Protected by law but threatened by trade, rare and endangered parrots native to Indonesia are frequently sold via Facebook in the Philippines, a new survey has found. The analysis of…
Organized crime cartels and Chinese laborers continue draining the Amazon of jaguars and other endangered species, threatening ecosystems with collapse.
Narwhals are chaotic. At least, that’s what researchers thought until they developed a new math-based method to detect patterns in their seemingly irregular movements. Narwhals (Monodon monoceros) are known as…
LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of Congo — Three chimpanzees have been kidnapped and are being held for ransom after intruders broke into a primate sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of Congo.…
JAKARTA — Researchers in Indonesia have harnessed the power of big data to monitor the flourishing online trade in songbirds, proposing it as a critical conservation tool in the absence…
Having spent 27 years as a wild cat scientist, I have been fortunate to run my fingers through the coarse fur of a 170 kg tiger while wrapping a GPS…
A hawksbill turtle’s protective shell is in some ways its greatest weakness. Exquisitely patterned and thick enough to sculpt, hawksbill shells are the most popular type of tortoiseshell, a material…
Palm oil is the most widely used vegetable oil on Earth, found in things like soaps, shampoo, ice cream and instant noodles. To satiate demand, rampant clearing of primary forests…
KATHMANDU — The “vulture restaurant” in southern Nepal received a new lone diner on July 12, leaving the people serving the food puzzled. An American black vulture (Coragyps atratus), a…
Lying at the nexus of South Asia, Southeast Asia and China, Myanmar hosts an extraordinary mix of ecosystems that represent some of the last refuges of an ever-lengthening list of…
In late June 2002, the container ship MOL Independence docked at a Singapore port after a voyage of almost a month from Durban in South Africa. On board was a…
With its bright green plumage and range of vocalizations, the rose-ringed parakeet is one of the most sought-after birds in the pet trade. To supply ongoing demand for these birds,…
Rosewood trees are a mainstay of tropical forests across parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America. But their future looks bleak. Their fragrant, red-hued heartwood is prized by makers of…
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — Authorities in Indonesia have charged three men, including a local political leader in Sumatra, with selling body parts from a Sumatran tiger, a critically endangered and…
JAKARTA — If you own a luxury fashion item made with snakeskin, there’s a good chance it came from a blood python in Indonesia, where the species isn’t considered threatened.…
Anything goes in a Laotian “Special Crime Zone,” a haven for illegal wildlife, narcotics and human trafficking. Asia’s wild tigers remain imperiled, say conservationists, as “tiger farming” continues in Asia.
Red-footed tortoises are so rarely seen in the Gran Chaco region of Argentina that they’re considered to be locally extinct. But now, the species is plodding its way toward a…
“Initially we were all excited because we had intercepted a record-breaking ivory shipment,” says veterinarian Charlene Fernandez of Singapore’s new Centre for Wildlife Forensics. “But when we started carrying the…
Trade in endangered species online is an increasingly popular avenue for traders and traffickers. A recent review, published in the journal Oryx, highlights a related trend: lesser-known species that have…
On May 12, a judge in Uganda's specialized court for wildlife crimes sentenced Bob Mbaya Kabongo to a seven year jail term for smuggling 122 African grey parrots into the…
KATHMANDU — Media reporting of wildlife crime in Nepal covers only a small fraction of the trade in the country, with a heavy focus on charismatic protected species such as…
New conservation efforts for critically endangered hawksbill sea turtles are starting to make a difference in the status of global hawksbill populations, although the continued illegal trade of tortoiseshell in…
Amid lockdowns, travel restrictions and wet market closures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, wildlife traders shifted their business online. A trade once dominated by face-to-face interactions now sees sellers and…
A recent study, published in the journal Nature Conservation, warns that a snapshot review of social media trade in the critically endangered silvery pigeon (Columba argentina) is a cause for…
Finding endangered plants and animals for sale online remains easy. “Rampant” according to Mark Hofberg of the International Federation for Animal Welfare (IFAW). The strong word is significant since it comes from an…
LAGOS — Nigeria has for years failed to hold wildlife traffickers and poachers accountable for their crimes, despite federal and state laws that criminalize the killing and trading of protected…
The seizure earlier this month in Nigeria of nearly a ton of pangolin scales and elephant ivory bound for Asia has once again highlighted the plight of pangolins as among…
For the past 30 years, soaring demand from East Asia has fueled massive poaching of a South African abalone, Haliotis midae, reducing the mollusk’s population to a fraction of its…
Environmental DNA has changed the way conservationists monitor biodiversity. By sequencing the genetic material found in water and soil samples, scientists can study entire ecosystems or detect rare animals too…
The way John Aristides Saldarriaga tells it, he was out for a routine day’s fishing with friends on a lake about a mile from the fabled ranch of the late…
