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A pregnant rhino has been shot dead and dehorned by poachers on a game reserve near Alexandria. The incident comes as a gruesome reminder of the rhino poaching scourge, which has been relatively quiet in the Eastern Cape in the past six months but continues to threaten the survival of the species. We will update with more information once it becomes available. The only info circulating at the moment is currently behind a pay wall, which we don't have access to.

South Africa: Great team work guys. Live pangolin saved from the illegal trade - disgraceful that 2 cops were among the suspects arrested! In an intelligence driven operation yesterday, 4 suspects were arrested at Makro Wonderboom, Pretoria, 2 were SAPS police officers, 2 x 9mm pistols retrieved. Outstanding work from SAPS Cullinan stock theft and Endangered species, SAPS Silverton K9 and support from US Homeland Security

He has been patrolling Gqeberha's coastline for nearly 18 months, and in that time Zeus, a Belgian Malinois, has made an undeniable impact on the illegal perlemoen trade that plagues Nelson Mandela Bay.

EAGLE Côte d'Ivoire - 2 traffickers arrested with 32kg ivory. The ivory, concealed in a rice sack, was trafficked from Liberia. The Burkina Faso National trafficker denounced the other for being a known big ivory trafficker.

A couple of things come to mind from this state of affairs. The first is that some provincial governments did not do their jobs. The second is that there are concerns about past overestimates. After two consecutive years of growing numbers, the population of white rhinos in Africa declined significantly in 2024 in the face of poaching and other factors such as drought and past overcounts, according to a report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

As delegates at a two-day indaba reached for solutions to human-elephant conflict, there were many who were happy to reach for their guns. At the Southern African Elephant Indaba at Bonamanzi Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal last week, landowners, provincial officials, conservationists, academics and some NGOs gathered for two days of fierce debate. The meeting was framed as a search for a solution to human/elephant conflict (HEC), but from the opening sessions a deeper tension was clear: was this about people’s real struggles, or about justifying a return to widespread culling and…

Many times a week, CapeNature compliance officers and SAPS units chase down plant poachers - some driven by economic hardship, others by profit - supplying a market for ornamental conversation pieces in homes around the world. Whether buyers realise it or not, the trade has cascading ecological impacts and undermines tourism livelihoods. Between April and June 2025, CapeNature - the public institution responsible for biodiversity conservation in the Western Cape - registered 12 biodiversity crime cases. Eight involved flora (plant life), while four related to fauna (animal life…

Police in KwaZulu-Natal have arrested three suspected poachers who were found in possession of two unlicensed rifles and a rhino horn in Paulpietersburg on Saturday. It’s alleged that the men, aged between 34 and 50, entered a game reserve and stormed up to two security guards while wearing face masks.

Zimbabwe Police has arrested one Cong Yanzhong from China for possession of 3 rhino horns worth US$240 000 and 4 pieces of raw ivory weighing 36kgs . The Chinese national appeared in court and was remanded in custody to 22 July 2025 for trial.

The conviction of four people in the Northern Cape for the illegal poaching of the miracle bush lily reveals that criminal syndicates are targeting a wider array of South Africa's unique flora for international markets. The Calvinia Regional Court in the Northern Cape has convicted four foreign nationals for poaching 303 Clivia mirabilis, more commonly known as the miracle bush lily or the Oorlogskloof bush lily, worth an estimated retail value of between R6-million and R30-million.

Kruger National Park officials have raised the alarm over a mass poisoning that killed over 120 vultures, calling it one of the worst in recent years and warning it could push the endangered species towards extinction. Rescue teams managed to save 81 vultures through an unprecedented joint operation. Experts warn that the poison used - an organophosphate so lethal it's nicknamed 'two-step' - poses severe risks to humans, pets and water systems, with even trace exposure potentially fatal.

More than 1,000 starving elephants may have to be culled. Parliamentarians demand answers by tomorrow (Friday). In a scathing parliamentary session on Tuesday, 10 June members of the Portfolio Committee on Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment accused North West officials of gross mismanagement and evasion of responsibility for the ongoing elephant crisis in the Madikwe Game Reserve. The crisis, years in the making, has led to mass starvation and death among elephants, extensive environmental degradation and a controversial proposal to cull as many as 1,200 of them.

South Africa's pervasive 'rhino war' rhetoric distracts us from addressing the root causes of poaching. We urgently need alternative conservation philosophies, practices and policies to tackle wildlife crime. In January 2025, conservationists were honoured to have you, Mr Dion George, Minister of the Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, at a two-week conservation management course in the Greater Kruger area.

We shouldn't have to dehorn rhinos to keep them safe. The ideal is to let rhinos live as they should - horns and all. That's the message from a Nelson Mandela University scientist who led a landmark seven-year study showing that while dehorning can significantly reduce poaching, it's not a long-term solution. To truly protect rhinos, he says, we must dismantle the criminal syndicates.

