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12 Charged in Sales of Endangered Species
A dozen people are charged in connection with selling rare fish, birds and bear and tiger pelts over the Internet
By Jason Kandel
| Friday, Jan 6, 2012 | Updated 2:51 PM PST
12 Charged in Sales of Endangered Species
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Twelve people were charged in connection with selling rare fish, birds and other endangered species over the Internet.
A dozen people have been charged in connection with illegally selling rare fish, birds and exotic animal pelts over the Internet, authorities said on Friday.
The case, dubbed Operation Cyberwild, was announced following the arrest of a Las Vegas man who was charged with selling boots made out of threatened sea turtles.
Federal agents and state game wardens recovered live endangered fish, protected migratory birds, an elephant foot, and pelts from a tiger, a polar bear, a leopard and a bear.
During the investigation, which began in July 2011, agents and game wardens targeted Internet ads placed by sellers in Southern California and southern Nevada.
“We hope that this operation will send a message to individuals selling – or even considering selling – protected wildlife that we are watching and that we take these offenses seriously,” said Erin Dean, resident agent in charge of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Torrance.
The 12 defendants charged in federal and state court each allegedly offered for sale animals or animal parts. The defendants are variously charged with violating the federal Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Lacey Act and various state wildlife laws.
United States Attorney André Birotte Jr. said the sale of endangered animals on the Internet has reached an alarming level, with as much as two-thirds of such sales taking place in the United States. He said that Internet sales of wildlife fuel poaching and make the killing of protected animals more profitable.
“Unfortunately, this delicate system continues to face serious threats, including poaching, the introduction of non-native species and the illegal sale of endangered species,” he said.
Paul Todd, the program manager for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, applauded the effort.
"We hope 'Operation Cyberwild' serves as a wake up call to Internet-based marketplaces," he said in a statement. "The Internet wildlife trade must be addressed if we are to save these animals from extinction at the hands of poachers and their worldwide criminal trade networks."
The defendants charged in the case are:
George Lovell, 49, of Las Vegas;
Lisa Naumu, 49, of San Diego;
Victor Northrop, 48, of Henderson, Nevada;
Karla Trejo, 42, of Sherman Oaks;
Dan Tram “Majkah” Huynh, 30, of San Diego;
Henry Dao, 41, of Garden Grove;
Alex Madar, 27, of San Diego;
Kamipeli Piuleini, 35, of Torrance
Tyler Homesley, 24, of Ramona;
Alfredo Vazquez, 50, of Montebello
James I. Colburn, 66, of Leona Valley;
Blake William Diekman, 27, of South Pasadena.
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12 Charged in Sales of Endangered Species
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The wild tiger is among the world's most endangered species, pushed to the brink of extinction in large part by poachers who are killing the animals for profit. The illicit tiger parts trade is worth billions of dollars and nowhere is it more active than in China, the world's leading consumer of illegal wildlife. Nearly two decades ago, the Chinese government instituted a series of conservation efforts ostensibly aimed at saving the tiger from what appeared to be its imminent demise, but correspondent Adam Yamaguchi goes undercover and exposes flagrant and widespread violation of China's tiger trade laws. At the heart of Yamaguchi's investigation are China's many tiger parks, touted as safe-haven preserves. In truth, as evidenced by the material that "Vanguard" gathers, these parks may be anything but.
Tiger Farms
Monday 1st August, 10pm
Sky 183, Virgin 155
http://current.com/shows/monday/
Vanguard is Current TV's no-limits documentary series whose award-winning correspondents put themselves in extraordinary situations to immerse viewers in global issues that have a large social significance. Unlike sound-bite driven reporting, the show's correspondents, Adam Yamaguchi, Christof Putzel and Mariana van Zeller, serve as trusted guides who take viewers on in-depth real life adventures in pursuit of some of the world's most important stories.The wild tiger is among the world's most endangered species, pushed to the brink... more
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American hunters are emerging as a strong and growing threat to the survival of African lions, with demand for trophy rugs and necklaces driving the animals towards extinction, a coalition of wildlife organisations has said.
Demand for hunting trophies, such as lion skin rugs, and a thriving trade in animal parts in the US and across the globe have raised the threat levels for African lions, which are already under assault because of conflicts with local villagers and shrinking habitat.
"The African lion is a species in crisis," said Jeff Flocken of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. "The king of the jungle is heading toward extinction, and yet Americans continue to kill lions for sport."
Two-thirds of the lions hunted for sport were brought to America over the last 10 years, a report released by the coalition said.
