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It started with a man from Maua Town in Meru County in possession of an extremely rare item and ended a few weeks ago in the Kajiado Town jail. How he found it is a mystery, but the tiny, palm-sized keratin pyramid came from a rhino. The man thought he could make considerable cash from selling this rhino horn, but he needed a buyer. He started asking around in Malili, a town along the Mombasa Road, where he thought he’d fly under the radar. Instead, our informer network was tipped off. He needed to be caught trying to sell the rhino horn to be arrested, but there were no takers…

In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo's Maiko National Park, a few committed rangers have succeeded in protecting gorillas, elephants and other animals from the surrounding fighting. RFI spoke to the park's assistant director, Alain Mukiranya, about guarding wildlife in the middle of a war zone. The Democratic Republic of Congo's mineral-rich east has been ravaged by three decades of conflict. Since taking up arms again in 2021, the M23 rebel group, backed by Rwanda, has seized swathes of territory, leading to a spiralling humanitarian crisis.

A new report finds thousands of African primates, including chimpanzees and gorillas, are being traded both legally and illegally. Most of the legal trade in great apes is for scientific and zoo purposes, but the report raises some concerns on the legality of recent trade instances for zoos. Chimpanzees topped the list of the most illegally traded African primates, as the exotic pet trade drives the demand for juveniles and infants.

Two suspects, aged 24 and 75, have been arrested in the Tsandi policing area of the Omusati Region after they were allegedly found in possession of protected game without a permit. According to the police, the suspects were found in possession of two live tortoises at the Okapundja cattle post on Saturday. The tortoises were seized by officials from the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT) and are together valued at N$10,000. The suspects are due to appear before the Okahao Magistrate's Court on Monday.

Insiders describe why, and how, rangers sworn to protect wildlife collude with poaching syndicates slaughtering rhinos. Tulani Ngwenya investigates On guard: Former ranger trainer Hendrick Sithembiso carves through dry wood with twin tactical knives, demonstrating 'bushcraft' to students during an advanced training programme in Kruger in 2024.

The first authoritative population assessment for African forest elephants estimates there are more than 145,000 individuals. Researchers say new survey techniques relying on sampling DNA from elephant dung provide the most accurate estimate of a species that's difficult to count in its rainforest habitat. Central Africa remains the species' stronghold, home to nearly 96% of forest elephants, with densely forested Gabon hosting 95,000 individuals. Conservationists say the findings can help inform the design of targeted conservation actions and national plans for forest elephants…

The operatives of the Federal Operations Unit, Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), in Zone 'D', Bauchi State, have intercepted 718 pieces of donkey skins with a Duty Paid Value (DPV) of over ₦24 million in Mubi, Adamawa State. The Comptroller of the Unit, Abdullahi Ka'ila, disclosed this on Tuesday during a press briefing in Bauchi, stating that the seizure was made on 26 December following credible intelligence and coordinated enforcement operations by officers of the unit.

Black rhinos have increased to 6,788 from the last count of 6,195 in 2022. The number of Indonesia's Javan rhinos has dropped due to poaching. By the end of 2024, the number of white rhinos in Africa dropped to 15,752, down from 17,464 in 2023. Greater one-horned rhinos have been making use of improved habitats and wildlife corridors, and their numbers have increased to 4,075 from 4,014 in 2022.

Great apes are humans' closest relatives in the animal kingdom. As much as 98.8% of their DNA is shared, but while the number of humans living on the planet is increasing fast, other great apes are in decline. Five out of the seven species are now critically endangered. The UN has estimated that about 22,000 great apes disappeared from their natural habitats between 2005 and 2011. Adults are mostly killed, their meat and body parts sold for bushmeat, traditional medicine or, in some cases, traditional ceremonies.

Over the past decade, thousands of African gray parrots have been exported from the Democratic Republic of Congo despite a ban on their international trade. The endangered species, Psittacus erithacus, was listed under Appendix I of CITES, the global wildlife trade convention, in 2016, which would have prohibited its commercial trade, but the DRC government resisted the move. Kinshasa was asked to conduct a comprehensive species' population survey to justify continued trade of the birds, but to date still hasn't carried one out.

When Poison Enters the Land, the Land Falls Silent. In Lesoma, Chobe area of Botswana, the land spoke in grief. Four lions were found dead. Two more followed. Experts believe poison was the cause. But the poison did not stop with the lion. Jackals fed and fell. Vultures descended and never rose again. And slowly, Soon the air was empty, and the earth smelled of sickness and the sky grew quiet. People can be heartless when knowledge is absent. In moments of fear or anger, some choose poison not knowing the animals were never the enemy.

