Poaching rare wildlife for teeth, tusks, fur, horns and other body parts is a crime which threatens many species with extinction, but the evidence which could incriminate traffickers is often difficult to access, hard to interpret, or piecemeal. To discover more about the criminal networks sustaining this trade, researchers in the US, Kenya and Singapore…
Oxford University study leads cutting-edge scientific and historic analysis of elephant tusks found in shipwrecked cargo. OXFORD, 17 December 2020 – An international team has discovered the origin of the largest cargo of African ivory found from the oldest shipwreck in southern Africa. The discovery of a 16th-century shipwreck has, with the aid of advanced scientific…
As they roam around the African savanna in search for food, giraffes and elephants alter the diversity and richness of its vegetation. By studying the foraging patterns of these megaherbivores across different terrains in a savanna in Kenya, scientists from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and collaborating institutions discovered that these large mammals prefer…
We are in the midst of an elephant poaching epidemic across the African continent. Fueled by a growing middle class in Asia that is hungry for ivory status symbols, these iconic and intelligent mammals are being slaughtered for their tusks at an alarming rate. While there has been a lot of media focus on savannah…
The Zimbabwe National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ZNSPCA) has been denied access to the country’s captive elephants, reportedly about to be sent to captive facilities in China. This suggests that welfare concerns are being ignored. The ZNSCPA is constitutionally permitted to access any part of the country if they suspect cruelty…
Pangolins, a group of unique African and Asian scaly mammals, are considered to be one of the most heavily trafficked wild mammals in the world. They are hunted and traded for their meat, scales, and other body parts, and used as traditional medicines in parts of Africa and Asia. Of the eight pangolin species, four are found…
Forest elephant extinction would exacerbate climate change. That’s according to a new study in Nature Geoscience which links feeding by elephants with an increase in the amount of carbon that forests are able to store. The bad news is that African forest elephants – smaller and more vulnerable relatives of the better known African bush…
A new review paper finds that the loss of Africa’s forest elephants has broad impacts on their ecosystems, including hitting several tall tree species, which play a key role in sequestering carbon dioxide. Forest elephants disperse large seeds, keep the forest canopy open, and spread rare nutrients across the forest, benefiting numerous species across the…
Beehive fences can help improve human-elephant coexistence. By Katarzyna Nowak, University of the Free State When people cultivate food crops on or near wild lands it can be assumed that wild animals will eat them – what’s known as crop-raiding. Farms in the vicinity of protected areas can expect to be visited by a range…
A genetic study of living and extinct elephant species generated proof forest elephants and the savanna elephants are indeed two separate species – an issue that has been a scientific debate for many years. The scientists behind the study hope that these findings help boost separate conservation efforts for both species of African elephants. Elephants are the…