The organisations, which include IFAW, the Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society International, Born Free and Defenders of Wildlife, called on the White House to ban the import of lion trophies and parts by listing the animals as endangered species.
The number of wild African lions has fallen sharply in the last 100 years, the organisations said. A century ago, as many as 200,000 roamed across Africa. Now, by some estimates, fewer than 40,000 remain in the wild; others put the figure for survivors at 23,000, and they have vanished from 80% of the areas where they once roamed.
Lions have become extinct in 26 countries. Only seven countries – Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe – are believed to contain more than 1,000 lions each, according to the Panthera conservation group – which is not part of the coalition making the appeal.
The single biggest threat by far to the animals' survival is humans, though not necessarily western hunters. "It is just the very, very widespread killing of lions, mostly in a conflict situation, by anyone who is trying to farm livestock in Africa and finds it very difficult to co-exist with lions," said Luke Hunter, the executive vice-president of Panthera.
There is also a lot of pressure on lion habitats with wilderness areas shrinking to build roads – such as the controversial highway across the Serengeti – or to make room for agriculture.
But the report by the wildlife coalition, filed with the White House on Tuesday, said western hunters were a growing danger to the lions' survival.
Between 1999 and 2008, 64% of the 5,663 lions that were killed in the African wild for sport ended up being shipped to America, it said. It also said the numbers had risen sharply in those 10 years, with more than twice as many lions taken as trophies by US hunters in 2008 than in 1999. In addition to personal trophies, Americans are also the world's biggest buyers of lion carcasses and body parts, including claws, skulls, bones and penises. In the same years, the US imported 63% of the 2,715 lion specimens put up for sale.
For some countries, including Tanzania, Zambia, Namibia and Mozambique, hunting for sport was the main threat to the lions' existence. But even in countries which did not attract large numbers of tourists on hunting trips, the practice was taking a growing toll.
The conservationists noted that hunters' penchant for bagging a male lion risked wiping out entire prides. The loss of the alpha male could set off a struggle for supremacy among the survivors that could lead to further deaths of adult male lions, or male cubs seen as potential threats.
A hunting ban, the conservationists said, would reduce that threat by taking Americans out of the game. It's one of a range of threats to the survival of the species, said Teresa Telecky, director of wildlife for Humane Society International. "But what is most certainly true is that of all the threats to the African lion, the one we can best address here in this country is their import."
Flocken noted that all of the other big cats are protected – jaguars, leopards and tigers. "African lions are the only ones left out there," he said.
However, other wildlife experts argued that a total hunting ban was a "nuclear option". They said responsible hunting could in some cases help conserve populations by maintaining wilderness areas. Existing US and international regulations, such as the Cites conventions against trafficking in endangered species, could also be reinforced to protect lions, they said.
"If you remove hunting, the very real risk is that you force African governments to generate revenue from that land and the obvious thing is cattle and crops which just wipe out habitats," said Hunter.American hunters are emerging as a strong and growing threat to the survival of... more
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Orphaned gorillas find a safe haven
From Jessica Ellis, CNN
December 17, 2010 5:19 a.m. EST
Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo (CNN) --
In a remote, rural area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund has opened the country's first rehabilitation center for Grauer's gorillas.
Called GRACE (Gorilla Rehabilitation and Conservation Education), the center's goal is to teach orphaned gorillas how to survive in the wild as a new, self-sufficient "family," with the longer-term goal to release them into a natural habitat in a neighboring forest in the Congo Basin.
These young gorillas are physically and emotionally fragile, most having suffered from extremely traumatic conditions and experiences. Many have been violently taken from the forest by poachers, intent on selling them either as bush meat or for the animal trafficking trade.
CNN's Jessica Ellis and Ferre Dollar recently followed the first group of gorillas to be transported to the forested area from a temporary facility in Goma, in eastern DRC.
The pioneering young orphans were airlifted to GRACE by a helicopter donated by MONUC, the United Nations peacekeeping force in the DRC -- a first for a U.N. mission. Traveling by road would have been almost impossible due to poor infrastructure and potential trauma to the animals.
Mapendo, Amani, Kighoma and Ndjingala were all originally snatched from the forest and their families by poachers. They are all Grauer's gorillas, a subspecies related to the Mountain gorilla, but live exclusively in eastern DRC.
Sandy Jones is the confiscated gorilla rehabilitation manager for the Dian Fossey Fund and now the manager of GRACE. "All of the gorilla species are endangered because Congo is so unexplored they have not done a real census on how many Grauer's gorillas there are," she says.
"But at the rate at which we know they are being killed and the forest is being destroyed we are really concerned that if things aren't stopped and changed now they can be wiped out very soon."