The deep, guttural grunts that once characterized the Shamvura section of the Kavango gradually fall silent and give way to an eerie silence. What was once a thriving sanctuary is now being transformed into a cemetery as a local extinction takes place in real time. In just twelve months, a stable population of 187 hippos has been decimated to just 47. This 75% collapse is not a tragedy of nature, but a calculated massacre, fueled by a deadly combination of toothless Angolan legislation and a brazen commercial meat trade conducted in broad daylight.

Just two weeks after four lions were discovered dead near Lesoma Village in Chobe, two more adult males were found yesterday in a fresh poisoning incident. The reason behind what appears to be the targeted eradication of the pride is still unclear, but there are growing suspicions that the lions may have been poisoned by farmers as a result of escalating human-wildlife conflict.

Kruger National Park, South Africa: When Singapore airport officials investigated a suspicious shipment of furniture fittings last month, a pungent smell led them to something far more sinister. Inside the cargo from South Africa were 20 rhino horns weighing 35.7kg and worth around S$1.13 million (US$870,000), along with 150kg of other animal parts including bones, teeth and claws.

As anti-poaching techniques have improved over the years, poachers have increasingly used technology to evade detection by patrols and park rangers. Now, conservationists are rising to the challenge of the resulting technological arms race with innovations of their own. Over the past few years, researchers and conservationists have worked to develop new technology to detect and track poaching, including mobile apps, sensors, and AI.

South Africa (18 December 2025) - Ninety-eight Armadillo Girdled Lizards have been released back into the wild after being rescued from the illegal pet trade. They were part of a group of more than 100 lizards rescued from the exotic pet trade in the Northern Cape earlier this year. The Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) says the species is now considered one of the most heavily trafficked reptiles in southern Africa, largely because of illegal wildlife trade. They’re sought after because they're such fascinating creatures.

Derick Brockerhoff, a convicted serial poacher and livestock thief who has more than 11 cases pending against him in various courts across Namibia, was again apprehended by the Namibian police.

About two weeks ago, a 68-year-old farmer in the Otjimbingwe area in the Erongo region found the remains of five blue wildebeest on his land, valued at about N$50 000. His fence had been cut and tyre tracks showed where a vehicle drove in and out. The animals were shot, butchered and their parts removed, leaving only heads, legs and some meat behind. "Blue wildebeest are protected, and I gave no one permission to cut my fence or hunt on my farm. I want a police investigation and prosecution," he told the police. But farmers in the area say they expect little action.

INTERPOL recently executed the largest-ever edition of its annual series of coordinated of raids to dismantle criminal shipments and networks of trafficked and poached wildlife. Called Operation Thunder, some 30,000 live animals were seized in 4,620 raids across 134 countries, 30% more than last year. INTERPOL identified 1,100 suspects and issued 69 notices of criminal activity to participating nations’ police forces. Operation Thunder took place between September 15th and October 15th.

At 10am on Wednesday, 10 December, an incinerator somewhere in Gauteng came alive with a roar, superheated flames instantly melting the plastic bags around the bones of 42 lions. It was dramatic, symbolic and garishly real. Ribs, leg bones and snarling skulls blackened in the intense heat as the doors of the hellish cauldron slid shut, having given observers a brief glimpse of the blaze that would reduce nearly half a tonne of lion remains to ash. Symbolic, because an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 lions still live behind fences on breeding farms across South Africa.

The Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) has been ordered to pay Shs26 million to a former employee who was unfairly dismissed after exposing a passenger smuggling 12 rhino horns through Entebbe International Airport. The Industrial Division of the High Court ruled that Arnold Olweny Bonaventure was unlawfully terminated from UCAA and therefore deserved compensation in the form of general damages equivalent to one year's salary.

According to Will Travers, cofounder and executive president of Born Free, a wildlife charity, Botswana's expanded elephant trophy hunting quota "raises deep biological concerns", however. "Biological, because, as the name suggests, trophy hunters target individual animals they regard as 'trophies', in the case of elephants, those with the largest tusks, the mature males," he told Al Jazeera in an emailed statement.

Ranger evidence, expert reports and bloodstain analysis secured the conviction of a man involved in a 2020 rhino poaching incident. The Skukuza Regional Court has sentenced Bethuel Baloyi (28) to 16 years' direct imprisonment for a series of poaching-related offences committed in 2020. Mpumalanga News reports he was sentenced yesterday.

The Hawks have launched a major investigation after a Hartbeesfontein game farm reported that 98 rhino horns were allegedly stolen earlier this week. The complainant told officers that robbers struck in the early hours of Monday 8 December and took 98 rhino horns, R 50 000 in cash and two mobile phones.

