Is there an answer?

Serabi:
How can we save our Rhinos?

3 rhino killed in Kruger Park
2013-01-08 18:45


Johannesburg - Three rhino have been killed in the Kruger National Park since the beginning of the year, SA National Parks (SANParks) said on Tuesday.

"The animals were lost in two separate incidents. A hunting rifle and two sets of horns were recovered," said spokesperson Ike Phaahla.

In the first incident, two white rhino were shot dead in the Houtboschrand section of the park.

Kruger National Park managing executive Abe Sibiya said a poaching group from Mozambique shot the animals and removed their horns on January 1. The poachers had not been caught.

In the second incident, rangers in the Lower Sabie area exchanged gunfire with three poachers, who escaped, but left behind a high-calibre hunting rifle and a bag containing a set of rhino horns.

The carcass of a white rhino missing its horns was later found.

"This is not an ideal way to start the year, but the initiatives that we have put in place, especially the aerial surveillance one, is teaching us a lot and we are making a lot of progress," Sibiya said in a statement.

Two rhino were killed at the Madikwe Game Reserve in North West on Monday, according to the provincial environmental affairs department.

Spokesperson Dumisa Seshabela said the first rhino was found dead on Saturday evening.

"It was confirmed as [a] rhino poaching on Sunday. Both the horns of the bull were removed.


"The cause of death was a shot near the front of his neck."

The carcass of the second rhino was found on Monday evening.

Seshabela said park rangers heard shots at about 19:45.

"The horn was not removed. It is suspected that the poachers were disturbed."

On December 19, the national environmental affairs department said 633 rhinos had been killed for their horns in South Africa in 2012.

The Kruger National Park had lost 395 rhino to poaching, and 197 had been killed in North West, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo.

In 2011, 252 rhino were killed for their horns in the Kruger National Park, with 74 killed in Limpopo, 21 in North West, and 34 in KwaZulu-Natal.


- SAPA

Farrah_: .... we should be more concern on... how we can save our people? humanity? though I don't know what good rhino does?

Serabi:

I think it was best said by Agent Smith in the Matrix movie -

Agent Smith:


I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure. --The Matrix

I concur.

R E B E C C A: I think people need to respect all forms life and realize we cannot exist without them

Serabi:

Poachers hack baby rhino with axe, panga
2013-01-11 22:02

Johannesburg - A 2-month old rhino was hacked at least 18 times with axes and pangas when she got too close to poachers cutting off her slain mother's horn, a conservation NGO said on Friday.

"The poor baby had obviously tried to return to its mother while the poachers were removing her horn and they slashed at her face with a panga and an axe repeatedly in order to chase her away," said Karen Trendler of the Endangered Wildlife Trust.

The location of the park where the incident occurred was not revealed.


The baby rhino had "18 very deep lacerations across her face, one which cuts right through her stump and the other through her skull," but was said to be "doing remarkably well".

Poachers slaughtered a record 668 rhinos in South Africa last year as demand on the Asian black market for their horns continued to surge.

Some think the material, which is of the same material as human nails, has medicinal values.

Those claims have been widely discredited.

The female calf is being cared for at a special orphanage for baby rhinos near Mokopane 250km north of Pretoria, Trendler told AFP.


- SAPA

Serabi:

African elephant poaching threatens wildlife future
By Gabriel Gatehouse

BBC News, Kenya/Nigeria



Elephant corpses lay piled on top of one another under the scorching Kenyan sun.

In their terror, the elephants must have sought safety in numbers - in vain: a thick trail of blackened blood traced their final moments.

In December, nine elephants were killed outside the Tsavo National Park, in south-eastern Kenya. This month, a family of 12 was gunned down in the same area.

In both cases, the elephants' faces had been hacked off to remove the tusks. The rest was left to the maggots and the flies.

"That is a big number for one single incident," said Samuel Takore of the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). "We have not had such an incident in recent years, I think dating back to before I joined the service."

