topic: Poachers

topic: Poachers

Social media activity version | Lean version

Cambodian official acquitted in trial that exposed monkey-laundering scheme
- A U.S. court has acquitted a senior Cambodian official accused of involvement in smuggling wild-caught and endangered monkeys into the U.S. for biomedical research.
- Kry Masphal was arrested in November 2022 and has been detained in the U.S. since then, but is now free to return to his job as director of the Cambodian Forestry Administration’s Department of Wildlife and Biodiversity.
- Evidence presented at his trial in Miami included a video of him appearing to acknowledge that long-tailed macaques collected by Cambodian exporter Vanny Bio Research were in fact being smuggled.
- The Cambodian government has welcomed news of the acquittal, while animal rights group PETA says that despite the ruling, “the evidence showed that countless monkeys were abducted from their forest homes and laundered with dirty paperwork.”

In biodiverse Nepal, wildlife crime fighters are underpowered but undeterred
- Wildlife crime investigators in Nepal face various challenges, such as lack of training, resources, evidence and database, as well as political and legal pressure.
- They’re responsible for investigating and prosecuting cases related to the hunting and trafficking of iconic species such as tigers, rhinos, snow leopards and pangolins.
- A key obstacle, many say, is a constitutional provision that now requires more serious cases of wildlife crime to be tried before a court; prior to 2015, all such cases would be heard by district forest offices and protected area offices.
- Change is slowly coming, however, with additional training in scientific investigative methods, most recently funded by the U.S. State Department, and with transfer of knowledge.

Kordofan giraffes face local extinction in 15 years if poaching continues
- According to a recent study, losing two Kordofan giraffes each year would lead to local extinction of the subspecies within Cameroon’s Bénoué National Park in just 15 years.
- The study found that antipoaching measures are the most effective way to prevent extinction, including robust patrols by guards, strengthening law enforcement, and providing sustainable livelihoods to people living around the park.
- Kordofan giraffes are a critically endangered subspecies with an estimated 2,300 individuals remaining, of which fewer than 300 are found in Bénoué National Park.
- The authors also stress the importance of identifying, restoring and protecting wilderness corridors to connect populations of giraffes across the region.

Wild or not? Dilemma over two human-friendly rhinos in Nepal
- Two female rhinos, raised in human care and later released in the wild, pose a threat to themselves and people, conservationists warn.
- The rhinos are vulnerable to poaching and human interference, as they are habituated to living with humans.
- Conservationists demand the removal of the rhinos to a safer place, while park officials hope they will adapt to the wilderness.

Warfare for wildlife: Q&A with Rosaleen Duffy
- Rosaleen Duffy is a professor of international politics at Sheffield University in the U.K. and a longtime critic of military and law enforcement tactics in the conservation world.
- In 2021, she published “Security and Conservation” with Yale Press, drawing on anonymous interviews with dozens of conservation practitioners, as well as funders, private military companies, government officials and the private sector.
- Duffy is currently the principal investigator for a U.K. government-funded project analyzing the links between the legal and illegal wildlife trade in European brown bears, European eels, and songbirds.

Human migration to Nepal’s tiger capital adds to conservation challenges
- Chitwan district in central Nepal is home to the eponymous national park that’s come to symbolize the country’s success in growing its tiger population.
- But the district’s human population is also growing, at a rate far higher than the national average, driven by migrants seeking better health services and other urban amenities.
- Conservationists have raised concerns that the growing human presence in the area will pose additional challenges to conservation efforts and put a strain on natural resources such as forests, rivers and land.
- Some warn of an increase in human-tiger conflict, especially involving migrants who don’t share the same traditional knowledge that Indigenous residents have of coexisting alongside the big cats.