The main reason why these countries have rapidly growing stockpiles of horns is believed to be the dehorning programme. "Namibia and other pro-trade rhino range states have amassed large stockpiles of rhino horn they wish to trade. Namibia's stockpiles are an estimated 6.45 tonnes of white rhino horn and an estimated 4.6 tonnes of black rhino horn. South Africa, on the other hand, likely has at least four times as much," Taylor Tench, senior wildlife policy analyst with the Environmental Investigation Agency, told the gathering.

On International Cheetah Day, 4 December, conservationists have sounded the alarm about the rapid decline of the valuable species. Namibia is home to about 1,500 to 2,000 of the world's remaining 7,500 wild cheetahs. But they are threatened with extinction as human activities and the loss of their habitat push them closer and closer to the edge of the abyss. Globally, cheetahs are classified as "vulnerable" on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, with two subspecies considered "critically endangered".

Alleged rhino poaching kingpin Dumisani Gwala was shot dead in his home in the Thandizwe area in Manguzi, northern KwaZulu-Natal, on Wednesday. KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson Capt Ntathu Ndlovu confirmed Gwala's death. "Emanguzi police are investigating a case of murder after an incident in which a 64-year-old man was fatally shot after three unknown armed suspects allegedly gained entry to his residence in the Thandizwe area in eManguzi on December 3," she said.

Wildlife poachers can now be located and arrested across the central African forests thanks to state-of-the-art AI listening technology. A network of microphones has been deployed across the rainforests to detect gunshots from illegal poaching of elephants and other animals, and American scientists are using AI to ensure the network can distinguish gunshots over the din of the jungle environment. The web of acoustic sensors was deployed in Gabon, Congo, and Cameroon, creating the possibility of real-time alerts to the sounds of gun-based poaching.

Two Nigerian nationals will appear in court on Wednesday after they were arrested in connection with rhino horns and lion or tiger bones recovered at a Kempton Park storage facility in Gauteng. The Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) wildlife trafficking section discovered the horns and bones during an integrated transnational operation on Monday. Alleged trafficking to southeast Asia: According to the Hawks, an integrated team followed up on information about the suspects who allegedly traffic rhino horns and wildlife bones from South Africa through Singapore to…

Southern Africa's conservation story - the one the region has been selling internationally for years - finally met a hard wall at the 20th CITES Conference of the Parties in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The collapse of ivory, rhino horn and giraffe trade proposals at CITES CoP20 was not a surprise to most observers in the room. What was surprising is how thoroughly the region’s long-standing justifications fell apart under scrutiny. These weren't strategic setbacks.

When poaching amplifies the effect of higher hunting quotas, it is bad news for the future of Botswana's elephant population and its contribution to the economy, according to research just in. Botswana - home to the world's largest remaining population of African elephants - is losing its most valuable wildlife asset at a rate far higher than officials have acknowledged, according to a major new report released by Elephants Without Borders (EWB).

In a victory for rhinos and elephants, the 20th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP20) to CITES has voted overwhelmingly to reject proposals submitted by Namibia to overturn the bans on international commercial trade in rhino horn and elephant ivory. Namibia submitted three proposals which, if adopted, would have allowed international trade in its stockpiles of white rhino horn, black rhino horn and African savanna elephant ivory - a move that would drive increased demand for these products and potentially unleash a new wave of poaching and illegal trade.

The combined lessons of recent enforcement actions, judicial rulings and criminal investigations point to a decisive conclusion: legalising rhino horn, in any form, under any circumstances, will strengthen illegal markets rather than weaken them. The record rhino horn seizure in Singapore, the Kimberley High Court ruling in South Africa and the arrest of former breeder John Hume reveal how any legal opening for rhino horn rapidly becomes intertwined with the illegal market.

A parliamentary monitoring mission to the Zambezi, Kavango East and Kavango West regions has revealed that Namibia's world-renowned Community Natural Resources Management Programme (CBNRM) is at a critical crossroads. While nature reserves continue to generate millions for rural communities - over N$30 million in the Zambezi region alone last fiscal year - the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Natural Resources said the system was hampered by outdated frameworks, weak governance and an unhealthy reliance on trophy hunting.

Namibia has proposed to the 20th conference of the United Nations Cites a controlled commercial trade in its registered raw ivory stocks with verified international partners. The 20th Conference of Parties to the Convention to International Trade in Endagered Species (Cites) started in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on Monday and will run until 5 December.

While voodoo may mean different things to different people, it means only one thing - death - to the animals used in voodoo rituals. Across Africa, at least 354 bird species are persecuted for rapidly growing international markets to supply wildlife for belief-based treatments in voodoo and related practices. In Bénin, West Africa, although ~50% of the population identifies as Christian, voodoo is recognized by the government as a national religion. Voodoo markets include both live animals offered for use in ritual sacrifice as well as animal carcasses and body parts.