This freshman class of GRACE gorillas range in age from between one and five years old. Mapendo, whose name means "love," was rescued in December 2007. She was confiscated along with a male gorilla but he only survived for two days.
When Amani -- which means "peace" -- was rescued a year ago she had a large wound on her leg. "It seemed obvious that her mother was shot and she was caught in the crossfire," Jones explains. "It took many weeks to heal but now she is walking perfectly normal."
Kighoma -- "drums" -- is the only male in the group. He arrived in May 2009, and Ndjingala was rescued earlier this year. She is only a year old and was named after the place from which she was taken.
"A lot of primates, when they are taken by poachers, they have ropes around their hips and it digs in and so they have bad wounds and Ndjingala suffered from that," Jones says.
The Dian Fossey gorilla fund and the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project have been caring for rescued gorillas in temporary quarters in Kinigi, in Rwanda, and in Goma.
Now they (the gorillas) are in the real forest and they are climbing and getting some forest food, so they are happy.
"What I know is that many of them have died," says Dr. Eddie Kambale of the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project. "We may have, I can say, about 20% that have been taken from the forest."
The GRACE center is the first facility of its kind in east Central Africa. It has room for up to 30 young gorillas to live in species-typical groups and roam through 350 acres of natural habitat.
Kambale helped bring the four orphans from Goma to GRACE. "The gorillas are enjoying this place compared to where they were," he says.
"In Goma there was too much noise and dust from the road; here is less pollution so this will be good for their health. Now they are in the real forest and they are climbing and getting some forest food, so they are happy."
The remaining rescued Grauer's gorillas currently cared for by the Dian Fossey Fund and Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project will leave Kinigi on a second airlift scheduled for early next year.
"Having the gorillas here will help give the people a glimpse of the world of gorillas," says Debby Cox, of the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance.
Cox worked with the local community to build the infrastructure for GRACE. "When the local people see gorillas as so much like us -- they live in families, the infants need their mothers, they hug each other -- you immediately get an empathy coming," she says.
"So we need to work with the people in this area, and that helps create stability and that creates confidence too."
While for decades the world has only heard bad news from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, conservation is striking an increasingly important chord of awareness among the people.Orphaned gorillas find a safe haven
From Jessica Ellis, CNN
December 17, 2010 5:19... more
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PHOTO: Orangutan populations in Indonesia's Borneo and Sumatera island are facing severe threats from habitat loss, illegal logging, fires and poaching. Conservationists predicted that without immediate action, orangutans are likely to be the first great ape to become extinct in the wild, 17 Aug 2010. http://www.voanews.com/english/news/The-Malaysian-Government-See-Red-on-Borneo-Over-Fresh-Dam-Plans-105667523.html
Borneo island is home to some of the world's rarest animals and plants. But conservationists are alarmed by new plans to dam some of the rivers on Borneo, which is divided among Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. Luke Hunt reports from Kota Kinabalu, on Malaysian Borneo.
The Malaysian government has approved construction of dams in the Kaiduan Valley and near Kota Belud in the state of Sabah. Another dam on the Tutoh River is planned for the neighboring state of Sarawak.
Conflict brews
The government says the dams and perhaps more will be needed to ensure East Malaysian water and electricity needs.
However, environmentalists, villagers and a growing number of people in the broader electorate disagree. They want the dams stopped.
S.M. Muthu is a spokesman for the Malaysia Nature Society and says energy supplies - such as biomass fuel, gas and solar - are plentiful in Sabah and Sarawak and should be developed.
He says engineers have examined East Malaysia's infrastructure needs and determined dams are not required to produce electricity given the abundance of fast flowing rivers and natural catchments that are capable of producing electricity.
"The problem is we are destroying the water catchment areas. Then we have a lack of water. Then we want to build dams which is actually trying to find a solution to a problem we keep repeating," Muthu says, "Whereas if you go to the root cause of the problem and we maintain our water catchment areas then you don't even need a dam.
Residents and environmentalists opposition against dam
Residents in the Kaiduan valley have built a blockade to stop preliminary work on the dam. They raised a 1.8-meter Christian cross and the dam location and have also voiced opposition to the dam planned for Kota Belud.
Activists in Sarawak state on the island warn a hydropower dam on the Tutoh River also risks changing the boundary of a national park. That could see its World Heritage status revoked under the regulations of the United Nations cultural body UNESCO.
In addition, Bakun Dam - also in Sarawak - has raised eyebrows. The federal government decided to sell the project, which covers an area the size of Singapore, back to the state government despite intense criticism over environmental damage caused by its construction.