Emaciated lions, open wounds, pens covered in faeces, no shelter in blazing sun, cubs on rubbish dumps, lacerated paws  - the images displayed on the screen were shocking. But Douglas Wolhuter of the National Council of SPCAs (NSPCA) was on a mission to make parliamentarians understand the cruelty involved in captive breeding. It was both an impassioned plea to shut down lion breeding facilities and harsh criticism of the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) for failing to implement its own recommendations.

Yet another mass poisoning of vultures has occurred in Mpumalanga. More than 100 critically endangered raptors have been found dead, their carcasses strewn around a poisoned warthog in Lionspruit Game Reserve near Kruger Park. The poisoning is the latest in a string of deliberate killings and has triggered alarm among conservationists, who now believe these attacks are part of a coordinated effort by criminal poaching syndicates to wipe out vultures - nature's watchmen - before launching a wave of poaching activity.

Police are keeping mum about the extradition of Li Song, wanted in connection with the use of poison in the illegal wildlife trade. Zimbabwe’s national police force appears reluctant to pursue Li Song, a Chinese citizen allegedly at the centre of what wildlife activists say is a high-powered poaching network that uses cyanide to kill animals in the country’s game reserves. Li was arrested in 2024 by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc) for allegedly importing large quantities of cyanide fraudulently and storing the toxic substance in unsafe locations.

A suspected poacher was wounded and arrested while allegedly trespassing in the Kruger National Park. Police spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jabu Ndubane said the 47-year-old man was arrested in the Xitsalaleni Block on Monday. "The regional ranger of the Marula North Section in Kruger National Park was alerted by field rangers from the Houtboschrand area, who had picked up tracks of two individuals inside the park," said Ndubane. "The regional ranger immediately dispatched the K9 Unit to follow the tracks and requested helicopter support from Skukuza, along with hounds on…

An elephant carcass, laced with poison and surrounded by more than 100 dead vultures, marked one of the most devastating wildlife poisoning events yet seen in the Kruger National Park. Remote sensing triggered a scramble to save birds that were still alive. In a coordinated emergency operation spanning helicopters, ambulances and nearly 24 hours of intensive care, 84 poisoned vultures were pulled back from the brink.

Mozambican national Nelson Sandile Sambo has been jailed for 20 years for rhino poaching in the Kruger National Park. Sambo (43) was arrested by SA National Parks field rangers in December 2020 after he and an accomplice shot and then hacked off the horns of two rhinos in the Stolznek section of the park. Sambo and Gabriel Chauke were granted bail soon after their arrest, but both suspects promptly jumped bail. While Chauke remains at large, Sambo was re-arrested in 2023 and has now been jailed for 20 years after he pleaded guilty to several charges in the Skukuza Regional Court…

The sale of lion bones is heading back to court with a 235-page application by lion breeders demanding that the Environment Department set a CITES export quota for 2025. The subtext is a clash between free trade and animal wellbeing. In 2019, a Gauteng Division of the High Court judge found an application by breeders to renew the lion bone export quota to be "unlawful and constitutionally invalid". He said it failed to consider the welfare of captive lions raised and killed for their bones. Lion breeders have been simmering with anger ever since.

The global demand for ivory is driving heavily armed poachers from Chad and Sudan into Cameroon's Bouba Ndjida National Park. two decades, the Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants programme has recorded 3,004 elephants illegally killed in this region. In April 2023, several were killed in Chad’s Beinamar area, close to the Cameroon border, sparking concerns about a potential resurgence of poaching. The Bouba Ndjida National Park in Cameroon’s North Region shares a border with the Sena Oura Biosphere Reserve in Chad.

Vietnam's apparent reluctance to share DNA samples of smuggled horns with South Africa - the country with the largest remaining populations of rhinos in the world, albeit decimated by a relentless wave of poaching over recent decades - has been criticised by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

The unprecedented onslaught against South African succulents now includes beautiful and rare clivias, which are being illegally harvested to extinction to supply markets abroad. In 2023, the ENACT organised crime project outlined the global illegal trade in southern Africa’s succulent flora, and suggested ways to strengthen implementation of South Africa's National Response Strategy and Action Plan. In September 2024, guided by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), stakeholders met to consider progress, using ENACT's recommendations as a benchmark.

Three conservancies in Namibia and their joint venture partner are trying to fight off a mine thatthreatens wildlife and community welfare because it will ruin tourism.

The dehorning project in the Hluhluwe-iMfolozirhino sanctuary in KwaZulu-Natal has suffered asetback, with at least 20 dehorned animals gunneddown for their remnant horn stumps over the pastmonth. E (right) collect blood samples prior to the dehorning of another rhinoin Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve. The dehorning project in the Hluhluwe-iMfolozirhino sanctuary in KwaZulu-Natal has suffered asetback, with at least 20 dehorned animals gunneddown for their remnant horn stumps over the past month. 

A senior botanical horticulturist with the South African National Botanical Institute (SANBI) and two police officers appeared in the Springbok Magistrates' Court on Thursday. They face charges of fraud and corruption related to poached plants, according to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).