A parliamentary oversight mission to the Zambezi, Kavango East and Kavango West regions has revealed that Namibia’s world-renowned community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) programme is at a critical crossroads. While conservancies continue to generate millions for rural communities - over N$30 million in the Zambezi region alone in the last financial year – the parliamentary standing committee on natural resources said the system is held back by outdated frameworks, weak governance and an unhealthy dependence on trophy hunting.

Of the eight known species of pangolins found in Asia and Africa, three are listed as critically endangered on the Red List that’s maintained by the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority. Two of those three species of scaly anteaters are found in Nepal, where they’re officially accorded the highest level of protection for wildlife. "It's on a par with tigers and rhinos, but this legal status hasn't translated into conservation investment or priority," says Kumar Paudel, a pangolin researcher and founder of Greenhood Nepal, a conservation NGO.

The judgments document the illegal trade of at least 42.7 tonnes of pangolin scales and 5,465 whole pangolins across 139 instances. All eight recognised species of pangolins were recorded in illegal trade in China, with Sunda, giant and white-bellied pangolins figuring highest in terms of instances of illegal trade where species identification was provided. African species were seized more frequently and in higher volumes of weight than Asian species.

In 2021 investigators in South Africa received a tip that a Vietnamese organized crime ring was operating out of a local farm. When they raided the property, they found more than 800 pounds of lion "cake" - a traditional medicine product made by boiling lion bones to remove the gelatin from joints. The investigators also found 13 gallons of opium that the suspects had been adding to their lion cake. Illegal wildlife trade is a multibillion-dollar industry carried out by organized criminal gangs with operations spanning continents.

The rise in lions bred and sold for parties and social media displays reveals legal loopholes, safety risks, and serious animal welfare issues. The presence of exotic animals in luxury homes in Thailand has grown intensely in recent years, because a new status symbol has emerged among the elite: lion cubs. This preference is spreading through social media and shows a trend marked by ostentation, ignorance, and strong criticism from activists.

There's no doubt that Appendix II trade has helped protect many species of sharks and rays, as well as countless other beloved species of wildlife. While unsustainable overfishing is the greatest threat to sharks and rays, sustainable fisheries for these animals exist - though these primarily can be found in wealthy countries with well-resourced fisheries management regimes - and are a popular policy solution among scientists and conservationists.

The stash of illicit rhino horns, together with an assortment of other animal parts, was destined for the south-east Asian country of Laos. The National Parks Board of Singapore confirmed this week that 35.7kg of rhinoceros horns, valued at roughly S$1.13 million (just under R15 million), were discovered earlier this month during routine cargo checks. The horns were concealed inside four packages falsely declared as furniture fittings. The shipment also contained about 150kg of assorted animal parts, including bones, teeth and claws.

From sharks, rhinos to giraffes - they are the focus of the species conservation conference in Samarkand. As of November 24, 185 states in Uzbekistan will be wrestling over trade bans and restrictions. There is a lot at stake: the fate of more than 230 animal and plant species is being decided. The organization Pro Wildlife warns in advance of dangerous steps backwards in the Washington Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which regulates or even prohibits the international trade in plants and animals.

The Pretoria North Magistrate's Court has denied bail to a 55-year-old man, Lesly Jan Moeng, who was allegedly caught trying to sell a pangolin valued at R160,000. Moeng is facing a charge of possession of a pangolin, a protected species under South African law. His three co-accused - Isaac Leatile Ntsibe, 62, and two police officers stationed at Sun City police station, Mkhanyisi Samuel, 43, and Paulina Mokgaki, 43 - were granted bail of R2,000 each earlier this month.

Singapore seized a record 35.7 kg of smuggled rhinoceros horns worth about S$1,130,000 ($867,430) en route to Laos, the largest haul in Singapore to date, the National Parks Board said on Tuesday. The haul was found earlier this month in a shipment of four pieces of cargo declared as furniture fittings, and also contained around 150 kg of other animal parts, including bones, teeth and claws.

From 24 November to 5 December 2025, governments from around the world will gather in Samarkand, Uzbekistan for the 20th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP20) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). This meeting comes at a moment of great consequence for some of the world's most threatened species - elephants, rhinos, pangolins, Asian big cats and the critically endangered vaquita porpoise.

Major plans, including oil drilling and hydropower, are threatening wildlife and natural resource management across the five-nation Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (Kaza-TFCA). World Wildlife Fund (WWF) director in Namibia Juliane Zeidler said this at the just-ended 2025 Insaka Symposium held in Namibia. She said a number of activities are being planned in many parts of the Kaza-TFCA, such as drilling for oil in the Okavango River Basin in the Kavango East region, which lies near the elephant movement corridor in the Mangetti National Park.