MPs will today be requested to approve an emergency amendment to the Wildlife Act. The ammendement raises penalties for killing elephants to up to 15 years in jail and/or a fine of Sh10 million. These penalties are equivalent to those under the Economic Crimes Act, the Organised Crime Act and the Anti-Terrorism Crime Act.

The motion is being moved by a private member, North Horr MP Chachu Ganya. Kenya is currently renowned for low penalties for poachers and traffickers of ivory who are fined as low as Sh40,000 for ivory seizures worth tens of millions of shillings. The poachers are rarely jailed.

Conservationists are convinced that low penalties have been fueling impunity and attracting criminal cartels involved in ivory and rhino horn trade in the country. Despite the urgency to curb the poaching crisis, ef- forts to amend the Wildlife Act have stalled since 2007. “My home Marsabit is known for its elephants.

I have an opportunity to use my time in Parliament to do something about it. Higher penalties will save elephants and this is essential for our tourism industry,” said Ganya in an interview. Kenya Wildlife Service head of species Patrick Omondi said the organisation supports the bill. “It will support our efforts in law enforcement,” Omondi said in an interview.

Article source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201305220316.html

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Mule deer

A Colorado Parks and Wildlife ranger has been fined and demoted for using artificial light while poaching a trophy mule deer after legal hunting hours last October.

Trinidad Lake State Park ranger Travis McKay was cited in October for poaching, but was allowed to keep his job.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife director Rick Cables tells the Denver Post the punishment for the incident was adequate, but some employees are unhappy the ranger wasn’t fired.

McKay finally admitted to poaching the deer and was issued a fine of more than $11,000, most of which stemmed from the deer being a trophy animal.

Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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1:17 am, Tue 21 May 2013 Princes call for an end of illegal trade in wildlife

The Prince of Wales and Prince William are to host a conference later today which will call for a global partnership to stop the illegal trade in wildlife.

Wildlife losses have reached unsustainable levels, with tens of thousands in some places, the World Wide Fund for Nature said.

The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge Credit: Danny Lawson/PA Wire

It added that the world is currently faced with an “epidemic” of poaching and trafficking of illegal wildlife products, caused by an increase in demand, particularly from south-east Asia.

The conference, in conjunction with Defra will be the first stage in a process which will result in key countries signing a declaration at a meeting this Autumn, to end the illegal trade in wildlife.

Read: Prince William: ‘We must do more on poaching crimes’

Royal Prince of Wales Duke of Cambridge

Article source: http://www.itv.com/news/story/2013-05-21/prince-of-wales-prince-charles-prince-william-government-illegal-wildlife-trade-wwf/

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Poachers had resorted to sophisticated tactics, such as using silencers on their guns and helicopters at night, Mkhize told a two-day summit on rhino poaching at the University of Zululand near Empangeni.

“This war [against rhino poaching] is a serious war. We should be detecting who flies.”

He said the difficulty was that poachers, even if they filed a flight plan with aviation authorities, did not reveal their real intention.

He did not provide details, or elaborate about a specific incident involving the use of helicopters for poaching, and said only that the imposition of no-fly zones was “a great possibility”.

The organisation was improving its equipment in the fight against rhino poaching.

Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini said communities needed to expose those behind rhino poaching.

“Why don’t you tell us? Who are these people who are doing such a horrible thing?” he asked.

Communities could not say there was no one in their midst who was involved in poaching.

Historically, hunting in the Zulu kingdom was controlled by the king, and this hunting was for the purposes of livelihood and not for profit, he said.

“We beg you to stop this nonsense.”

He said the authorities had to bring rural communities into the fight against rhino poaching.

“It hurts me deeply every time I see a report of another rhino killed.”

Rhino poachers and those who drove the rhino horn trade needed to be seen as “enemies of Africa”.

Mkhize said 11 rhino had been killed in the province in the past week.

Since February, 128 rhino had been killed in South Africa, according to environmental affairs department figures quoted on the Wildlife and Environment Society of SA’s website.

Last year, 668 rhino were killed, 66 of them in KwaZulu-Natal.

Mkhize said he was still in favour of the legalised sale of rhino horn from stock-piles of horns collected by the authorities, from the carcasses of rhino which had died naturally in the environment.

