poaching

Dehorning Rhinos Reduces Poaching by Nearly 80%: Study

Dehorning Rhinos Reduces Poaching by Nearly 80%: Study

Removing the horns of rhinoceros has been found to be an effective way to drastically reduce poaching of the endangered mammals. A new study by an international team of researchers found that dehorning results in 78 percent less poaching while using a tiny fraction of the total protection budget. “Despite decades of conservation efforts, poaching […]

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    Endangered Species 101: Everything You Need to Know

    Endangered Species 101: Everything You Need to Know

    Quick Key Facts The Endangered Species Act To understand what “endangered species” means, it’s important to unpack the Endangered Species Act (ESA), which followed the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966, the first piece of federal endangered species legislation. Enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1973, the ESA states that the federal government has a […]

    White Rhino Population in Africa Increases for First Time Since 2012

    White Rhino Population in Africa Increases for First Time Since 2012

    Just in time for World Rhino Day (September 22), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) announced that the white rhino population has increased for the first time since 2012. Although the increase is promising, experts warn that poaching still threatens the species. According to the IUCN, the white rhino count at the end […]

    Wild Tiger Population in Bhutan Increases 27% Since 2015

    Wild Tiger Population in Bhutan Increases 27% Since 2015

    Wild tiger numbers in Bhutan have risen from 103 tigers in the country’s first tiger survey in 2015 to 131 individuals in a recent survey. But the wild tigers still face major threats, including poaching and habitat loss, according to the survey. “This is a significant achievement and an indication of a very healthy ecosystem,” […]

    Wildlife Trafficking 101: Everything You Need to Know

    Wildlife Trafficking 101: Everything You Need to Know

     Quick Key Facts  Wildlife trafficking is the second biggest direct threat to species, following habitat destruction.  It’s a huge business with smuggled goods valued at $10 billion a year, and involves tens of thousands of species and millions of wild plants and animals.  The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) found that 958 species […]

    More Than 1.1 Million Sea Turtles Poached Between 1990 and 2020, Study Finds

    More Than 1.1 Million Sea Turtles Poached Between 1990 and 2020, Study Finds

    Nearly all species of sea turtles are considered endangered, according to WWF. Despite this, people have continued to poach them for food, medicine and luxury goods in astonishing numbers. The first ever global assessment of illegal sea turtle hunting to consider multiple countries and regions, published in Global Change Biology Wednesday, found that more than […]

    Ecuador Investigates Alleged Poaching of Four Galápagos Tortoises

    Ecuador Investigates Alleged Poaching of Four Galápagos Tortoises

    There were once so many giant tortoises living on Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands that Spanish explorers named the archipelago after the Spanish world for tortoise — galápago — when they first explored it in 1535, according to National Geographic. Yet hunting caused their numbers to plummet from at least 250,000 hundreds of years ago to only […]