Malaysian Borneo's wildlife threatened
Borneo is home to scores of rare species, including the orangutan, the pygmy elephant and the Borneo rhinoceros. Its wildlife, however, is threatened by development, logging and the expansion of palm oil plantations.
The environmental movement in Malaysian Borneo has grown significantly in recent years. It has managed to block construction of a coal-fired power plant along a pristine stretch of coastline. Environmentalists say the plant threatened the globally recognized Coral Triangle off east Borneo.
Cynthia Ong is the executive director for LEAP Conservancy, an environmental advocacy group that has been at the heart of a coalition of organizations challenging the authorities over their environmental practices. "You know about the coal fired power plant issue. That single issue has mobilized the environment movement in a way I haven't seen before. We hung in there with each other and then made breakthrough after breakthrough after breakthrough and each time when we had successes on our campaign it really empowered us," Ong said.
As momentum within the environmental movement in Sabah spreads among the villagers and urban middle class, environmentalists and government officials in Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and beyond are closely monitoring developments here.
"Whether it's coal or whether it's logging it doesn't stop at our borders. It's a line on a map, right. As we work locally there's always this alignment with what's happening in Borneo and what's happening in the region, what's happening globally even," Ong says, "It's not grandiose for us to think that Sabah's a leader and has the potential to be a leader in the region of Southeast Asia."
The Malaysian government says the dams are needed - not only to ensure water supplies - but to guarantee electricity to power the economic growth this country must generate if it is to meet its target of becoming an industrialized nation by 2020.
Managing those economic targets within the constraints of a burgeoning environmental movement could prove difficult, if Borneo's rare and endangered species are to be protected.PHOTO: Orangutan populations in Indonesia's Borneo and Sumatera island are facing... more
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Added On August 27, 2010
South Africans try to stop poachers who hunt valuable rhinos.
CNN's Diana Magnay reports.Added On August 27, 2010
South Africans try to stop poachers who hunt valuable... more
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Gorillas fight for survival
By VBS.TV staff
July 22, 2010 2:57 p.m. EDT
Editor's note: The staff at CNN.com has recently been intrigued by the journalism of VICE, an independent media company and website based in Brooklyn, New York. VBS.TV is Vice's broadband television network. The reports, which are produced solely by VICE, reflect a transparent approach to journalism, where viewers are taken along on every step of the reporting process. We believe this unique reporting approach is worthy of sharing with our CNN.com readers.
__________
Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Uganda (VBS.TV) --
Uganda has crept back into our consciousness lately with synchronized bomb attacks that took the lives of 76 people in the nation's capital Kampala during the World Cup festivities.
When we were last in Kampala, we set out to learn more about the desperate fight for the survival of mountain gorillas.
With a dwindling population of 700, they have been victims of poaching, disease, war, civil unrest, slaughter and displacement.
Under pressure from rebel factions in Uganda and the DRC who massacred gorillas because the conservationists were "getting on their nerves," our guide tracks the remaining apes -- by armpit stench and dung -- to keep tabs on their health.
We traveled to the remote jungle area known as Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in the southwestern part of Uganda, bordering with Rwanda and the DRC, areas plagued with dictatorships, genocide and decades of civil and national wars.
Ten years earlier, eight park visitors had been abducted and then murdered by a group of Rwandan armed rebels in an effort to destabilize the region.
The drive from Kampala was harrowing. Our driver sped and swerved obsessively, overtaking anyone in his path despite on-coming traffic.
We witnessed three traffic accidents, two fatalities and an adventurous couple having sex in the middle of a dark mountain road after midnight.
With four guards armed with machetes and rifles, two advance gorilla trackers, and our guide Levi we ventured into the dense tropical rainforest that is home to roughly half of the 700 remaining mountain gorillas in the world.
Here we encountered the gentle beasts and found out more about their plight.
See more of this fascinating story at VBS.TVGorillas fight for survival
By VBS.TV staff
July 22, 2010 2:57 p.m. EDT... more
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PHOTO: The last rhinoceros cow in Krugersdorp park, South Africa, bled to death on Wednesday after poachers hacked off her horn. Photograph: Reuters
Poachers kill last female rhino in South African park for prized horn - Record levels of poaching are endangering survival of rhinoceros in South Africa
South African wildlife experts are calling for urgent action against poachers after the last female rhinoceros in a popular game reserve near Johannesburg bled to death after having its horn hacked off.
Wildlife officials say poaching for the prized horns has now reached an all-time high. "Last year, 129 rhinos were killed for their horns in South Africa. This year, we have already had 136 deaths," said Japie Mostert, chief game ranger at the 1,500-hectare Krugersdorp game reserve.
