Tim, one of Africa's last 'giant tusker' elephants, dies at 50
Big Tim, a beloved elephant who was one of Africa's last giant "tuskers," has died, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said on Wednesday. "The celebrated elephant died early Tuesday morning aged 50," KWS said in a statement. A survivor of poachers, Big Tim was found dead ...
Techniques for taming elephants for Thai tourist trade called outdated and cruel
Separated from their mothers, jabbed with metal hooks and sometimes deprived of food, many Thai elephants are tamed by force before being sold to lucrative tourism sites that increasingly are advertised as "sanctuaries" to cruelty-conscious travelers. Balanced precariously on hind legs, 2-year-old Ploy holds a ...
Botswana bans pro hunting pair after killing of research elephant
Botswana's government has revoked the licenses of two professional hunters who shot dead a research elephant and then destroyed its collar to try to hide the evidence. In a statement late on Saturday, the environment and tourism ministry said that professional hunters Michael Lee Potter ...
Rogue 'Bin Laden' elephant caught in India after killing five people
An elephant named after the late al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden that killed five Indian villagers has been caught after a massive operation to hunt down the creature, officials said Monday. Wildlife officers tracked the pachyderm — dubbed "Laden" by the locals it menaced in ...
CITES agrees on near-total ban on sending wild elephants to zoos
The regulator of global wildlife trade will impose a near-total ban on sending African elephants captured from the wild to zoos after a final vote on the issue on Tuesday. Following a heated debate at a meeting of parties to the Convention on International Trade ...
Japan and EU ivory markets off hook as CITES holds back from calling for swift shutdown
A panel of an international convention on endangered species decided Wednesday not to adopt a resolution calling for an early shutdown of domestic ivory markets, including widely criticized ivory markets in the European Union and Japan. Instead, participants of the panel of the Convention on ...
Singapore to ban domestic trade in elephant ivory in two years
Singapore, a major transshipment hub in the illegal ivory trade, said Monday it will impose a ban on domestic trade in elephant ivory from September 2021, tightening the noose on the proliferation of such exchanges nearly two decades after a global ban on the ...
Ivory registrations in Japan surged ahead of tighter restrictions: Environment Ministry
As ivory owners rushed to take advantage of Japan’s lax declaration system, the volume of registrations surged before the ivory market faced new restrictions on July 1.
Elephant and rhino populations rebounding in Tanzania after crackdown on poaching
Elephant and rhino populations in Tanzania have begun to rebound after a government crackdown dismantled organized criminal networks involved in industrial-scale poaching. A prominent Chinese businesswoman dubbed the "Ivory Queen" was sentenced to 15 years in prison by a Tanzanian court in February for smuggling ...
Poaching of African elephants has slowed but they still face extinction, researchers say
The illegal slaughter of African elephants to feed Asia's demand for ivory has decreased by more than half in eight years, but the mammals are still threatened with extinction, researchers warned Tuesday. In 2011, poachers killed some 40,000 elephants — about 10 percent of the ...
U.K. soldier on Malawi anti-poaching mission killed by elephant
A British soldier serving in Malawi with an anti-poaching operation has been killed by an elephant, the defense ministry said Tuesday. Mathew Talbot was on patrol Sunday in Liwonde National Park when "he was killed by an elephant," a spokesman told AFP. The director of Malawi's ...
Three zoos in Tohoku to swap female elephants in bid to fire up breeding interest
In the first attempt of its kind, three zoos in Tohoku will launch a project Tuesday to swap their female African elephants with each other to form new breeding pairs. The three are Selcohome Zoo Paradise Yagiyama in Miyagi Prefecture, Akita City Omoriyama Zoo in ...