Rare case of rhino poaching jolts conservation community in Nepal
- A rare case of rhino poaching in Nepal has sent alarm bells ringing among conservationists, who say the method used could easily be replicated throughout the buffer zone of Chitwan National Park, the rhinos’ stronghold.
- Poachers appeared to have electrocuted a female rhino and her calf using a cable connected to a nearby temple’s power supply.
- Conservation officials say there’s a large number of grid-connected temples and other community buildings throughout Chitwan’s buffer zone that could serve a similar purpose.
- The incident is a rare setback for Nepal, which recorded zero rhino losses to poachers in six of the past 12 years, and only six poaching-related kills out of 165 rhinos that died in the past five years.

Alleged macaque-smuggling ring exposed as U.S. indicts Cambodian officials
- U.S. federal prosecutors have charged eight people, including two Cambodian forestry officials, for their alleged involvement in an international ring smuggling endangered long-tailed macaques.
- The indictment alleges forestry officials colluded with Hong Kong-based biomedical firm Vanny Bio Research to procure macaques from the wild and create export permits falsely listing them as captive-bred animals.
- One of the officials charged was arrested in New York City on Nov. 16, en route to Panama for an international summit focused on regulating the global trade in wildlife.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.

As poachers poison wildlife, Zimbabwe finds an antidote in tougher laws
- Poisons like cyanide can be a deadly weapon for poachers, allowing them to kill dozens of animals without needing access to firearms or the backing of criminal syndicates.
- Wildlife poisoning is on the rise across Africa, targeting elephants as well as pushing endangered vultures toward extinction.
- A new study says Zimbabwe, which a decade ago witnessed some of the deadliest mass poisonings of elephants, has developed a sound basis for curbing poisonings by tightening laws to criminalize intent to use poison to kill wildlife.
- In addition to laws and renewed efforts to improve intelligence gathering, private players are pushing to ensure better law enforcement, resulting in more prosecutions and deterrent sentences.

Snares: Low-tech, low-profile killers of rare wildlife the world over
- Snares are simple, low-tech, noose-like traps that can be made from cheap and easily accessible materials such as wire, rope or brake cables. Easy to set, a single person can place thousands, with one report warning that snares “are a terrestrial equivalent to the drift nets that have devastated marine and freshwater biodiversity.”
- Used throughout the tropics, one estimate says 12 million snares are present in protected areas of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, with the number likely far greater across the wider Southeast Asian region. Snaring is also common in Africa.
- While many hunters target smaller game to eat or sell, snares are indiscriminate, and often maim or kill non-targeted animals such as elephants, lions and giraffes, and endangered species including gorillas, banteng, dhole and saola. One report calls snares “the greatest threat to the long-term presence of tigers in Southeast Asia.”
- Snaring is difficult to stop. Hunters hide snares from their prey, which makes them hard to spot, though rangers are known to collect thousands. It’s “like a game of hide and seek,” says one expert. “Forest rangers hasten to dismantle snare lines even as poachers reconstruct them at other locations.” Behavior change is one solution.

Mozambique busts notorious rhino poacher
- A sting operation led by Mozambique’s National Criminal Investigation Service has netted notorious alleged poacher Simon Ernesto Valoi and an associate in possession of eight rhino horns.
- Conservationists say Valoi and other poaching kingpins have operated freely from Massingir district to poach thousands of rhinos just across the border in South Africa’s Kruger National Park.
- Valoi’s arrest, following the January sentencing of another major rhino horn trafficker to 30 years in jail, may be a further sign that Mozambique’s law enforcement authorities are successfully targeting high-level poachers.

Cash-strapped Zimbabwe pushes to be allowed to sell its ivory stockpile
- Zimbabwe is continuing to push for international support for selling off its stockpile of elephant ivory and rhino horn, saying the revenue is needed to fund conservation efforts.
- Funding for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority comes largely from tourism-related activity, which has virtually evaporated during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving the authority with shortages of staff, equipment, and funds for communities living adjacent to wildlife.
- But critics say allowing the sale of the 136 metric tons of elephant ivory and rhino horn that Zimbabwe is holding (mostly from animals that died of natural causes) will only stoke demand and lead to a surge in poaching.
- They point to similar surges following other one-off sales in 1999 and 2008, but some observers say these were unusual circumstances (the latter sale coincided with the global recession), and that a poaching spike won’t necessarily follow this time around.