Mr Takore joined in the 1980s, and his observations corroborate a wider pattern: across Africa, elephant poaching is now at its highest for 20 years.

During the 1980s, more than half of Africa's elephants are estimated to have been wiped out, mostly by poachers hunting for ivory.

But in January 1990, countries around the world signed up to an international ban on the trade in ivory. Global demand dwindled in the face of a worldwide public awareness campaign.

Elephant populations began to swell again.

But in recent years, those advances have been reversed.

China to blame?

An estimated 25,000 elephants were killed in 2011. The figures for 2012 are still being collated, but they will almost certainly be higher still.

Campaigners are pointing the finger of blame at China.

The Northern Rangelands Trust acts like an anti-poaching paramilitary force
"China is the main buyer of ivory in the world," said Dr Esmond Martin, a conservationist and researcher who has spent decades tracking the movement of illegal ivory around the world.

He has recently returned from Nigeria, where he conducted a visual survey of ivory on sale in the city of Lagos. His findings are startling.

Dr Martin and his colleagues counted more than 14,000 items of worked and raw ivory in one location, the Lekki Market in Lagos.

The last survey, conducted at the same market in 2002, counted about 4,000 items, representing a three-fold increase in a decade.

According to the findings of the investigation, which has been shared exclusively with the BBC, Nigeria is at the centre of a booming trade in illegal African ivory.

An Asian appetite for ivory, seen here in Hong Kong, has fuelled poaching in Africa
In 2011, the Nigerian government introduced strict legislation to clamp down on the ivory trade, making it illegal to display, advertise, buy or sell ivory.

And yet, says Dr Martin, Lagos has now become the largest retail market for illegal ivory in Africa.

"There's ivory moving all the way from East Africa, from Kenya into Nigeria," he said. "Nigerians are exporting tusks to China. Neighbouring countries are exporting a lot of worked ivory items (to Nigeria).

"So it's a major entrepot for everything from tusks coming in, tusks going out, worked ivory going in, worked ivory going out, worked ivory being made."

Serabi:



This footage shows a rhino from an Eastern Cape private game reserve which had its horn hacked off while it was still alive. Vets and wildlife managers tried in vain to save its life but the wounds were too severe and it had to be put down. Help the Wilderness Foundation fight this tragedy by signing the petition:

xox G xox: Unfortunately as long as theres a market for animal products theres nothing anyone can do as money will always take first place over conservation.

Its very sad that we humans have such little respect for other inhabitants of earth.

Eagster: Agreed.

Serabi:

Rhino named 2012 newsmaker
2013-01-18 22:57

Johannesburg - Rhino in South Africa have been named the 2012 newsmaker of the year by the National Press Club in Pretoria.

"The onslaught on these African giants has not only resulted in much debate in the country and elsewhere in the world, but has also united people to rally behind campaigns against the bleeding of our heritage," press club chairperson Antoinette Slabbert said in a statement on Friday.

Rhino poaching had constantly been in the news and evoked strong emotions, she said.

"History was made last year. A record number of 668 rhinos were poached, a harsh sentence of 40-years for a kingpin in the poaching industry was handed down and an international accord to try and stop poaching was signed."

Slabbert said it was critical for governments, companies, individuals and the media to take action to stop the killing of rhino.


- SAPA

Serabi:

Vets struggle to treat hurt rhino
2013-01-19 23:22

Johannesburg - A high-value target survives two attempts on her life. After recovering from multiple gunshot wounds, she is secretly moved to an undisclosed location in hopes that the killers won't track her down again.

This isn't a Hollywood thriller about a hunted witness in a police protection programme.

It is the tale of Phila, one of a growing number of rhino that survive horrific injuries during attempts by poachers to hack off their horns. With her horns still intact, Phila is a rare survivor of a surge in rhino killings in the country.