He said he believed this would help cut demand for illegal horns and would be an important measure in the fight to preserve rhino populations.

“If the rhino disappears, it’s not only us in conservation that will suffer,” he said.

He said the rhino was just one part in the economic chain, and a drop in the number of tourists as a result of their demise would affect others’ livelihoods.

“The loss of rhino would be too ghastly to contemplate,” he said.

Rhino horns are used as dagger handles in the Middle Eastern country of Yemen, while in the Far East the horn is prized for its medicinal purposes. South Africa has the largest rhino population in the world.

Article source: http://www.timeslive.co.za/scitech/2013/05/22/ezemvelo-kzn-wildlife-considers-no-fly-zones-to-clip-poachers-wings

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Nairobi hosted two celebrities from China recently, about a month after Chinese President Xi Jinping toured Africa.

Chinese actress Li Bingbing and former NBA star Yao Ming were on a trip to Kenya that sought to raise awareness about the illicit wildlife trade. Li linked the vice to global criminal rings.

The UN says the number of elephants killed in Africa has doubled in a decade. Rhino poaching rates have similarly escalated by more than 1,000 percent in the same period. In southern Africa, an average of 500 rhinos are killed annually.

Poaching is turning out to be a serious threat to the stability and growth of Africa. It is already depriving the impoverished continent of its precious resources while at the same time undermining the rule of law.

Permeable borders, weak judicial systems, corruption and lucrative and ready markets have aggravated poaching, with security operatives potentially outgunned in the battle against the technology-competent gangs.

Like drug traffickers, the criminals operate across the borders, have strong financial backing, and are well armed. Any barrier standing on the way ordinarily faces their wrath.

Underneath this grievous business lies China and Thailand, the focal markets in Asia for wildlife products. At a recent Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, Bangkok promised to tighten its laws that have allowed poachers to ship tusks from Africa to Thailand, making it the second-biggest market for illegal elephant tusks in the world.

The declaration appeared to have put some pressure on China to stop its legal ivory trade, a sector that has helped catalyze the unprecedented poaching levels of the African wildlife.

The celebrities’ tour gestured China’s commitment to supporting the world in curbing the illegal trade that has tainted its image internationally.

But that may neither be enough nor sustainable. There is a difficult task ahead, which China inevitably has to deal with otherwise the outcome might be detrimental.

Some countries are already proposing to impose trade sanctions and embargoes on China until it comes up with an adequate plan to fight the menace.

Back in Africa, there are growing sentiments against Chinese investments due to what is seen is its reluctance to check poaching.

Based on the rate, complexity and scale of poaching, China needs to take serious measures.

In partnership with other affected nations, Beijing should engage in high-tech techniques like those used to combat prohibited business in narcotics such as undercover operations.

It could also make use of controlled delivery plans where the wildlife products are not just seized but also traced to their destination.

This will diminish the lure of the trade, as the architects will easily be recognized and punished.

This calls for truly punitive penalties too. The enforcement measures taken in Africa and China today against poaching are so lenient that they cannot deter the practice.

A recent story where a suspected poacher was released on a $250 bond by a Kenyan court was undeniably seen as a slap in the face of conservationists.

It will be more meaningful if the judiciaries of the affected countries could deny bail to suspected poachers.

Such an enforcement model would need to be backed up by comprehensive and well coordinated measures, and driven by public awareness.

Possibly the long-lasting plan in handling this crisis would be to adopt the idea Namibia has employed in tackling the senseless killings of wildlife.

For about three decades, this southern African nation endured multiple cases of poaching that threatened to destroy its prized foreign exchange earner.

Through wildlife conservationists, the country encouraged community-based protection of wildlife.

Villagers were encouraged to see the wildlife as part of their families, just like their livestock.

They were made to appreciate that the conservation of the wildlife could attract tourists and create employment for their children.

The outcome has been incredible. Although there were only 300 black rhinos left in the 1980s, the population now stands at over 1,700.

The number of desert elephants, a rare species that survives in arid regions, has also gone up by over 400 percent to 600.

China, Thailand and Africa holding hands to fight the scourge is likely to inflict pain on poaching. But a truly global approach would absolutely kill the destructive trade.