Ivory from at least 150 poached elephants seized in the DRC raid
- A three-year investigation has led authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo to 2 metric tons of ivory hidden in a stash house in the southern city of Lubumbashi.
- The tusks are valued at $6 million on the international market and estimated to have come from more than 150 elephants.
- The three people arrested in the May 14 raid are allegedly members of a major wildlife trafficking ring in the Southern African region.

Bull run: South Africa marks latest rhino relocation to boost populations
- Four black rhinos were translocated to the Bonamanzi Game Reserve in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province in April, part of wider efforts to repopulate the species’ former range and boost their gene pool.
- Black rhino populations fell from nearly 40,000 in the 1970s to just 2,400 in the early ’90s, due to poaching driven by strong demand for rhino horn in Asia and civil strife in and the flow of weapons across Southern Africa.
- More effective protection and measures to support population growth have helped black rhino populations rise to around 5,600 today.
- Translocation helps reestablish rhino populations in parts of their former range where they’ve been extirpated as well as allowing existing populations to continue to breed.

Cold case: Half-hearted prosecution lets ivory traffickers escape in Uganda
- More than three years since Ugandan authorities seized a shipment of nearly 4 tons of elephant ivory and pangolin scales, no one has been prosecuted for the trafficking attempt.
- Two Vietnamese nationals were arrested in the bust, but they vanished after being granted bail.
- Wildlife trade investigators have questioned the commitment of the Ugandan authorities to pursue the case, saying their efforts to find the suspects since then appear half-hearted at best.
- They add the failure to prosecute this case is a missed opportunity to break up a major trafficking network moving wildlife parts from East and Central Africa to Southeast Asia.

Links between terrorism and the ivory trade overblown, study says
- As killings of elephants in Africa spiked in the early 2010s, some conservation organizations claimed the ivory trade was financing armed groups like al-Shabaab and the Lord’s Resistance Army.
- According to a study published in Global Environmental Politics, those ties were overstated and strategically pushed by NGOs in order to attract funding for anti-poaching efforts.
- Despite shaky evidence for some of the claims, they helped frame wildlife trafficking as a global security issue and were subsequently repeated by policymakers from the U.S. and elsewhere.
- The study said the confluence of conservation and security policy has had “material outcomes for marginalized peoples living with wildlife, including militarization, human rights abuses, enhanced surveillance, and law enforcement.”

Translocation brings white rhinos to Rwanda, a new land for an old species
- On Nov. 29, 30 white rhinos were introduced to Akagera National Park in Rwanda from a private game reserve in South Africa.
- The relocation is aimed at establishing the species in a new range state and ensuring its survival into the future.
- Akagera National Park has not had a single high-value animal poached for the past 11 years, and has become a sanctuary for other translocated species such as lions and black rhinos, according to the NGO African Parks, which helps to manage Akagera.
- White rhinos are considered a near threatened species that under continual threat from poaching incidents.

Calls for swift action as hundreds of elephants die in Botswana’s Okavango Delta
- As many as 400 elephants have died in Botswana’s Okavango Delta since March, wildlife experts say.
- Government authorities say poaching, poison and anthrax have been ruled out as the causes of death.
- Conservationists have questioned the government’s handling of the mass deaths and rejection of assistance to test and investigate.
- Botswana has the largest elephant population of any country, with the resultant rise in human-animal conflicts leading the government to rescind some protections for the animals.

Rwanda’s Akagera park thrives thanks to community-led anti-poaching drive
- An informal network of community members, including former poachers, that delivers information to the ANP security team has bolstered internal response to potential poachers even before they enter ANP limits.
- High employment rates within the periphery community, significant reinvestment in infrastructure projects and income generation opportunities.
- It also includes a sustained relationship through informal events like sports have increased positive relationships between the park and periphery community.