In a new push, veterinarians are racing to learn more about rhino anatomy so they can swiftly treat survivors of attacks by poachers whose arsenal includes assault rifles and drug-tipped darts.

The obstacles are funding, a dearth of past research and the logistics of helping fearsome-looking behemoths that are easily traumatised if moved from their habitat.

There are "suddenly a lot of live rhinos needing medical attention", said Dr Katja Koeppel, senior vet at the Johannesburg Zoo, where Phila spent two years before her surreptitious return to a game reserve in November.

She cautioned that treatments for rhino are inexact: "We know very little about rhino. We treat them as a large horse."

A record 668 rhino were killed in South Africa in 2012, an increase of nearly 50% over the previous year.

Demand is growing in Vietnam and elsewhere in Asia where rhino horn is believed to have medical benefits despite evidence to the contrary. The horn is made of keratin, a protein also found in human fingernails.

Vets say there are no reliable statistics for the number of rhino injured by poachers, partly because some game reserve owners prefer to keep quiet for fear other criminals will flock to any location known to harbour rhino.

Those involved in the protection of rhino are skittish, and suspicion that people are colluding with poachers is plentiful.

One of Phila's guardians refused to talk to The Associated Press on the telephone, saying: "I don't know who you are."

Dr Georgina Cole, another vet at the Johannesburg Zoo, said she knew of 10 rhino that survived poaching attacks in the past year, and she believes the unreported number is much higher.

Dr Johan Marais, an equine and wildlife surgeon at the University of Pretoria, said a "conservative" estimate of rhino survivors is 40 to 60 a year. Marais predicted: "As the amount of poaching goes up, we'll probably get more and more of these survivors."

Marais said he recently visited a rhino that still had bullet pieces in its flesh from a shooting a year ago. The rhino suffered lingering wound infections.

While a few lucky rhino elude their shooters, others survive a grislier fate: being shot with a tranquilizer dart and having their horns hurriedly carved out of their faces while they are unconscious.

"Guys are calling us up and saying, 'Listen, I have a rhino that was poached and its horn has been hacked off. It's alive. Can you please come and fix it,'" said Marais, who seeks funding for CAT scan software to map the head of the white rhino.

Three-dimensional images of facial muscles, nerves, blood vessels and the sinuses around the horns would make surgical treatment easier.

In February 2011, Dr William Fowlds, a wildlife veterinarian, was summoned to a game reserve in the Eastern Cape province where Geza, a rhino, had lost its horns to machete-wielding poachers. The rhino was clinging to life.

"In a small clearing enclosed by bush, stood an animal, hardly recognisable as a rhino. His profile completely changed by the absence of those iconic horns attributed to no other species," Fowlds wrote in an emotional account.

"More nauseating than that, the skull and soft tissue trauma extended down into the remnants of his face, through the outer layer of bones, to expose the underlying nasal passages."

After consultations, he euthanized Geza with a dart containing an overdose of anesthetics.

Phila, the rhino that recently left the Johannesburg Zoo, was shot a total of nine times on two separate occasions and suffered injuries to her sinus cavity, nose and shoulder area, and she lost hearing in her right ear, according to veterinarians. Despite the heavy injuries, Phila escaped from poachers in both attacks.

Serabi:

Geza -

Serabi:

Humans!!!!!

xox G xox: How sickening, those poor creatures.

OCD_OCD: nothing can be saved or protected where the greedy and uneducated exist.

Serabi:

More Borneo elephants found dead
2013-01-30 17:14




Kuala Lumpur – Malaysian authorities discovered the decomposing remains of another three endangered Borneo pygmy elephants on Wednesday, deepening a mystery surrounding at least 13 such deaths this month.

The wildlife department in Malaysia's Sabah state is bracing for the possibility of finding more dead elephants in the Gunung Rara Forest Reserve, where an unknown number of the animals roam, Masidi Manjun, Sabah's environment minister, said.

Police are investigating suspicions that the elephants were poisoned.

