Colombo, Sri Lanka | AFP | Sri Lankan police have arrested five men for allegedly killing a wild elephant, with officers seizing ivory and tusk-cutting tools, officials said Friday. Villagers in the island’s northwest had alerted wildlife authorities after a popular local elephant called “Dala Poottuwa”, or crossed tusker, disappeared. Its …
Read More »Trump reverses elephant trophy decision, keeps ban
Washington, United States | AFP | President Donald Trump said Friday he will uphold a ban on importing trophies of elephants hunted and killed in Zimbabwe, pending further review, reversing his own administration’s decision from just a day earlier after a public outcry. “Put big game trophy decision on hold …
Read More »US to allow Zimbabwe elephant trophy imports
Washington, United States | AFP | Animal rights groups on Thursday strongly criticized President Donald Trump’s administration for allowing the import of Zimbabwean elephant hunting trophies. The move reverses a prohibition imposed under former president Barack Obama and is the latest rollback of Obama-era controls on a number of fronts. …
Read More »Mbarara man arrested with 33kg of ivory
Man arrested with 33kg of ivory in Mbarara Kampala, Uganda | GODFREY SSALI | Police in Mbarara District with help from Natural Resource Conservation Network (NRCN) have arrested pne man in possession of 33.8kgs of elephant tusks worth Sh13.5 million . Jackson Baluku, 42, a motor vehicle broker and a resident of Lower Zone Base …
Read More »Elephant poaching costs Africa tourism $25 million
Paris, France | AFP | Stopping the killing of elephants for their tusks could add some $25 million (23 million euros) to Africa’s annual tourism income, more than offsetting the anti-poaching spend, a study said Tuesday. While the figure pales in comparison to the estimated value of the black market …
Read More »African elephants ‘suffer worst decline in 25 years’
Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | The number of African elephants has dropped by around 111,000 in the past decade, a new report released Sunday at the Johannesburg conference on the wildlife trade said, blaming the plummeting figures on poaching. The revelation, the worst drop in 25 years, came amid …
Read More »Uganda’s Seguya lobbies the EU with Africa Elephant Coalition colleagues
ATC News by Wolfgang H. Thome Uganda Wildlife Authority Executive Director Dr. Andrew Seguya, together with colleagues from the other nearly 30 African countries seeking a greater protective status for their elephant populations, lobbied the European Union last week to help them lift the dual classification of elephant – some …
Read More »Queen Elizabeth Park elephant deaths
By Ronald Musoke Is elephant poaching making its way back in Uganda’s game parks? The news that half a dozen elephants were killed late last year by ivory hunters in Queen Elizabeth National Park has triggered off both anger and frustration within the Ugandan conservation fraternity. Nelson Guma, the manager …
Read More »Elephant killers
By Independent Team How did ivory seized in Kenya, with estimated worth of Shs4 billion, enter from Uganda? When Kenyan customs officers on July 8 confiscated about 3,500kgs of elephant ivory alleged to have been smuggled into the country from Uganda, the ministry of Wildlife and related organisations in Kampala …
Read More »Asian religions responsible for African Elephant massacres
By Ronald Musoke The massacre of African elephants that have been going on in Africa for decades and have escalated to record levels over the last 30 years have been linked to religious practices on the Asian continent. This alarming rate, according to the Society for Conservation Biology—a global community …
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