The gang used tranquilliser guns and a helicopter to bring down the nine-year-old rhino cow. Her distraught calf was moved to a nearby estate where it was introduced to two other orphaned white rhinos.
Wanda Mkutshulwa, a spokeswoman for South African National Parks, said investigations into the growing number of incidents had been shifted to the country's organised crime unit. "We are dealing with very focused criminals. Police need to help game reserves because they are not at all equipped to handle crime on such an organised level,'' she said.
Rhino horn consists of compressed keratin fibre – similar to hair – and in many Asian cultures it is a fundamental ingredient in traditional medicines.
Mkutshulwa said poaching was also rife in the Kruger Park. Five men were arrested there in the past week alone – four of whom were caught with two bloodied rhino horns, AK-47 assault rifles, bolt-action rifles and an axe.
Krugersdorp game reserve attracts at least 200,000 visitors every year. It is also close to a private airport, which may have been used by the poachers.
"The exercise takes them very little time," Mostert said. "They first fly over the park in the late afternoon to locate where the rhino is grazing. Then they return at night and dart the animal from the air. The tranquilliser takes less than seven minutes to act.
"They saw off the horns with a chainsaw. They do not even need to switch off the rotors of the helicopter. We do not hear anything because our houses are too far away. The animal dies either from an overdose of tranquilliser or bleeds to death."
The committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) warned last year that rhino poaching had reached an all-time high. The Cites conference in Geneva in July 2009 heard that Asia's economic expansion had fuelled the market in rhino horns.
The horns are also used in the Middle East to make handles for ornamental daggers. Cites said demand for them had begun to soar in recent years. In the five years up to 2005, an average of only 36 rhinos had been killed each year.
Conservationists estimate that there are only 18,000 black and white rhinos in Africa, down from 65,000 in the 1970s. Mostert, who has been a ranger for 20 years, said the animals fetch up to 1m rand (£85,000) at game auctions and cannot be insured.
Cites has praised South Africa for its action against poachers. Two weeks ago, a Vietnamese man was jailed for 10 years for trying to smuggle horns out of the country.
Krugersdorp game reserve attracts at least 200,000 visitors every year. It is also close to a private airport, which may have been used by the poachers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/18/poachers-kill-last-female-rhinoPHOTO: The last rhinoceros cow in Krugersdorp park, South Africa, bled to death on... more
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In his home of Namibia, John Kasaona is working on an innovative way to protect endangered animal species: giving nearby villagers (including former poachers) responsibility for caring for the animals. And it's working.In his home of Namibia, John Kasaona is working on an innovative way to protect... more
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The Kenyan savannah is one of the world's most iconic wildlife habitats, but this great wilderness is under threat thanks to the illegal bushmeat trade and the relentless pursuit of the animals by poachers. In 2008, the Born Free Foundation investigated.The Kenyan savannah is one of the world's most iconic wildlife habitats, but this... more
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The illegal pet trade, along with hunting and habitat loss, are sending at least 9 of Madagascar's native turtles and tortoises toward extinction.
The Turtle Survival Alliance and the Wildlife Conservation Society warn that the radiated tortoise of Madagascar, is "rapidly nearing extinction" due to the illegal pet and meat trade. The species has just 20 years left, they predicted, if interventions aren't successful.
The dire conclusion comes after a field survey in Madagascar's spiny forest, which was once rife with tortoises; poachers have carted off truckloads of turtles and turtle meat, leaving an empty landscape akin to the American plains after the near-extermination of the bison.
"Areas where scores of radiated tortoises could be seen just a few years ago have been poached clean," said James Deutsch, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Africa Program. "Back then one could hardly fathom that this beautiful tortoise could ever become endangered, but such is the world we live in, and things can – and do – change rapidly."
Researchers say several factors contribute to the staggering decline of tortoise: years of extreme drought, which has sapped farm production; lack of enforcement against poachers, exacerbated by political instability; and loss of forest habitat to both farmers and invasive species.
Biodiversity hotspots like Madagascar are increasingly the focus of conservation, as the world tries to halt an extinction crisis that scientists believe is the first in the geologic record to be caused by one species, humans.
To bring attention to the issue, The Daily Green is republishing this feature, with updated information about the plight of this beautiful and critically endangered tortoise.The illegal pet trade, along with hunting and habitat loss, are sending at least 9 of... more
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Mother Jones - http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/03/gorillas-extinct-mid-2020
In March, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) announced that gorillas in the Congo may be extinct by the mid-2020s, a drastic change from its 2002 projection which had 10 percent of the original range surviving in 2030.