The author is a journalist on African issues based in Nairobi, Kenya. mkapchanga@gmail.com

Article source: http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/783252.shtml

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Golaghat (Assam), May 20 (ANI): Two poachers were arrested over the weekend by forest department officials in Assam’s Kaziranga wildlife sanctuary for attempting to poach single-horned rhinoceros.

A country-made 303 rifle with a silencer was recovered from the arrested poachers Naren Doley and Bimal Pegu.

The two poachers belong to a nearby area and the authorities believe that these arrests would lead to the busting of an entire racket of poachers in the region.

“The problem is most of these activities are committed on the peripheries of the park. But we hope that there will be many more arrests in this connection,” said N. K. Basu, the park’s director.

Kaziranga is home to a vast number of the famed and endangered species of wildlife in Assam state and these include the one-horned rhinos and tigers.

This year around 16 one-horned rhinos were killed in Assam, of which at least 11 were killed inside the Kaziranga National Park by poachers.

There were 2,329 rhinos in the park, according to the latest census.

Meanwhile, the CBI had registered three cases relating to rhino poaching during 2012 in and around Kaziranga.

Recently, the Indian wildlife authorities’ introduced the aerial drones equipped with cameras, to check rampant poaching.

To protect the one-horned rhino, wildlife authorities in Assam have even deployed armed guards, but they have often proved ineffective before the organised gangs of poachers, who continue to strike down the rhinos.

Rhino horn is in great demand in China and Southeast Asia as it is believed to possess aphrodisiac qualities, which are used in traditional medicines and allied concoctions. (ANI)

Article source: http://truthdive.com/2013/05/20/Two-poachers-arrested-for-rhino-killings-in-Assam.html

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Besides being beautiful, Costa Rica‘s beaches are the nesting sites of four endangered sea turtle species, which return each year to lay their eggs. But there is trouble in paradise for these reptiles, namely, from egg thieves.

Since 1996, it’s been illegal to remove turtle eggs from beaches in Costa Rica, said Beth Adubato, a New York Institute of Technology criminologist interested in crimes against wildlife. However, that hasn’t stopped egg thieves — egg poaching is up 30 percent since the law was put in place, she told LiveScience.

Adubato recently completed a study on egg poaching in the Osa Peninsula, a little-inhabited area with seemingly pristine beaches on the country’s southern Pacific Coast. Many of the culprits are Panamanians, who cross the border and take eggs by the truckload, she said. The eggs are thought to act as aphrodisiacs, and can be bought in bars in Panama, said Adubato, who presented the results of her work at a conference on wildlife crime and poaching  at Rutgers University in Newark, N.J., last week.

“We see the trucks coming, we see the eggs being taken away, but we don’t know how to stop it,” she said.

There is no evidence to suggest that turtle eggs act as aphrodisiacs, and it’s unclear how that belief originated. In fact, the turtle eggs are potentially unsafe for human consumption —in some cases they have been shown to have unsafe levels of heavy metals, Adubato said.

Adubato is collaborating with groups on the Osa Peninsula to help educate locals to not steal sea turtle eggs, and to find other ways to benefit from them. In other areas, Costa Ricans have acted as guides, taking tourists to witness sea turtles laying eggs, Adubato said. The primary problem is that though there are laws to prevent poaching, they aren’t enforced in this area as they are in certain wildlife reserves.

Adubato said she’s worried for the future, because some locals view eggs as an important source of income, and don’t realize that the egg poaching is a serious problem, since the turtles come to lay eggs in large numbers, she said. However, only a tiny fraction of the eggs laid survive to adulthood, and turtle populations cannot rebound quickly since the animals take years to become mature and reproduce, she added.

The four endangered species that lay their eggs on these beaches are leatherback, hawksbill, Olive Ridley and green sea turtles. Adubato’s study found that on some beaches in the peninsula, up to half of the nests had their eggs stolen from them.

Email Douglas Main or follow him on Twitter or Google+. Follow us @livescience,  Facebook or  Google+. Article originally on LiveScience.com.

Tagging and Tracking Sea Turtles In Photos: Endangered and Threatened Wildlife 10 Species You Can Kiss Goodbye

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