For nesting hawksbill turtles, this Philippine community is a sanctuary
- For centuries, hawksbill sea turtles have returned to a shoreline in the eastern Philippines to lay their eggs, even as the human community has expanded along the same stretch of beach.
- Hawksbill sea turtles’ low survival rates in the wild are caused by natural predators and, recently, exacerbated by rising sea levels. Another key threat is poaching for their meat and shells.
- Despite the lack of financial support, locals continue to look after the eggs, coming up with their own ways to protect them until the hatchlings are ready to be released back into the sea.

Rangers in Indonesia’s Aceh to get guns as officials flex on violators
- Rangers in Indonesia’s Aceh province will get firearms to defend themselves against poachers, illegal loggers and miners.
- Rangers elsewhere across Indonesia are already armed, but those in Aceh were disarmed in the 1970s in response to a separatist insurgency there that only ended in 2005.
- Conservationists have largely welcomed the decision to rearm Aceh’s forest rangers, but some have expressed doubt that it will be effective in reducing human encroachment into forests that are home to near-extinct species such as Sumatran tigers, rhinos, orangutans and elephants.
- Aceh authorities are also deliberating an Islamic bylaw that would prescribe 100 lashes of the cane for wildlife poachers, in addition to the jail time and fines prescribed under national laws.

Angola pledges $60m to fund landmine clearance in national parks
- The Angolan government has announced a $60 million commitment to clear landmines in Luengue-Luiana and Mavinga national parks in the country’s southeast.
- The region is part of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area — home to incredible natural biodiversity, but also one of the most heavily mined regions of Angola.
- International funding for landmine clearance has fallen by 80 percent over the last 10 years, and without new funding Angola will miss its target of clearing all landmines by 2025.
- The HALO Trust, a demining NGO, and the Angolan government hope that clearance of landmines will stimulate conservation in southeastern Angola and provide alternative livelihoods such as ecotourism to alleviate poverty and diversify the country’s economy away from oil.

Elephant in the room: Botswana deals with pachyderm population pressure
- The government of Botswana is considering measures to rein in its elephant population to address the problem of human-elephant conflicts.
- These proposed measures include a resumption of big-game hunting and culling of elephants, which number about 130,000 in Botswana — the biggest population of the pachyderm in Africa.
- An existing solution is a transboundary conservation area that straddles the borders between Botswana and Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Angola.
- Given that many of the elephants inside Botswana come from these other countries, officials say having wildlife corridors in the border areas could ease the population pressure inside the country.

Trouble in Botswana’s elephant paradise as poaching said to rise
- Botswana is home to 130,000 elephants, a third of Africa’s total elephant population, and has gained a reputation as a sanctuary for the threatened species.
- The country has a hunting ban and strict anti-poaching measures in place.
- But a report based on an aerial survey carried out last year appears to show an alarming increase in poaching, notably of male elephants for their typically larger tusks — a finding disputed by the government.
- The government is considering ending the hunting ban to allow the trophy shooting and culling of elephants to get their population under control.

Chinese ‘Queen of Ivory’ sentenced to 15 years in jail for tusk trafficking
- Tanzania has sentenced Yang Fenglan, a Chinese national dubbed the “Queen of Ivory,” to 15 years in prison for smuggling the tusks of more than 350 African elephants over several years.
- Yang, 69, was arrested in 2015, along with two Tanzanian men, and charged with trafficking 860 ivory pieces, which according to authorities were worth at least $5.6 million.
- On Feb. 19, a court convicted the three of organizing a criminal syndicate and sentenced them to 15 years each. It also ordered them to pay a fine double the market value of the ivory they were accused of smuggling, or face an additional two years in prison for failing to do so.
- Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a press conference that China would support Tanzania’s investigation and handling of the case.

Corruption-riddled caviar trade pushes fish closer to extinction
- TRAFFIC, WWF and several other organizations and institutions have published a report demonstrating that corruption drives the illegal trade of caviar around the world.
- Many of the species of fish, including those that produce the highest-priced caviar, are critically endangered.
- The report’s authors surfaced evidence of bribery, conflicts of interest, poaching and improper labeling in the industry, all of which are putting further pressure on the resource.

