By Mike Gaworecki New research shows that more than 25,000 forest elephants were killed for their ivory in Gabon’s Minkébé National Park, one of the largest and most important wildlife preserves in Central Africa, between 2004 and 2014. That’s a decline of somewhere between 78 and 81 percent in the park’s forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) […]
Six fishing boats engaged in illegal activities were spotted by Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez, ending in their arrest by the Mexican Navy. On Dec. 12, Sea Shepherd’s M/V Farley Mowat located poachers on radar before confirming their identities with binoculars. The six fishing boats were working together, using forbidden nets […]
By Alicia Graef Animal advocates are celebrating the successful rescue, rehabilitation and release of two critically endangered Bornean orangutans who had spent their lives in cages as pets. The two orangutans, eight-year-old Johnny, and 10-year-old Desi, had spent their lives in confinement as pets before being rescued by a team from International Animal Rescue (IAR) […]
With possibly as few as 4,000 snow leopards surviving in the wild, a new report from TRAFFIC has found that hundreds of the endangered big cats are being killed illegally each year across their range in Asia’s high mountains. Published ahead of today’s UN meeting on snow leopards and International Snow Leopard Day on Sunday, […]
Discovery Communications and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) announced Wednesday a partnership to conserve nearly 1 million acres of critical tiger habitat in India and Bhutan in hopes of doubling the world’s population of tigers by 2022. [facebook https://www.facebook.com/EcoWatch/videos/1321900031156264/ expand=1] The big cats are known to have once roamed much of Asia. Poaching and habitat loss […]
By Clara Chaisson What on Earth have you photographed? This open-ended question, asked annually by the BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition, invites predictably diverse submissions: A leopard prowling around Mumbai’s Aarey Milk Colony, a Chilean volcano’s violent eruption, and the surprisingly peaceful relationship between a blackfish and a venomous Portuguese man o’ war, just to […]
In a historic announcement, the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation (LDF) awarded the largest portfolio of environmental grants in the foundation’s history. The foundation awarded a total of $15.6 million in grants, including $7,631,508 for wildlife and habitat conservation; $2,525,000 for ocean conservation; $2,100,000 to protect indigenous rights; $2,085,000 to support innovative solutions to the world’s problems; […]