Thailand’s Prime Minister Pledges to End Ivory Trade

Great news! Thailand’s Prime Minister pledged to end ivory trade in Thailand. The announcement was made at CITES COP16 which opened today, Sunday. This follows a massive petition drive urging and ivory ban. Thailand is currently the largest illegal ivory market behind China. However, work still needs to be done to monitor the situation. The…

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The WildLife: A Lifetime with Elephants, Iain Douglas-Hamilton

  At age 23, Iain Douglas-Hamilton pioneered the first in-depth scientific study of elephant social behavior in Tanzania’s Lake Manyara National Park. During the 1970s he investigated the status of elephants throughout Africa and was the first to alert the world to the ivory poaching holocaust. He and his wife have co-authored two award-winning books…

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Positive News on Mexico’s Parrot Trade

  Mexico’s illegal parrot trade has declined due to a number of innovative studies and policies. My article on this positive turn of events was just published in The Wildlife Professional.

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Mongabay.com: The dark side of new species discovery

By Laurel Neme, special to mongabay.com December 21, 2011  This interview originally aired on March 14, 2011. It was transcribed by Kirstin Fagan. Part 1 of this interviewScientists and the public usually rejoice when a new species is discovered. But biologist Bryan Stuart has learned the hard way that the discovery of new species, especially when that…

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Mongabay.com: Seahorses Under Stress

By Laurel Neme, special to mongabay.com November 21, 2011 This interview originally aired on January 17, 2011. It was transcribed by Dustin Circe. With about 25 million seahorses sold each year, global consumption of seahorses is massive. They’re used in traditional Asian medicine and also sold as curios and aquarium pets. Over the last decade, overexploitation and habitat…

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Mongabay.com: Covert Creatures: The Clandestine Lives of Seahorses

By Laurel Neme, special to mongabay.comNovember 15, 2011  This interview originally aired on January 17, 2011. It was transcribed by Dustin Circe. Seahorses are strange looking creatures, with a horse’s head on top of a kangaroo’s pouched belly, bulging, swiveling chameleon eyes, a prehensile monkey tail, color-changing armor and a royal crown, all shrunk down to…

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The WildLife: Nature Walks and Backyard Wildlife, Mark Fraser

Naturalist Mark Fraser shares his enthusiasm for wildlife  and reveals simple things you can do to help wildlife in your own backyard. He takes “The WildLife” host Laurel Neme on a “virtual tour” of New England forests to meet local “residents” from fishers to coywolves to salamanders and songbirds. This episode of “The WildLife” originally…

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The WildLife: Conservation Working Dogs, Megan Parker

  Megan Parker, Executive Director and co-founder of Working Dogs for Conservation, talks about using detection dogs for wildlife conservation. She tells “The WildLife” host Laurel Neme how she trains dogs to detect wildlife samples, including plants, animals, seeds and scat. The dogs are often able to uncover what wildlife biologists can’t easily see or find, and they…

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