Officials have declined to say whether there are any suspects.

The first 10 known deaths captured wide attention when they were made public this week. Authorities released several photographs of the elephant carcasses and a particularly poignant one of a 3-month-old surviving calf that appeared to be trying to wake its dead mother.

"There is definitely a sense of urgency," Masidi said by telephone from Sabah on Wednesday.

"We cannot discount the possibility of more bad news."

The orphaned male elephant, nicknamed "Joe" by his rescuers, was transported to a Sabah wildlife park.

Officials say it is under observation and appears healthy.

The WWF conservation group estimates that less than 1 500 Borneo pygmy elephants exist.

Most live in Sabah, one of two Malaysian states on Borneo island, and grow to about 245cm tall, a foot or two shorter than mainland Asian elephants.

Known for their babyish faces, large ears and long tails, Borneo pygmy elephants were found to be a distinct subspecies only in 2003, after DNA testing.

Officials are working to have a laboratory analysis of samples from the dead elephants ready "as soon as possible," Masidi said.

Department veterinarians said the elephants, believed to belong to a single herd, suffered severe haemorrhages and ulcers in their gastrointestinal tracts.


- SAPA

OCD_OCD: Brutal azzhats. No purpose and no point in such wanton violence against animals.

Serabi:

Two rhino killed a day since New Year
2013-01-31 18:46



Johannesburg - Poachers have killed 57 rhino from our national parks since the beginning of the month, a rate of almost two a day, officials said on Thursday.

Despite stepped up anti-poaching operations, the department of environmental affairs said 42 rhino had been poached in the Kruger National Park alone.

The park authorities blamed the staggering rate on "recent floods in the Kruger National Park, thick vegetation, two weeks of a full moon, aggressive incursions from Mozambique".

Authorities said 18 suspected poachers have been arrested from 1 January, and seven rhino horns recovered.

Some suspects were found in possession of heavy calibre hunting rifles and ammunition.

South African authorities have stepped up anti-poaching operations in the Kruger Park, including deploying the army to the park and a surveillance aircraft.

The South African National Park chiefs executive, David Mabunda believes that anti-poaching operations were starting to yield results, despite increased incursions from Mozambique.

"Our operations are more militaristic. The number of poachers arrested has increased inside and outside the park," said Mabunda.

The vast Kruger Park, which is the country's top safari destination, accounts for 40% of the world rhino population.

In 2012, a record 668 rhino were slaughtered in South Africa, due to a booming demand for their horns, which some people in Asia believe have medicinal properties.

The claim is widely discredited.


- AFP

OCD_OCD: Barbaric "medicine". They are no better than witch doctors.

Serabi:

SANParks: We are at war
2013-02-01 14:19


South African National Parks announced in a statement on Friday that security measures are being beefed up at the Kruger National Park as part of their anti-poaching strategy.


According to Wanda Mkutshulwa, Head of Communications at SANParks, newly trained rangers will be deployed to each of the main entrance gates to assist with policing and security. These rangers will help with search and seizure duties where necessary, as well as the arrest of offenders. The measures are meant to enhance current security arrangements when guests, visitors and contractors enter the park.


She said this deployment forms part of a wider security strategy being implemented in the fight against rhino poaching. No less than 42 rhino have been poached in the Kruger Park this year, making current toll more than one rhino a day.


"We are at war and every single tactic will assist in ensuring that total control of all entry and exit points are managed by those tasked with the upkeep of the area integrity. It is no secret that the Kruger National Park has borne the brunt of these activities in recent times. Therefore if we are serious about winning this war all commands must be marshaled from one point."


According to Mkutshulwa the deployed rangers have been trained in customer etiquette and also in the handling of sniffer dogs.


"Our tracker dogs have been instrumental in the many successful anti-poaching operations; we are in a fortunate situation where individuals and companies are assisting us with training and donations of these dogs. We are not pulling out any of our tracker dogs from their missions but have specially trained dogs ready for deployment."


