Illegal hunting

Return of the majestic markhor

July 6, 2012 Illegal hunting

Markhor, the majestic wild goat and important snow leopard prey, is making a remarkable comeback in Pakistan, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Surveys show there are now over 1500 markhor which is a huge increase since the last government estimate of less than 1,000 in 1999. Markhor have been listed as Endangered by [...]

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Snow leopards in streets of Delhi

May 28, 2012 Illegal hunting

A snow leopard and other Asian big cats, are roaming the streets of Delhi. Large banners featuring tigers, leopards and snow leopards have come up around India’s capital and highlight how the cats are threatened by illegal poaching. This is part of a very eye-catching campaign by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to [...]

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Poacher spotting device to help Russia’s snow leopards

July 12, 2011 Illegal hunting

Sean Burnett and Greg Carney are Canadian economists with a hobby that may save snow leopards in the Altai region of Russia. They’ve invented a poacher-spotting device that employs heat detectors, underground sensors and satellite GPS monitoring to catch illegal hunters. Their Remote Anti-Poaching Intelligence Device uses heat sensor technology attached to a GPS which [...]

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VIP poachers acquitted in Russia

May 24, 2011 Illegal hunting

A court in southern Siberia’s Altai Republic acquitted three high ranking Russian officials of hunting endangered animals when their helicopter crashed killing seven others in January 2009. The case in the remote town of Koch Agash, has been over two years coming to court but Judge Nikolai Lubenitsky said yesterday the prosecution (which asked for [...]

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Antipoaching and felt making help snow leopards in Russia

November 2, 2010 Illegal hunting

Following up from my trip to the Altai Mountains this July I found out Rodney Jackson from the Snow Leopard Conservancy visited the area in August and trained some local residents from Inegen and staff from the Altaisky Nature Reserve to do snow leopard counts in the Argut River valley. This beautiful part of Russia [...]

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Herdsmen in China sentenced to prison for killing snow leopard

March 8, 2010 China

BBC News has reported the following story. “Two herdsmen have been sentenced to eight and 10 years in prison for killing a snow leopard in northwest China’s Xinjiang region. China’s state news agency Xinhua quoted local authorities saying the men had set a trap after wild animals had been preying on their sheep. When a [...]

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Illegal wildlife trade in Asia worth $10 billion

May 6, 2009 Endangered species

Illegal trade in wildlife in Asia is estimated at over $10 billion dollars, second only to weapons and drug smuggling. This is a staggering and potentially depressing story. But ASEAN nations have recently made major commitments at an ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network (WEN) meeting to improve enforcement and also halt habitat depletion. A sad case [...]

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Technology sensors in fight against poachers

October 30, 2008 Illegal hunting

Technology has changed just about everything we do in the last 10 years so why not use technology to save endangered animals from poaching? That’s exactly what Steve Gulick, a tech-head and keen conservation biologist supporter has done. He’s developed motion-triggered cameras for biologists studying chimps in the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park (NNNP) of the Republic [...]

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