Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Uganda Wildlife Authority has given two million shillings to the family of a Catholic Catechist killed by stray elephants from Murchison Falls. Boniface Omara, a catechist at Bombay Catholic Chapel, Kamdini Sub County in Oyam district was attacked and killed instantly by the elephants on …
Read More »Elephants: the jumbo surprise outside Nigeria’s megacity
Omo Forest, Nigeria | AFP | The jungle was so thick that Emmanuel Olabode only found the elephants he was tracking when the great matriarch’s sniffing trunk reached out close enough to almost touch. “She flapped her ears, blocking us to guard her family, then left in peace,” recalls Olabode. “It …
Read More »Poaching slows but Africa’s elephants still face extinction
Paris, France | AFP | The illegal slaughter of African elephants to feed Asia’s demand for ivory has decreased by more than half in eight years, but the majestic mammals are still threatened with extinction, researchers warned Tuesday. In 2011, poachers killed some 40,000 tuskers — about ten percent of the …
Read More »ANALYSIS: When elephants attack people
Can UWA’s electric fence at Queen Elizabeth Park stop them? Kampala, Uganda | RONALD MUSOKE | Elephants are one of the most iconic and popular animals that attract visitors by their thousands to Queen Elizabeth National Park in western Uganda. Even the locals of Kafuru, a small village near the …
Read More »When lions, elephants attack
Kampala, Uganda | RONALD MUSOKE | Craig Packer, professor of ecology, evolution, and behaviour at the University of Minnesota and Director of the Lion Research Centre recently delivered a paper at the 2018 Dawkins Award Lecture at Oxford University titled, “The Conservation Conundrum in Africa: Why can’t Wildlife Pay its Way?” …
Read More »Police ‘closing in’ on Grace Mugabe in ivory probe: state media
Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Zimbabwean police investigating an ivory-smuggling racket will soon question former ruler Robert Mugabe’s wife Grace, who is accused of arranging shipments abroad, a government-owned newspaper reported Friday. The Herald newspaper, once the mouthpiece of the Mugabe regime, said police were making progress in their probe into …
Read More »Mugabe’s wife Grace under probe for ivory smuggling
Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Zimbabwean police are investigating former ruler Robert Mugabe’s wife Grace, accused of smuggling ivory worth millions to underground foreign markets, a state-owned weekly reported Sunday. The Sunday Mail said investigators from the parks and wildlife authority handed documents to police showing that the former first …
Read More »African leaders call on EU to shut ivory trade
Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | Thirty-two African countries on Friday called on the European Union to stop its ivory trade at a conference in Botswana aimed at saving African elephants. Presidents Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Ali Bongo of Gabon and host Ian Khama of Botswana wrote a petition along …
Read More »Gabon fights elephant poachers with hi-tech tracker collars
elephant Libreville, Gabon | AFP | Ever tried to put a GPS real-time tracking collar on a five-tonne animal? Well in Gabon conservationists have begun trying to use the devices on elephants; tracking and drugging the animals, before attaching the high-tech gadgets in a bid to stop poachers and ivory …
Read More »Zimbabwe begins mass transfer of animals to Mozambique
Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | The animals won’t travel two-by-two, but thousands of safari stalwarts will soon begin their journeys from Zimbabwe to Mozambique in one of Africa’s largest ever wildlife transfers. Fifty elephants, 100 giraffes, 200 zebras and 200 buffaloes will be among the several thousand animals that will …
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