Fourteen leading tiger experts appeal to Chinese and U.S. presidents Discussion of China’s tiger farms and its growing domestic trade in luxury tiger products was unfortunately not on the table for President Xi’s September 24, 2015 visit with U.S. President Barack Obama. Between 5,000 and 6,000 tigers are being farmed today in China for a luxury […]
U.S. consumer demand helps push pangolins toward extinction
Microsoft founder Paul Allen pushed a Washington state ballot initiative to criminalize trafficking WASHINGTON D.C.––The Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society International, International Fund for Animal Welfare, Born Free USA, and the Center for Biological Diversity on July 15, 2015 petitioned the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to list pangolins as endangered under […]
Elephant coffee: biggest rectums in the coffee business
Only a colossal a**hole could produce elephant dung coffee. CHANG SAEN, Thailand; MADURAI, India––Marketed as a lucrative rump enterprise in support of the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation, elephant dung coffee might at first sniff suggest an easy free market approach to fundraising to rescue elephants, of particular appeal to status-seeking Republicans. But […]
United Nations arm CITES recommends trade boycott of Laos over wildlife trafficking
“Suspend commercial trade in specimens of CITES-listed species with the Lao People’s Democratic Republic” GENEVA, VIENTIENE–– The Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), a treaty organization formed by the United Nations, on March 19, 2015 issued a rare recommendation that all 170 CITES member nations […]
Killing wildlife to try to cure cancer is “corruption and criminality” says Prince William, between hunting trips
Poaching vs. trophy hunting WASHINGTON D.C.––How does British crown prince William’s attitude toward animals differ from that of the nouveau riché Vietnamese who have funded the poaching deaths of more than 2,000 rhinos in the past two years alone? Many Vietnamese mistakenly believe that powdered rhino horn is a cure for cancer. William just kills […]
Trophy hunters vs. horn poachers: an arms race that rhinos can only lose
Hunting money has raised the “floor price” for rhino horn WASHINGTON D.C., WINDHOEK, JOHANNESBURG–– Who covets rhino horn most, Vietnamese nouveau riché who believe powdered rhino horn can cure them of cancer, or U.S. trophy hunters willing to pay almost any price to hob nob with the elite of Safari Club International? Who is really to […]
Allowed to hunt rare bustards in Pakistan, Saudi prince kills 20 times the bag limit
CHAGAI, Balochistan, Pakistan––Saudi Arabian Prince Fahd bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud and his retinue in January 2014 killed 2,100 rare houbara bustards during a three-week hunting trip to Pakistan, the Karachi online newspaper Dawn revealed on April 21, 2014. More than 1,600 of the rare giant birds were […]
Alleged rhino poaching gang served trophy hunters as well as Asian medicinal demand
Rhino industry insiders in the dock JOHANNESBURG––Startling photos of the September 22, 2010 arraignment of 11 alleged members of an international rhino poaching syndicate reached the world despite the officially unexplained efforts of police to keep photographers out. News photographers Werner Beukes of the South African Press Agency, Herman Verwey of Beeld, and Lewellyn Carstens […]