Recently in Zimbabwe while the country was preoccupied with its general elections, the press almost completely ignored a catastrophic chemical poisoning of animals. Ivory poachers killed more than 80 elephants by poisoning water holes with cyanide. The elephants had constituted one of the world’s biggest herds, and were slaughtered in Zimbabwe’s largest park, the Hwange […]
Poaching
Posted inGeneral
Shocking truth about the dangers facing the rhino
If anyone were to conduct a survey on what constitutes the gravest danger to the survival of the rhinoceros in Africa the results, in all likelihood, would show that most people believe that it is the threat posed by poachers. The shocking truth, in my humble opinion, is that it is this perception which in […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Save the lions ad ‘censored’
By Emma Ruby-Sachs This year the poaching of more than 430 rhinos in South Africa has rightly dominated the news. The massacre of these animals has forced the government to respond with more rangers in Kruger and stronger surveillance at the airports. Sadly the energy and hand-wringing to protect one species is not extending to […]
Posted inGeneral
Have rifle, will shoot
Visiting Konopiste Castle — situated about 40km outside Prague — is historically informative and interesting on one level and nauseating on another. Bought by Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1887 — yes, the same one whose assassination in Sarajevo in 1914 triggered World War I — the castle became far more than an occasional retreat for […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Africa gets a new angle on the Chinese take-away
South Africa’s gold and platinum might be doing well, but it is the rhino index that is going stratospheric. With 11 rhinos a week biting the dust and the horn going at $55 000 a kilogram, a lot of pockets are being lined. Last week local activists publicly ruffled some feathers with an advert that asks […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Sticking a rhino horn to China’s Giant Panda
Developing nations don’t hold much truck with wildlife conservation for sentimental or scientific reasons. In places where human existence itself can be nasty, brutal and short, animals are butchered without compunction and often with thoughtless cruelty. They are clubbed, shot, stabbed, fished, or slaughtered with zero regard to the long term effects on species survival. […]