The deployment is with immediate effect and is part of rolling out the many security measures that are being implemented in the Kruger National Park.


The measures are meant to bring down the number of animals that are being lost to illegal hunting emanating mainly from the Kruger National Park's eastern border with Mozambique.


SAPA

Serabi:

Kenya suspends poaching officials
2013-02-06 16:25

Nairobi - Kenya's wildlife authorities have suspended two top officials in the midst of investigations into rampant poaching that has decimated elephant herds and other wild animals, officials said on Wednesday.

Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said in a statement that the officials were ordered "to take leave to facilitate internal investigations into the wildlife security situation".

Poaching has spiked recently in East Africa, with whole herds of elephants massacred for their ivory.

"The suspensions had to be done to pave way for investigations... we are waiting for the final report," KWS spokesman Paul Mbugua told AFP.

He stressed that no charges have been brought against the officials, Peter Leitoro, the deputy director of security, and Benjamin Kavu, deputy director of wildlife and community.

Last month officials in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa seized more than two tons of ivory, which had reportedly come from Tanzania and was destined for Indonesia.

Last year poachers killed at least 360 elephants in Kenya, up from 289 in 2011, according to official figures.

At least 40 poachers were killed last year as rangers battled the raiders.

The illegal ivory trade is mostly fuelled by demand in Asia and the Middle East, where elephant tusks and rhinoceros horns are used to make ornaments and in traditional medicine.

Trade in elephant ivory, with rare exceptions, has been outlawed since 1989 after elephant populations in Africa dwindled from millions in the mid-20th century to some 600 000 by the end of the 1980s.

Africa is now home to an estimated 472 000 elephants, whose survival is threatened by poaching as well as a rising human population that is causing habitat loss.


- AFP

OCD_OCD: it is hell if the supposed protectors are part of the decimation.

Serabi:




Over 80 rhino poached in 37 days
2013-02-06 22:29


Johannesburg - A total of 82 rhino have been poached in the country since 1 January, the water and environmental affairs department said on Wednesday.

"The Kruger National Park remains the hardest hit by rhino poachers this year, having lost 61 rhino to mostly foreign poachers," it said in a statement.

"Twenty one poachers have been arrested, 14 of them in the Kruger National Park."

Eight rhino had been poached in KwaZulu-Natal, six in North West, four in Mpumalanga and three in Limpopo.

Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa said she had noted with concern the increase in rhino poaching and was confident SA National Parks is on the "verge of a turnaround given the present initiatives implemented against poaching".

Molewa said the fact that rhino poaching was being fought at various levels meant there was a continued investment.

She said she planned to talk to regional groups about the matter at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) in March.

Molewa is expected to meet her Mozambican counterpart on 22 February, for a follow-up to last year's meeting on rhino safety and security co-operation.

The department said Molewa welcomed the recent signing of a declaration by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam banning the import of all white and black rhino specimens.

"The South African government welcomes the announcement by the government of Vietnam that the prohibition on the export, import and trade of specimens of rhino will come into effect," Molewa said.

There was a memorandum of understanding between South Africa and Vietnam to curb the scourge of rhino poaching and to promote co-operation in law enforcement, and compliance with Cites, the department said.

"We believe that this latest development is important for South Africa and will assist our law enforcement authorities to effectively deal with the current scourge of poaching," Molewa said.

In 2012, a total of 668 rhino were killed in South Africa for their horns.


- SAPA

Serabi:

Serabi:

Serabi:

Uganda rebels trading ivory for supplies
2013-02-07 21:19



Kampala - Uganda's army on Thursday recovered a cache of elephant tusks that it says was hidden by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group in the jungles of the Central African Republic.

In a statement the army said that a squad of soldiers that is part of a mission hunting rebel leader Joseph Kony found the small stash of ivory following a tip-off from an LRA defector.