Kasungu is in Malawi but borders Zambia, and more than 260 elephants were translocated to the park more than two years ago in an operation spearheaded by Ifaw and African Parks, despite the glaring fact that there is no fence on the international frontier and much of the Malawian side. "It is with great concern that Ifaw has learned that five elephants have been found dead in Kasungu National Park between May and September 2024," Ifaw's statement read. It was also posted on Ifaw's site but not prominently.

"White rhino populations in South Africa are on the rise despite poaching," the report says. Curiously, the report does not mention private ownership of the species, which has been one of the driving forces behind this trend. The report notes that by 2012, there were more than 21,000 white rhinos on the planet, capping a remarkable comeback from the brink of extinction. A century earlier, there were fewer than 100.

South Africa, where 79% of the world's rhinos live, said it aims to come up with a plan by the end of 2030 to dismantle an almost half-century ban on trading the endangered animals' horns. The proposal, contained in a draft of the country's first rhino biodiversity-management plan released late Tuesday, is controversial because poaching of the animals for their horns has decimated their populations across Africa. The horns are ground into powder and sold in east Asia where they are falsely believed to cure cancer and other ailments.

Environmental history was made on Friday 7 June 2024 when the last of 120 white rhinos was released into the network of private and communal reserves on the western border of the Kruger National Park. The operation was carried out under a strict veil of secrecy to ensure its security.

A government proposal to exclude South African National Parks from having to get environmental authorisation for some developments in the Kruger National Park has slipped in almost unnoticed. Just five responses were received to this proposal that was gazetted by Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) Minister Barbara Creecy in mid-February, with a public comment period of 40 days.

Three Botswana citizens who after they were found guilty, admitted in an appeal application hearing on Wednesday, 24 April, in the High Court in Kimberley that they illegally crossed the border with illegal ammunition to illegally hunt rhinos on a Northern Cape farm. An accomplice of theirs died in a shootout with the farm workers and game rangers. In March, acting judge Cordelia Kgopa found they must have foreseen that someone would die during their raid and found them guilty of the murder of K.J. Matshetse, their accomplice. He died in the crossfire.

Two men who were found with abalone worth over R6,5 million in Welgemoed have been slapped with hefty fines. The two Chinese nationals, Chaoyuan He (28) and Jie Jun Liang (27), entered into a plea agreement with the state last Monday 15 April at the Khayelitsha Priority Court. This follows a lengthy investigation which started in October 2021 when members of the Hawks’ Serious Organised Crime Investigation team based in Bellville, Crime Intelligence Counter Narcotics and Gangs Western Cape as well as Department of Forestry, Fishery and the Environment searched a premises in…

Police arrest six suspected rhino poachers in Limpopo and Gauteng; recover horns, guns and ammunition.

South Africa's most exclusive enclave of private nature reserves reveals their hidden security nerve centre - and shows what they've done to thwart horn poachers for nearly a record year.

Two poachers of protected plants received prison sentence on Friday, 1 December in the Springbok Magistrate's Court. The Namakwa District Management welcome the sentence that was handed down to Benedict Beukes (28) and Quinton Steenkamp (30). Beukes and Steenkamp were arrested by the Springbok Stock Theft and Endangered Species Unit (Stesu) on 1 December 2020 on the N7 near Springbok when they were found in possession of Conophytum pellucidum and Conophytum pagea plants worth about R100 000.

As two collectors walk down the South Korean nursery's humid aisles, they spot a magnificent specimen. Having collected South African succulents for over two decades, their greenhouse showcases many plants growing in what looks like their natural Succulent Karoo habitat. But they have never seen this species before, and judging from its size, the plant looks decades old. The nursery owner tells them the succulent is a new mother plant used for cultivation and is not for sale. But if they wanted an equally large plant, he could connect them to his broker.

The consequences for local ecosystems and communities are serious, [including the] deterioration of natural capital, social stability and cohesion; extinction of animal species; and erosion of sustainable economic development. South Africa is home to the world's largest rhino population and is a key source for the illicit supply chain. In the first six months of this year, 231 rhinos were killed in South African game reserves. Of these, 143 were in KwaZulu-Natal.

A former field ranger, tasked with protecting wildlife, has been sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment for killing a rhino in the Nwanetsi section of the Kruger National Park in 2020. Eckson Musa Matumbu was sentenced at the Skukuza Regional Court on Friday. According to the South African National Parks (SANParks), Matumbu was arrested in February 2020 for killing a rhino with an official firearm issued to him and using non-issued ammunition. He was initially granted bail, which was later cancelled; the case was remanded to October 2023 for conviction and…

Snaring has surged 200% in the Kruger National Park, also causing lion extinctions elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa.

Protea poaching on the slopes of Table Mountain remains a concern and local authorities are calling on the public to report perpetrators. There has been a slight increase in the number of protea poaching incidents in the Vredehoek area this year compared to previous years. The Table Mountain National Park has partnered with the Devil's Peak Vredehoek Watch Group, police and various safety structures to conduct patrols to curb flora poaching and other illegal activities.