Rapid population drop weakened the Grauer’s gorilla gene pool
- The loss of 80 percent of all Grauer’s, or eastern lowland, gorillas in the past two decades has led to a severe reduction in the subspecies’ genetic diversity, new research has found.
- That slide could make it more difficult for the fewer than 4,000 remaining Grauer’s gorillas to adapt to changes in their environment.
- Scientists look for signs of hope in the animal’s sister subspecies, the mountain gorilla, which, studies suggest, has adapted to its own low levels of genetic diversity.

Virtual meetup highlights networked sensor technology for parks
- To encourage communication between the conservation community and technology developers, the WILDLABS platform began a series of virtual meetups earlier this month.
- Speakers in the first meetup represented three groups developing and deploying networked sensors for improving wildlife security and reducing human-wildlife conflict.
- The three tech developers described lessons they’ve learned on meeting the needs of rangers and reserve managers, using drones to fight poaching, and adapting technology to function in remote areas under difficult conditions.

Progress on jaguar conservation in Suriname
- Dr. Mark J. Plotkin is the Co‑Founder & President of the Amazon Conservation Team, which partners with indigenous peoples to conserve forests and wildlife in Suriname, Colombia, and Brazil.
- In this post, Plotkin writes about a recent meeting in Suriname to discuss an emerging threat to jaguars across Latin America: poaching for traditional Chinese medicine.
- He notes that representatives who attended the meeting are now deeply engaged in designing an action plan for jaguar conservation in Suriname.

$25m in funding to help African gov’ts prosecute poachers, traffickers
- The African Wildlife Foundation has pledged $25 million to projects aimed at combating the illegal wildlife trade across the continent over the next four years.
- The Nairobi-based NGO invests in outfitting wildlife rangers, training sniffer dogs to detect illicit shipments, and community-based development.
- AWF president Kaddu Sebunya emphasized the need to invest in homegrown solutions to the crisis when he announced the funding at the Illegal Wildlife Trade conference, held Oct. 11-12 in London.

87 elephants found dead in Botswana, one of last safe havens for the species
- At least 87 elephants were killed by poachers in recent months, conservation nonprofit Elephants Without Borders said based on an ongoing aerial survey in northern Botswana.
- Given that the current aerial survey is only halfway through, conservationists worry the final number of poached elephants will be much higher.
- The government of Botswana, however, has refuted the organization’s claims and called the figures “unsubstantiated,” in a statement published on Twitter.

Poachers caught on video killing mother bear and cubs at den in Alaska
- Two hunters allegedly killed a female bear and her cubs at the animals’ den in April, in violation of hunting laws.
- The mother bear was part of a wildlife study and wore a tracking collar.
- As part of the study, a video camera had been set up near the den and captured the hunters’ alleged actions.
- The U.S. Humane Society says proposed changes to federal hunting laws that would make killing bears in their dens legal are “cruel and unsporting,” while several hunting groups argue that the law changes are necessary to stop the federal government’s overreach into Alaska’s wildlife management.

Two suspected poachers arrested for killing of Sumatran elephant
- Indonesian authorities have arrested two of four suspects alleged to have killed a rare Sumatran elephant and hacked off one of its tusks.
- The arrest took place about a month after the elephant was found dead in the Leuser Ecosystem in Sumatra’s Aceh province. News of the killing garnered widespread attention and calls to solve the case.
- There are only an estimated 2,400 Sumatran elephants left in the wild, scattered across 25 fragmented habitats on the island.

