Posts by Laurel Neme
National Geographic: Elephant Poachers Caught in Chad, Protection Efforts Stepped Up
Posted by Laurel Neme in A Voice for Elephants on October 5, 2012 In late July and early August in the Mayo Lemie and Chari Baguirmi regions of southwestern Chad, poachers slaughtered 63 elephants. The government launched a massive land and aerial search with 200 soldiers to track down the perpetrators. After several skirmishes,…
Read MoreMilitarization of Elephant Poaching
This interview in Yale360 with Jeffrey Gettleman talks about his recent report in The New York Times that brutal armed groups in Africa (including African armies) are slaughtering thousands of elephants for their ivory tusks in order to sustain their militia and conflicts. In it, he raises the question of whether the United States should be…
Read MoreCaptive tiger permits used to launder tigers in Thailand?
Are permits for captive tigers being used to launder tigers from Thailand to Viet Nam? That’s the question being asked following a raid by Thai authorities on an apartment outside Bangkok that led to the confiscation of four adult tigers and two cubs. The large cats had been kept in poor conditions: small rooftop…
Read MoreSlender lorises smuggled in India
Three men were apprehended at India’s New Delhi airport for smuggling slender lorises, a small nocturnal primate. The men were en route from Bangkok to Dubai when a routine pat down revealed a loris stuffed in one man’s underwear. A second loris was found in a nearby trash can. Both primates are now under…
Read More373 rhinos killed so far this year in South Africa alone, yearly death toll likely to surpass 550
The South African government reports 373 rhinos have been killed for their horns so far this year. If this poaching rate of 1.5 rhinos killed per day for the first eight months of 2012 continues, South Africa could lose over 550 rhinos in 2012 — a 25 percent jump from 2011’s record rhino death…
Read MoreOrangutans rescued near industrial timber estates in Indonesia
Three orangutans trapped in an unforested area between industrial timber estates in Kutai Kartanegara, East Kalimantan, were rescued by specially-trained teams from the companies (Sumalindo Hutani Raya and Surya Hutani Jaya) which operate industrial timber estates there. The company planned to release the female orangutan, her baby, and a teenager back into the wild at…
Read MoreIndia’s Prime Minister proposes strengthening wildlife crime fighting
India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on September 5, 2012 said the government would strengthen the country’s Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 and noted a proposal for expanding the number of regional offices, field units and forensic labs of the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau as well as creation of a national database on wildlife crime and…
Read MoreAnimal Planet: Rescued Elephant Orphan Adopted by New Herd
08/22/2012 GUEST POST ALERT:Today’s guest post comes from Wildlife expert Laurel A. Neme, Ph.D., author of Animal Investigators: How the World’s First Wildlife Forensics Lab is Solving Crimes and Saving Endangered Species and a regular contributor to Mongabay.com, where she broke the story on recent poaching of Chad’s elephants. Learn more about Laurel at LaurelNeme.com. Toto Finds a…
Read MoreUpdate on the Chad elephant poaching situation
Update on the Chad elephant situation: On August 15, Chad’s High Administrative Authority informed Stephanie Vergniault, president of the wildlife organization SOS Elephants, that the Chadian army seized 30 tusks from the recent Chari –Baguirmi poaching. With the army in pursuit, the poachers tried to cross the river with them but ultimately abandoned the…
Read MoreDespite more wildlife law enforcement, Asian wildlife traffickers continue their illegal trade
A 10-fold increase in wildlife law enforcement actions has been reported in the past six years in Southeast Asia, yet many wildlife trafficking “kingpins” continue to capitalize on the persistent corruption in the area and avoid arrest. This AP article posted in several spots, including Bloomberg BusinessWeek News, looks at the “Untouchables: Asia’s biggest wildlife…
Read MoreSumatran rhinos survive in northern Sumatra
Another piece of good news – this time related to the Sumatran rhino and reported on Mongabay.com. Using remote camera traps, wildlife rangers confirm the Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) still inhabits the Leuser ecosystem in northern Sumatra, making that forest the only place on the Earth where Sumatran tigers, orangutans, elephants, and rhinos survive in…
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