"These tusks, believed to have been hidden by the LRA, were located in a remote area of the bush to the north of Djema," the statement said, referring to a town in the southeast of the Central African Republic.

Believed to now number around 250 fighters, the LRA has waged a brutal 25-year insurgency against the Ugandan government, becoming infamous for mutilating victims and seizing children to use as sex slaves and porters.

The Ugandan army - backed up by around 100 US special forces troops - is spearheading the hunt for Kony in a vast area of sparsely populated jungle.

In the statement the Ugandan army said that US military representatives had "secured, documented and photographed" the tusks and that it was now in contact with Central African authorities to dispose of the ivory.

On Monday, a coalition of US advocacy groups working on solving the LRA threat said that rebel groups operating in the Garamba national park in northeast Democratic Republic of Congo had poached elephants and could be looking to sell their tusks.

"This has raised concerns that LRA groups may be using the illegal ivory trade as a method to acquire new supplies or forms of support," said the statement from the anti-LRA coalition that includes Invisible Children, the group behind the wildly popular Kony 2012 internet video.

The LRA has split up into small groups and Kony is currently thought to be hiding out close to where the borders of the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Sudan meet.


- AFP

COMMENTS:

Top Comments

sidandnancy1966 4 weeks ago

How much for a permit to shoot poachers that i would pay for


sheamus316 1 month ago

or trampled by a herd of elephants.


Adam Carr 2 weeks ago

No, your own white greed is the problem. If you hadn't introduced the profit system into their lives and forcefully stole their resources, they would've still been in perfect harmony with nature. Whites are the cause for 99% of the problem in the world.


Abdalla KitwaWazi 2 weeks ago

Kenya is d archetypal 3rd world country, with 43 million hungry mouths & desperately poor at No.200 of 230 in d World Poverty League, There is no manufacturing to speak of, & people eat what they grow. The rest beg, steal or borrow. Tourism, d No.1 foreign exchange earner, is d only saviour. British & German tourists can go to Spain for sun & sand, but choose to come to Kenya ONLY for its wildlife. And Kenyan FOOLS? They're busy slaughtering them. The Govt? Corrupt, & its head buried in d sand.


Elwyn Richards 3 weeks ago

It is an indisputable fact that since gaining independence from its European overlords, most African countries been involved in coup after coup and bloodbath after bloodbath, with untold loss of human life. Atrocities have been a common feature in many African countries, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Central African Republic, Uganda, Liberia, Nigeria, Kenya and others have all resorted to the gun and machete rather than attempt to rule by democratic means. Africans are the problem not the rest of the world


weterman4320 3 weeks ago

If people want these tusks so bad, why dont they farm the elephants, use tranquilizer and cut off the tusks, then wait for more to grow.


DanimalLawlz 3 weeks ago

You're a loser and I hope an elephant tramples you


Adam Carr 3 weeks ago

Its your white subhumans that murdered 99% of all extinct wildlife on the planet, the dodo, great auk, passenger pigeon, stellar's sea cow. etc.

So go hug an elephant and let it stamp you to death.



massallo62 3 weeks ago

What ashamed killing them is getting rid of their generation,let them be stay away from them if they are wild their are in their home not urs murders

seniorlanteigne 3 weeks ago

Yea make them look bad u pricks. We do nothing to truly help africans. We sicken their economy and enslave them. Elephants are very aggressive and pestulent. Maybe you look at what the united states of nazi facists have to them before you judge with your white perspective.


Spaceman258258 3 weeks ago

They left the meat. It seems that they're doing this for the tusk.


Lynne F 4 weeks ago

generations of one family killed by idiots. They do not care if these animals are eradicated, shame on anyone who cannot see the bigger picture.Hundreds of these magnificent animals are slaughtered every year, can people not see that they will be gone forever if this continues. Shame on the lousy cretins that massacre animals. Yes..before anyone starts, I am well aware of the poverty in Africa...and yes more should be done. But in answer to a man saying I should do more. Really? I am not God!