The culprits behind the demise of one of the world's brightest primates: poaching, logging, mining, the Ebola virus, and...cell phones.
Adam Hochschild's piece in the March/April issue of Mother Jones http://motherjones.com/toc/2010/03, describes how the Congo's vast natural resources are continuously pillaged to feed foreign interests to the detriment of locals, their environment, and now gorillas.
'Militias have seized large chunks of gorilla land and logged and mined it. They have done so because the illegal trade in timber and in metals such as gold and coltan -- used in cell phones -- generates between $14 million and $50 million a year for them.' --- CNN reports
'This is a tragedy for the great apes and one also for countless other species being impacted by this intensifying and all too often illegal trade. Ultimately it is also a tragedy for the people living in the communities and countries concerned. These natural assets are their assets: ones underpinning lives and livelihoods for millions of people. In short it is environmental crime and theft by the few and the powerful at the expense of the poor and the vulnerable.' --- Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of the UNEP
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/03/gorillas-extinct-mid-2020Mother Jones - http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/03/gorillas-extinct-mid-2020... more
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Poachers are suspected to have killed an endangered Sumatran elephant whose body was discovered by villagers with its tusks removed, Indonesian conservationists said Wednesday.
"We also found a stab wound on the right side of the chest, piercing through his liver," Mulyo Utomo from the nature conservation agency in Sumatra's Riau province told AFP.
Full story at link:
http://www.greenwala.com/news_articles/5627-Poachers-suspected-in-death-of-rare-Sumatran-elephantPoachers are suspected to have killed an endangered Sumatran elephant whose body was... more
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Nearly 100 endangered rhinos were poached in South Africa alone last year, and wildlife officials have to wage a constant battle with corrupt government officials and Vietnamese-paid crime syndicates who target the last rhinos of Africa just for an entirely mythical Chinese medicine (Traditional Asian Medicines or Chinese Medicine)
A surge in rhinoceros poaching to service Asian markets for traditional medicine is underway in Africa. South Africa, previously a refuge for rhinos, has experienced a sudden increase in rhino poaching.
Pretoria, South Africa - Independent Online (IOL) said a spokesman for the Kruger National Park, William Mabasa, described a shocking scene of a rhino with its horns cut off, walking down a road in the park. The rhino eventually died, a victim of a 15-year-high in cases of poaching believed to be linked to organised crime.
"That was really the first case that I know of where we found a rhino that the horn was removed from and it was struggling on the road" said Mabasa.
Mabasa thought poachers had used tranquillisers to be able to cut off the horns without making noise. This is the first report of a rhino surviving after poachers’ cut off its horns.
They eventually had to destroy it because the wound was rather too big.
Two other rhinos in a small reserve near the executive capital, Pretoria, also perished after poachers overdosed them with tranquillisers. http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/289542Nearly 100 endangered rhinos were poached in South Africa alone last year, and... more
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Gorillas in central Africa are in danger from illegal logging, mining and from hunters who are killing great apes for meat, said a joint report from the United Nations and Interpol released Wednesday.
A previous report in 2002 estimated that only 10 percent of gorillas would remain by 2030. The author of the 2002 report and of the newly released one said that estimate now appears too optimistic.
"We fear now that the gorillas may become extinct from most parts of their range in perhaps 15 years," U.N. Environmental Program's Christian Nellemann said.
One of the dangers gorillas now face is a large increase in logging for timber that is mostly destined for Asia, particularly China, said Nellemann, also editor-in-chief of the newly released report "The Last Stand of The Gorilla."
Militant factions have also taken over gorilla land, making the protection of gorillas extremely difficult, he said. Increasing human populations and the deadly ebola virus are also killing gorillas.
Achim Steiner, executive director of UNEP, said that logging and mining camps hire poachers to supply refugees and markets with the meat of wild animals, including gorillas.
The report calls for greater scrutiny of European and Asian companies using subsidiaries to extract timber and minerals from central Africa.
"This is tragedy for the great apes and one also for countless other species being impacted by this intensifying and all too often illegal trade," Steiner said in a statement. "In short it is environmental crime and theft by the few and the powerful at the expense of the poor and the vulnerable."
David Higgins, manager of the Interpol Environmental Crime Program, said that gorillas are a victim of the contempt shown by organized crime groups toward national and international laws aimed at defending wildlife.
The report, however, contained some good news as well. An unpublished survey of one area of eastern Congo in the center of the conflict zone discovered 750 previously unknown critically endangered eastern lowland gorillas.
