show how the birds – the fastest flyers in […]

Why it’s so hard to fight fisheries crime

By Amanda Cabrejo le Roux3 November 2015 (The Conversation) – A court in São Tomé and Príncipe, a small oceanic island off the African west coast, recently delivered an historical verdict in the fight against the transnational criminal syndicates involved in fisheries crime. The court convicted the Chilean captain and two Spanish officials of the […]

Chinese authorities seize 2,674 pangolin carcasses in biggest trafficking case in 5 years

By Hannah Osborne 3 November 2015 (IBT) – Customs officials in China have seized 2,674 pangolin carcasses in the biggest trafficking case involving the species in five years. Authorities intercepted the haul on a fishing boat in September. They found thousands of dead pangolin stuffed inside 414 cool boxes weighing 11.5 tonnes, China’s Xinhua news […]

Calls to cull 7,000 Lake Baikal seals – Poachers slaughter more than a dozen

By Olga Gertcyk9 October 2015 (Siberian Times) – The controversial demand to end a total ban on hunting Baikal’s indigenous seals came from Arnold Tulokhonov, who both senator for the Republic of Buryatia in the upper house of the Russian parliament and director  of the Baikal Institute of Natural Resources. The seals need to be […]

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