Last Glimpses of a Cambodian Paradise? Documenting an area on the eve of its likely destruction (commentary)
- The sheer scale of the logging operations in Cambodia’s Virachey National Park makes it a wonder that there’s anything left of the forest, especially as the timber just keeps flowing into Vietnam unabated. In fact, Cambodia has one of the world’s highest deforestation rates.
- Yet there is still plenty of wildlife, at least in Virachey National Park, where I have been part of a team that has been conducting a wildlife survey for four years now.
- All hope could well be lost — man/progress must be served. But are the nails firmly placed in the biodiversity coffin and awaiting final pounding? Perhaps not.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Poachers blamed in second Sumatran elephant death this year
- Forest rangers in northern Sumatra have found one of their patrol elephants dead and missing a tusk inside a protected forest.
- Authorities have cited poisoning by poachers as the cause of death, making it the second such poaching-related elephant killing in Sumatra this year.
- The local conservation agency has called on law enforcers to bring the perpetrators to justice, but past cases suggest this will be slow in coming.

New technology leads to the arrest of eight people suspected of trafficking wildlife parts
- Eight men, including three government officials, all from African countries, have been arrested for allegedly trafficking wildlife body parts to Southeast Asia.
- Officers from the Lusaka Agreement Task Force, based in Nairobi, Kenya, used data analytics software to track down the alleged smugglers, who were arrested in the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo in May.
- The investigation linked the accused to shipments of pangolin scales and elephant tusks seized in Southeast Asia.

Wildlife trade detective Samuel Wasser receives prestigious Albert Schweitzer Medal
- Samuel K. Wasser, a conservation biologist at the University of Washington, U.S., has pioneered ways of using DNA from animal feces to track wildlife poachers.
- In recognition of his achievements, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) has honored Wasser with the Albert Schweitzer Medal, an award that “recognizes outstanding achievement in the advancement of animal welfare.”
- In a brief Q&A, Wasser told Mongabay that it was “heartening” to win the Albert Schweitzer Medal, and that he is proud to see his work make a difference in the world.

Robbery or retribution? Police investigate death of prominent conservationist in Kenya
- Esmond Bradley Martin, a 76-year-old American, was found stabbed to death in the home he shared with his wife in a suburb of Nairobi, Kenya, on Sunday.
- Martin had been working in Africa and around the world since the 1970s to stop the slaughter of rhinos and elephants for their horns and tusks.
- Colleagues credit Martin with increasing the conservation community’s understanding of the trade of wildlife parts through his often-undercover investigations.

Powering cameras and empowering people
- Keeping equipment running in harsh field conditions can challenge any tech project, as can working successfully with volunteers.
- Mongabay-Wildtech spoke with leaders of one project, wpsWatch, that deploys connected camera traps to monitor wildlife and people in reserves and employs volunteers to monitor image feeds from afar.
- Powering equipment for field surveillance and “making it part of everyone’s day” enable the rapid image detection, communication, and response by ground patrols needed to successfully apprehend wildlife poachers using cameras and other sensors.

Poachers blamed as body of Sumatran elephant, missing tusks, found in protected forest
- Farmers in southern Sumatra found the body of a young male elephant inside a protected forest and missing its tusks.
- No external injuries were found that could point to a cause of death, leading wildlife activists to suspect it was killed by poisoning, a common tactic used by poachers.
- The discovery comes less than a month after a pregnant elephant was found poisoned to death in northern Sumatra — although in that case the tuskless female appeared more likely to have been killed for encroaching on farms than by poachers.

Indonesian ex-soldier among three jailed for illegal trade in Sumatran rhino, tiger parts
- A court in Indonesia has jailed three men for the illegal trade in endangered Sumatran rhino and tiger parts.
- An ex-Army captain and a middleman were sentenced to two years for trying to trade in a rhino horn, while a similar sentence was handed down to a man convicted of trapping and killing a tiger and trying to sell it
- While both the Sumatran rhino and Sumatran tiger are deemed critically endangered, or just a step away from being extinct in the wild, conservationists say enforcement of local laws meant to protect them remains lax.