"What we are worried about is that these gorillas are disappearing faster than we can actually mobilize resources to save them," said Nellemann, who called for increased resources for UNEP and Interpol to protect great apes.
The report also found that the number of mountain gorillas in the Virungas, a transboundary national park, has risen 12 percent since 2007 as a result of strengthened law enforcement.
There are four distinct types of gorilla. Three are listed as critically endangered and one is listed as endangered.
Help save the gorillas!
International Gorilla Conservation Programme (IGCP)
http://www.igcp.org/Gorillas in central Africa are in danger from illegal logging, mining and from hunters... more
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Last week the secretary of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), Willem Wijnstekers, announced that security forces in Zimbabwe had poached approximately 200 rhinos in a two year period. He did say how many elephants were poached by security forces.
The revelation means that Zimbabwe will have to explain the poaching to CITES or lose their ability to trade ivory.
The minister of Environment and Natural Resources Management, Francis Nehma, says that the nation needs vehicles and helicopters to control the troubled nation's widespread poaching problem. Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai (in a power-sharing agreement with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe) said that security forces involved in poaching must be brought before the law and punished.
Rhinos have almost vanished from Zimbabwe due to a poaching epidemic.
The Critically Endangered black rhino continues to be threatened by poachers across Africa. Approximately 4,000 survive in the wild.
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0214-hance_zimpoach.htmlLast week the secretary of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered... more
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"Proposals to ban trade in bluefin tuna and polar bears were overwhelmingly rejected yesterday at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), meeting in Doha, Qatar.
A plan for a 20-year ban on ivory sales, to protect African elephants, is also likely to fail in the coming days — partly because Britain and other members of the EU are refusing to support it. Delegates are instead expected to approve a weak compromise, which would encourage poaching by allowing the sale of ivory being stored by several African nations."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7067909.ece
This is very sad, let's stop this greed and take action now:
http://www.bloodyivory.org/petition
Join the Organic Movement:
http://current.com/groups/organicgreen/"Proposals to ban trade in bluefin tuna and polar bears were overwhelmingly... more
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Reporting from Limpopo Province, South Africa
The baby rhino, an orphan, had barely been weaned. Her horn was only a few inches long. But that didn't stop the poachers from hacking it off.
David Uys, 33, had helped raise the rhino after her mother was killed by lightning. He called her Weerkind -- "orphan" in Afrikaans. He won't forget the sight of the bodies of the baby and two other rhinos, shot dead, their horns removed.
"I'm not a one for talking about emotions," Uys said quietly. "But it was like seeing one of your family members dead, the brutality of it."
The slain bull rhino, dubbed Longhorn, was about 35 and had a magnificent horn more than 2 1/2 feet long. The third rhino, Sister, had adopted Weerkind after her mother was killed. The three died together in November on this Limpopo province game ranch that is for tourists, not hunters, north of Pretoria.
"You're angry. You're furious. You're sad. You're crying," said Uys, the ranch manager. "Just a bundle of emotions, bursting inside."
A sharp surge in poaching in South Africa and Zimbabwe by organized gangs has devastated Zimbabwe's rhino population and threatens to wipe out South Africa's critically endangered black rhinos within a decade. South African rancher Pelham Jones warns that the more common white rhino won't be far behind unless something is done.
A report last year by the World Wildlife Fund, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and wildlife-trade monitoring network TRAFFIC said poaching had reached a 15-year high, pushing the animals close to extinction. About 1,500 rhino horns were traded illegally in the last three years, despite a long-standing ban on international trade.
Last year, 122 rhinos were killed in South Africa. Jones predicted that at the current poaching rate, 180 to 200 will be killed this year. A provisional 2009 estimate shows only 800 rhinos remaining in Zimbabwe, and 18,553 white and 1,570 black rhinos in South Africa, according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, which maintains the ban on the trade of rhino horn.
Rhino ranchers, some of whom keep the animals to attract tourists while others rely on limited trophy hunting, are so wary about the involvement of organized crime in rhino killings that few are willing to talk publicly for fear of endangering animals on their properties. Interviews are given on condition that properties, even nearby towns, are not identified.
The ranch where Weerkind was born and killed is a lush green in the summer rainy season, with rocky hills looming into the sky. Birds with impossibly long tails seem weighed down in flight as they flutter near a pond. A red track cuts uphill through the acacia trees. Rain clouds gather, thunder grumbles, and a sudden drenching rain pours down, stopping abruptly half an hour later.
