Your daily dose of bad news about
poaching, wildlife and environmental crimes
from around the world
in the spotlight today ……………………
Find out more about the threats of tiger farming in EIA’s report ‘Hidden in Plain Sight: China’s Clandestine Tiger Trade’ (extract: more than 90% of all tiger parts destined for CHINA.) NA COMMENT: This alone should, but won’t, get China sanctioned by CITES, but why? http://eia-international.org/hidden-in-plain-sight-chinas-clandestine-tiger-trade
No 335 Wildlife Trade News 17th February 2015
The big cat burglars! Police in Saudi Arabia hunt gang who stole tiger, jaguar and leopard from breeding farm
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2954943/The-big-cat-burglars-Police-Saudi-Arabia-hunt-gang-stole-tiger-jaguar-leopard-breeding-farm.html#ixzz3RtalI4gc
I wanna walk like you! Bear cub called Blue finally learns to walk months after arriving at sanctuary with such bad spinal problems that carers feared he would not survive
· Free the Bears rescues cubs whose gall bladders are milked for medicines
· Blue found in Cambodia with physical trauma that caused walking issues
· After donations and 24-hour care, bear can climb and is growing stronger
· Rescuers faced possibility of euthanasia if cub suffered from chronic pain
An intensive care unit, quarantine centers and air-conditioned rooms to rest: Inside the world’s largest falcon hospital where birds worth up to $1m are given the VERY best of care
- Around 9,000 birds get treated at the Abu Dhabi Falcon Hospital every year
- Also features a breeding center, X-rays and an ophthalmology department
- The hospital has become a major tourist attraction in the Abu Dhabi Emirate
- Falcons are a revered bird and falconry is a rite of passage for many young Emirati men
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2954823/The-Abu-Dhabi-Falcon-hospital-largest-kind.html#ixzz3RtbbG2lv
CITES: Ministers further enhance international cooperation to combat rhinoceros poaching and illegal trade in rhinoceros horn (NA comment: More talk, talk, talk, ….and another award for failure. 1020 rhinos slain in South Africa last year and they get an award from CITES! Who next – Vietnam? How come China was only an ‘Observer’? Still no change yet then. The CITES gravy train rolls on just as it always has done. Rhinos and elephants shot to pieces while bureaucrats talk and enjoy free trips around the world. As we say, no change then.)
http://cites.org/eng/2015_rhino_ministerial
…read this next report and see if you can fathom why the CITES Secretariat gave South Africa an award. Would you have given the award?
Controversy over new rhino horn commission. SOUTH AFRICA
http://www.news24.com/Green/News/Controversy-over-new-rhino-horn-commission-20150216
Rhino horn trade plot thickens http://citizen.co.za/327667/rhino-horn-trade-plot-thickens/
Lawyer suspended, rhino case postponed http://www.news24.com/Green/News/Lawyer-suspended-rhino-case-postponed-20150216
Robert Mugabe’s birthday party cooks up elephantine storm before it starts. Donation of meat from elephants, buffalo, sables, impalas and a lion for Zimbabwean president’s 91st angers more than just conservationistshttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/16/robert-mugabe-birthday-party-elephant-meat-lion-zimbabwe-91
Kenyan firm seeks to create space for black rhinos http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/xinhua-news-agency/150216/kenyan-firm-seeks-create-space-black-rhinos
Sarawak seizes over RM6m worth of logs in war against illegal timber trade (NA comment: That’s more than the rest of Malaysia added together – which probably comes to about 12 logs.) – See more at:
Conservation of Olive Ridley Turtles neglected in Krishna http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/andhra-pradesh/conservation-of-olive-ridley-turtles-fell-a-deaf-year-in-krishna/article6901929.ece
Your toothpaste is destroying Asia’s rainforests http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/02/16/commentary/world-commentary/your-toothpaste-is-destroying-asias-rainforests/#.VOIQ4C7JIsc
Sabah shocked by banteng poaching. (NA comment: This what you get when the relevant authorities don’t enforce the law, isn’t it? The same authorities have for years been claiming nothing was wrong with Sabah’s wildlife populations. http://news.mongabay.com/2015/0216-hance-banteng-sabah.html
India’s disappearing animals: ‘The problem lies with us’. The Indian pangolin and the star tortoise are among species that are being killed or smuggled in increasing numbers http://gulfnews.com/news/world/india/india-s-disappearing-animals-the-problem-lies-with-us-1.1457907
On Indonesia’s paper trail: There’s just too much illegal wood. A new report by Forest Trends and the Anti Forest-Mafia Coalition shows that Indonesia’s forest industry sector gets almost a third of its wood from illegal sources today – this could double if companies scale up their operations and build new mills.
