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Namibian Wildlife Crimes article archive

This archive of published media articles about wildlife crime in Namibia aims to:

  • provide easy public access to published information and statistics
  • enable easy stakeholder access to articles
  • provide a comprehensive archive of wildlife crime reporting in Namibia

Public access to information is a vital component of ensuring community engagement in prevalent issues. Wildlife crime is one of the pressing environmental issues of our time.

Wildlife crime investigations are generally covert operations requiring utmost confidentiality to succeed. Investigations and prosecutions in complex cases may take months or even years to complete. For this reason, the information that can be released to the public without compromising cases is often limited. Nonetheless, the Namibian government strives to share as much information as possible with the public.

The Namibian media has welcomed this approach and regularly publishes statistics and feature articles on wildlife crime. These are entered into the database at regular intervals, creating a comprehensive archive of wildlife crime reporting in Namibia.

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Displaying results 1 - 5 of 5
Tuesday, 18 November 2025
Ebersole R 2025. The Parrot Cartel - A yearlong investigation into the African-grey trade reveals a web of poachers, egg smugglers, wealthy businessmen - and multitudes who want a talking bird.

The bird man is at his desk, vaping and working the phone. Fly traps coated with insects dangle from the ceiling. Tigers and lions pace fenced enclosures in the backyard. Tilting in his swivel chair - legs crossed, plaid short-sleeve shirt unbuttoned to the chest, reading glasses propped on his balding head - Gideon Fourie takes a long drag on his blue vape and begins to tell me how he became one of South Africa's leading parrot traders. "The African grey is the best talking and friendly [sic] bird in the world," Fourie says, rolling the R's in his heavily Afrikaans-­inflected…

Thursday, 6 March 2025
Welz A 2025. A craze for tiny plants is driving a poaching crisis in South Africa.

Tiny plants in plastic pots, each carefully labeled, cram a South African greenhouse. Each is the evidence of at least one crime. These are strange plants without typical stems or leaves. Some look like greenish thumb-tips, others like grapes or rounded stones. Some sprout small, bright flowers. Few are more than an inch tall. I've agreed not to disclose this location because the plants, confiscated from poachers and smugglers, are valuable and could be re-stolen by the same criminal networks that first dug them from their natural habitats to traffic overseas.

Sunday, 20 December 2020
Ebersole R 2020. The black-market trade in wildlife has moved online, and the deluge is 'dizzying'.

When a squad of federal and state law enforcement agents with guns and bulletproof vests entered a single-story brick home in Buffalo, New York, on July 5, 2018 they were searching for business records of a suspected criminal enterprise. Experts trained to handle dangerous exotic cats congregated in a sunroom pungent with the odor of cat urine.

Wednesday, 23 May 2018
Kambowe K 2018. Rhino horn accused fights for bail.

One of three suspects, who were denied bail by the Oshakati Magistrate's Court after allegedly being found in possession of two rhino horns, is appealing the decision in the Oshakati High Court. Petrus Mashuna (35) from Iitapa village in Omusati is hoping to reverse the decision by Magistrate Makapa Castro Simasiku to deny him bail.

Monday, 1 August 2016
Kambowe K 2016. Poaching suspect Kandjii a no-show.

The rhino-poaching court case of former Brave Warriors team doctor Gerson Kandjii and four other accused was postponed to 23 September after he and co-accused Stephanus David failed to turn up at the Okahao Magistrate’s Court on Friday.

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