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NYT Profiles Pangolin Conservation Efforts

March 30, 2015
WildAid, Pangolins

A 3-year-old female pangolin ambling through the underbrush at a Cambodian wildlife rescue center, and seemingly unaware that she's missing two feet lost to a poacher's snare, provides the opening scene to an excellent profile on this amazing animal by New York Times science writer Erica Goode.

Also known as “scaly anteaters,” pangolins are small mammals primarily distinguished by hard, overlapping scales made of keratin, the same protein that constitutes human hair and fingernails. Found in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, pangolins are solitary animals that use their extraordinarily long tongues to probe for ants and termites in mounds and decaying logs. 

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Manta Rays: Curious and Vulnerable Giants of the Sea

March 25, 2015
WildAid, Mantas

"In all my years of filming and interacting with manta rays, I have never witnessed such an extraordinary interaction between a manta ray and a swimmer. The power and charisma of this giant manta was truly humbling!" — Shawn Heinrichs, WildAid

This month, WildAid's Shawn Heinrichs and Josh Stewart of Manta Trust conducted a research and filming expedition to Peru, working closely with our partner Planeta Océano with support from Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund. Peru and Ecuador waters are home to one of the most significant populations Oceanic mantas in the eastern Pacific. Both Peru and Ecuador are parties to Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) that now lists both manta and mobula rays for protection. Whereas Ecuador has implemented national regulations protecting mantas and mobulas, just south of their border, Peru has yet to adopt similar protections.

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CITES: Elephant Poaching Levels Remain Unsustainable

March 24, 2015
WildAid, Elephants

Elephant poaching levels in Africa continued to outpace natural birth rates for the species in 2014, according to a new report released Monday by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES.

CITES’ Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants program estimates that the poaching rate in 2014 remained virtually unchanged compared with 2013 numbers.

While the current level is slightly less than the peak in 2011, elephant populations remain in decline.

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Uncharted Territory in Rhino Conservation

March 20, 2015
WildAid, Rhinos

WildAid South Africa staffer Adam Welz recently penned an authoritative op-ed for Ensia the challenges in saving Africa's rhinos. As detailed often on this blog, poaching in South Africa has reached alarming levels: 1,215 rhinos were killed in the country last year, compared with 448 in 2011 and 83 in 2008. 

Welz writes:

The high-profile plight of [rhinos] has brought forth a bewildering array of proposed solutions, many of which trigger serious ethical dilemmas, risk unintended and troubling consequences or rely on unproven technology. We’re charging headlong into an era in which new technology may allow us to save species once considered doomed, but also in which threats come in previously unimaginable forms that mainstream wildlife protectors cannot handle. ...

... The steps being taken to save southern white rhinos from the relentless onslaught of ever more organized poachers and traffickers — who sell their horns for extraordinary sums in Asia to consumers who believe that rhino horn cures cancer and other ailments and businesspeople seeking status symbols — are no less fraught with uncertainty.

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Hong Kong Schoolchildren Lead City’s Largest Ivory Protest

March 17, 2015
WildAid, Elephants

As Hong Kong lawmakers show increasing leadership in calling for an end to the ivory trade, over 100 people took to the streets over the weekend in a peaceful, student-led protest of several ivory retailers — none of whom were displaying valid licenses for their stocks.

WildAid’s Alex Hofford was on hand to film the rally, Hong Kong’s largest to date and the fifth in a series of youth-organized protests in one of the world’s largest ivory markets. Over the past year, four Hong Kong retailers pulled ivory products from their shelves following protests outside their stores. 

The young activists, ages 10 to 12, held placards and shouted slogans on Saturday as they called for members of the public to stop buying elephant ivory and for the Hong Kong government to ban the city's ivory trade. The students from Hong Kong’s ESF Clearwater Bay School, ESF Kennedy School, ESF West Island School and Canadian International School protested several retailers on Hollywood Road and Queen’s Road Central in Sheung Wan district.

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