Cut timber being driven downriver on a waterway in Central Kalimantan. Close to a third of the wood used in Indonesia’s forest industries today is illegal. Image: Achmad Ibrahim for Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) , CC BY-NC 2.0 http://www.eco-business.com/news/indonesias-paper-trail-theres-just-too-much-illegal-wood/
Six suspected rhino poachers held. SOUTH AFRICA http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/six-suspected-rhino-poachers-held-1.1819098#.VOLfMi7JIsc
China sacks city police chief over endangered salamander feast http://www.straitstimes.com/news/asia/east-asia/story/china-sacks-city-police-chief-over-slap-salamander-feast-20150217
Man allegedly caught with 3kgs of Ivory released on Sh800,000 bond – See more at: http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/man-allegedly-caught-3kgs-ivory-released-sh800000-bond#sthash.UrkOXyCA.dpuf
AP to sell red sanders recovered from smugglers to raise funds for welfare http://www.thehansindia.com/posts/index/2015-02-17/AP-to-sell-red-sanders-recovered-from-smugglers-to-raise-funds-for-welfare-131984
A.P. to commission study on global demand of red sanders https://in.newshub.org/a-p-to-commission-study-on-global-demand-of-red-sanders-11866199.html
Fighting Wildlife Trafficking in an Indonesian Hotspot – See more at: http://blogs.state.gov/stories/2015/02/03/fighting-wildlife-trafficking-indonesian-hotspot#sthash.0KJc42zS.RAnfB7EV.dpuf
Nepal’s top wildlife criminal nabbed in Malaysia
Praja was subject of global INTERPOL environmental fugitive operation
LYON, France – Nepal’s most wanted wildlife criminal and the subject of an INTERPOL Red Notice, has been arrested in Malaysia following close international collaboration via INTERPOL channels.
Rajkumar Praja, the ringleader of a rhino poaching network in Nepal, is wanted to serve a 15-year sentence for rhino poaching and trading internationally in rhino horns. Nepali authorities requested a Red Notice, or international wanted persons alert, for the 31-year-old after he fled the country.
In 2013, Nepal Police, with the support of the Nepalese Army and the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, arrested a network of more than a dozen poachers suspected of killing some 19 rhinos in the Chitwan National Park, however Praja managed to escape.
Information exchanged between the INTERPOL National Central Bureaus in Nepal and Malaysia on the case and Praja’s possible whereabouts eventually resulted in his arrest by the Royal Malaysian Police in January 2015, where he was found in possession of a fraudulent passport issued under a false name. He has since been returned to Nepal.
“What we have achieved with the arrest of Rajkumar Praja is a testament to how law enforcement agencies can utilize INTERPOL resources to share information and coordinate beyond national boundaries to combat transnational organized crime,” said DIGP Hemant Malla Thakuri, Director of the Nepal Police Central Investigation Bureau.
“This arrest sends a strong message to criminals hiding in a foreign country that no matter where they are, they are not safe and will be caught one day,” he concluded.
Praja was a target of INTERPOL’s Operation Infra Terra in 2014. As INTERPOL’s first global fugitive operation focused on criminals wanted for environmental crimes, Infra Terra targeted 139 fugitives wanted by 36 member countries for illegal fishing, wildlife trafficking, illegal trade and disposal of waste, illegal logging and trading in illicit ivory and more.
Other high-profile targets of Operation Infra Terra who have been arrested as a result of the global operation include suspected illegal ivory trader Ben Simasiku, and Feisal Mohamed Ali, the alleged leader of an ivory smuggling ring.
INTERPOL’s activities to investigate and disrupt wildlife crime networks operating in Asia come under its Project Predator. The project aims to support and enhance the governance and law enforcement capacity for the conservation of Asian big cats and is primarily funded by the US Agency for International Development.