Up close, the rhinos look benign, almost bovine, ambling in the Limpopo sunshine, plucking grass, shadowed by a group of guards in camouflage carrying semiautomatics. Their small, thick-lashed eyes look sleepily docile. But their sheer size is awesome -- a rhino is almost as big as a car, weighing from 2,000 to 3,000 pounds. From a few yards away, they are terrifying.
Not for Uys, even though he's been charged countless times and once was knocked over and walked on. Afterward, he recalled, the bull looked almost apologetic.
Uys has spent his life with rhinos. At 18, he was a rhino guard, sleeping in the bush with them through violent summer thunderstorms and harsh winter nights.
"I was close enough to scratch their ears. They took me as part of the group."
When he did get charged, it was usually his own fault for getting too close, he says.
"Running away is the worst thing you can do," he said. "You can't outrun a rhino." If there's a tree or boulder, you scramble up. If there's thick enough bush, you stand your ground.
Once, photographing a newborn baby, he and a colleague were suddenly approached by the calf. The two men froze. If the mother saw them and charged, there was no bush, no trees, no boulders.
"They react to movement so if you stand completely still, they won't see you," Uys said. "The guy who was with me, his nerves didn't hold out, and he started running. The cow saw us and she came for us."
There was no time to think.
"I threw down my backpack. She smelled me there and took her fury out on the backpack," he said. It was one of his closest calls.
If you called Uys a rhino whisperer, he'd be offended by the cliche. But he does have a gift with the creatures.
The other day, he crouched low about 20 yards away from a male rhino named Benni, trying to get a look at his slightly injured foot. Another rhino, Bettie, suddenly ambled right up to him. Any sharp move would be disastrous. When she got close enough to nuzzle, he raised his hand. He pressed a fist gently just under her horn. Surprised, she wandered off to graze.
Game rancher Jones, who leads an action group of rhino owners to combat poaching, said incidents are reported every other day.
His phone beeps constantly with text messages alerting him to poaching incidents and sightings of suspected poachers.
"There's another one," he said, grabbing his phone.
The police, he said, are little help. In one recent case, they arrived four days after a group of rhinos was killed. In another, a police officer picked up an ax abandoned by the poachers, destroying any fingerprints.
The South African government disbanded the police force's endangered-species unit in 2003. The government last year promised to bring back a special-investigations unit -- but critics believe it's not enough to make a difference.
"This is our cultural heritage," Jones said. "People come to South Africa to see the Big Five, not the Big Four," he added, a reference to South Africa's five biggest wildlife draws: rhinos, elephants, lions, leopards and cape buffalo.
China's recent thrust into Africa in a rush for resources is a major factor in the illegal rhino horn and ivory trade, analysts believe, because China remains the largest market. Rhino horn, made of keratin, the same substance that forms fingernails, hooves, feathers and hair, has long been used in Chinese medicinal tonics.
Zimbabwe's collapse added to the problem, with corrupt government, army and wildlife officials reportedly involved in poaching and smuggling rhino horn and ivory. The airport in that country's capital, Harare, is reportedly a key transit hub.
In South Africa, Vietnamese diplomatic officials have allegedly been involved in rhino horn buying and smuggling. Reports in Vietnam that a government official was "cured" of cancer by rhino horn appear to have spurred Asian demand.
Many fear that the Asian market is so ancient and entrenched, there's not much a small group of farmers can do to save the species. Some support the idea of rhino farming -- regularly pruning horns, which grow back -- to meet the demand and drive down prices. Others argue that legalizing the trade would only fuel demand, putting the creatures at even more risk. After the killings of the baby rhino and two adults, Uys put his energies into Benni and Bettie. Benni, more unpredictable than Longhorn, sometimes charges unexpectedly. Bettie is docile and sweet. Uys worries about their survival almost as if they were his children, just as he once worried about Weerkind and her family.
"Longhorn and Weerkind and Sister were my passion. But since they have been poached, I have devoted all my time to [Benni and Bettie]. And now I think I love them just as much as I loved the others."
robyn.dixon@latimes.com
How to help: The Endangered Wildlife Trust is working to improve the protection of rhinos in southern Africa.Reporting from Limpopo Province, South Africa
The baby rhino, an orphan, had barely... more
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For the first time since the dinosaurs disappeared, humans are driving animals and plants to extinction faster than new species can evolve.
A fifth of the world's known mammals, a third of its amphibians, more than a quarter of its reptiles and up to 70% of its plants are under threat of extinction.
Nearly half of all primates are in danger of becoming extinct.
Much more at link...For the first time since the dinosaurs disappeared, humans are driving animals and... more
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