Forced out or killed: rare chimps go missing from Cameroon mountain forest
- The Endangered Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes ellioti) is the least numerous subspecies of chimpanzee, with a total population almost certainly less than 9,000, and probably less than 6,000 individuals.
- The estimated population is far smaller in Cameroon, where just four known populations number some 250 individuals, all located in the Northwest region.
- One of those groups, known as “The Great Apes of Tubah” was until recently found in the unprotected Kejom-Keku Mountain Forest.
- But the chimps haven’t been seen in three years, and conservationists fear they’ve been killed or forced to move on. A new road into the Kejom-Keku area has resulted in the loss of half its forest, as herders, farmers, loggers and poachers move in.

Rhino horn on the auction block in South Africa
- The trade in rhino horn has only recently become legal in South Africa again, after an April 2017 decision reversed a 2009 moratorium.
- Since the ban went into effect, rhino deaths at the hands of poachers in South Africa are nearly 10 times what they were, leading some private rhino breeders to argue that international trade should be legalized to meet the demand for horn sustainably.
- Conservation groups are concerned that a legal trade would neither satisfy the market’s demand for rhino horn nor stem poaching.

Pangolin hunting skyrockets in Central Africa, driven by international trade
- The study pulled together information on markets, prices and hunting methods for pangolins from research in 14 countries in Africa.
- Pangolins are hunted for their meat in some African countries, and their scales are used in traditional medicine, both locally and in several Asian countries, including China.
- The researchers found that as many as 2.71 million pangolins from three species are killed every year across six Central African countries – at least a 145 percent increase since before 2000.
- They recommend better enforcement of the 2016 CITES ban across the entire supply chain, from Africa to Asia.

DRC’s Garamba National Park: The last giraffes of the Congo
- Today there are only 46 giraffes left in Garamba National Park, in Northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo in a nearly 2,000 square-mile area.
- Garamba is situated in a dangerous part of Africa crawling with heavily armed poachers and various guerilla groups.
- Garamba is one of 10 national parks and protected areas in 7 countries managed by African Parks, a non-profit conservation organization.

2 wildlife rangers shot and killed by poachers in Congo park
- While out patrolling on April 11, Ari and Afokao heard gunshots.
- The patrol unit followed signs and tracks until they discovered a group of six poachers who were cutting up a freshly slaughtered elephant carcass.
- A shootout followed, in which both Ari and Afokao were fatally shot.

A Czech zoo is dehorning its rhinos
- The dehorning is in response to an incident in Paris earlier this month, in which poachers broke into a zoo near the city, shot dead a 4-year-old male white rhino, and hacked off one of its horns.
- The Dvůr Králove Zoo, home to 21 rhinos, sawed the horns off its first rhino on March 20.
- The authorities said that the horns will be stored in a “safe place” outside the zoo.

Notorious elephant poacher, ‘The Devil’, sentenced to 12 years in jail
- Mariango was arrested in October 2015 with his brothers Lucas Mathayo Malyango and Abdallah Ally Chaoga while attempting to smuggle 118 tusks worth over $863,000.
- Aged 47, Mariango was one of the poachers featured in the Netflix documentary film, The Ivory Game, produced by Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
- He also stands accused of supplying ivory to Yang Feng Glan, a Chinese national nicknamed “Queen of Ivory,” who is on trial in Tanzania for smuggling ivory worth $2.5 million.

Poachers kill rhino at French zoo
- Poachers killed four-year-old rhino named Vince at the Thoiry Zoo and Wildlife Park near Paris.
- Vince’s keeper found him the next morning, with one of his horns hacked off, probably with a chainsaw, the zoo said in a statement.
- Two other white rhinoceros living in the Thoiry zoo — Gracie aged 37 and Bruno aged 5 years — have “escaped the massacre” and are safe, the zoo said.

The last elephants of Cambodia’s Virachey National Park
- Virachey is Cambodia’s largest national park, with 3,325 square kilometers of mountainous jungle, upland savannas, and deep river gorges spanning across Stung Treng and Ratanakiri provinces in the extreme northeast of the country.
- Economic Land Concessions, some of which have now been revoked, chipped away at the area of the park that borders Vietnam, while selective illegal logging takes place throughout Virachey (and every “protected area” in Cambodia) and poaching is rife.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Feeds: news | india | latam | brasil | indonesia