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"Controlled trade in rhino horn should be permitted". The Wildlife Vets Namibia team recently dehorned rhinos from the Rhino Momma project. According to Wildlife Vets, the CITES ban on the trade in rhino horn has caused a rhino to be worth more dead than alive.

A 36-YEAR-OLD man was arrested at Oromauua village near Etosha National Park on Friday for conspiracy to commit a crime and hunting specially protected game without a permit. According to the police, the arrest came after the suspect, who was driving a white Toyota Hilux GD6 Double Cab with three passengers, failed to stop at a mobile roadblock set up by Anti-Poaching members at Oromauua village. The police later intercepted the vehicle at Werda Police Station and discovered that there was only one occupant (the driver) in the vehicle.

Harare - Two Chinese nationals, Lin Wang and Fuxi Wang, have been arrested for allegedly attempting to smuggle rhino horns worth a combined US$480,000 out of Zimbabwe through Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport in Harare. The illicit wildlife contraband was concealed inside sculptures, including a plastic owl, and intercepted by authorities following a series of investigations and surveillance operations.

A total of 77 suspects arrested, but no word is said about how many have already been tried, and what the sentences are. This leaves no doubt that cases are still in the investigation stages, and it leaves no doubt that cases will drag on for days to come. Bringing a case to court and having it successfully tried is supposed to be the pride of any detective/investigator. It breaks my heart to see no positive reporting, with the amount of settled/conviction cases' feedback.

Namibia has experienced one of the worst years of rhino poaching in over ten years, with 81 rhinos illegally killed in 2024. Authorities arrested 77 suspects for rhinorelated crimes, 73 of whom were Namibian nationals. According to the document, which was presented at the meeting of the Standing Committee of the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in Geneva, Switzerland, the country's poaching crisis peaked in 2015 with 97 rhinos killed, followed by 84 cases in 2018 and 94 rhinos poached in 2022.

Another two rhinos were killed and their horns cut off and thus despite the efforts of Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife’s attempts to dehorn rhinos in KZN as quickly as possible to try and curb the bloodlust killings of rhinos for their horns. The two rhinos were killed in the Pongola area, the exact location of the poaching is known the Vryheid Herald but due to safety reasons will not be disclosed. On January 28 there were reports of shots that were fired in a game reserve. Police together with several other security entities swept the area and found two rhino carcasses without their…

A South African court in January sentenced four poachers to several years in prison for two separate crimes committed in Kruger National Park (KNP). The Skukuza Regional Court, which in the past has boasted a near-100% conviction rate and under whose jurisdiction KNP falls, held two South African citizens, Sam Khosa and Solly Selahle, and a Mozambican named Oddis Maluleke, guilty of poaching a rhino and taking its horns in February 2019.

The battle between mining and conservation tourism rages on in the dry rocky plains of the Sorris Sorris Conservation Area, the High Court in Windhoek and in the boardroom of the Namibian Competition Commission (NaCC). At stake are promising tin deposits that could mean big bucks from increasing global demand, as opposed to preserving the natural beauty of the area where the endangered black rhinos roam. Community-driven tourism and their private-sector partners strive to keep their symbiotic relationship with the rhinos alive. "Get rid of us and the rhinos are gone with the…

Scientists are testing a novel technique to deter poachers targeting endangered rhinoceros for their prized horns. As part of a pilot study in South Africa, researchers have injected small, radioactive pellets into the horns of live rhinos. The goal is to make the horns radioactive so there is less demand for them on the black market. About 20 rhinoceroses have been selected for the pilot study dubbed the Rhisotope Project. Among the tests is examining the rhinos' blood to ensure the animals are not being harmed.

As a source country, transit point, and final destination for animal products, Vietnam is a central actor in the global fight against wildlife trafficking. But for years, the CITES Secretariat has reprimanded Vietnam for not doing enough to combat and dismantle criminal wildlife trade networks that poach and trade wildlife, a major threat to biodiversity and endangered species.

When it comes to protecting our rhinos from poachers, there's not a one-size-fits-all solution. There are several ways that national parks, game reserves and organisations are fighting rhino poaching, from fitting rhinos with tracking devices, having anti-poaching units on the ground actively monitoring them, rhino dehorning, education drives, and more. And these do not happen in isolation either, as often a combination of methods are needed to successfully deter poachers. Naturally, all of these hero organisations doing the hard work protecting our rhinos need funds to operate…

Five people found guilty of rhino poaching and related charges were handed down sentences ranging from 16 years to 18 years behind bars.

Corruption is a key enabler of the illegal wildlife trade and its effects can be seen in every stage of this crime chain. This is according to a new report by the wildlife trade monitoring network, TRAFFIC, which said by reviewing past wildlife crime court cases, the relationship between these crimes and corruption can be better understood. It noted that thoroughly investigating corruption in these cases can potentially identify higher-level individuals for investigation, arrest, conviction and appropriate sentencing, disrupting organised criminal groups to a greater extent.

Aiming an immobilizing dart at a rapidly moving animal while leaning out of an airborne helicopter seems like an absurd undertaking, but this is how wildlife veterinarians are able to sedate a charging rhino. It's hair-raising work, but can save the rhino's life. Once the rhino lies down, the helicopter lands and a team of experts from Mozambique Wildlife Alliance (MWA) race towards the immobilized animal. They gently cover its eyes with a cloth, keeping it calm.

Cape Town - Poaching continues to decimate the rhino population with 451 rhinos poached in South Africa last year, 327 of them from government reserves and 124 from private property.

South African National Parks (SANParks) today, 19 March 2022, welcomed the sentence meted out by the Skukuza Regional Court to a man convicted on 12 counts associated with poaching. The accused, Mike Nyathi, a 39 year old Mozambican man with a South African citizenship, faced 14 charges relating to two separate cases of rhino poaching.

Rural communities in the Okavango Delta in Botswana have accused the country's government of not engaging them in efforts to combat rampant poaching in the area. Since 2018, more than 100 rhinos have been gunned down by poachers in the Delta and communities in the region say the situation might have been better had the government engaged them in anti-poaching work.

Pretoria - Sixty dogs have been dispatched across the Kruger National Park to help curb poaching. The almost 2 million-hectare park has a major problem with poachers targeting rhinos, lions and elephants.

Our analysis of wildlife crimes data, supported by numerous interviews, finds evidence of systematic failure by Nigerian law enforcement and the judicial system to hold wildlife poachers and traffickers accountable.

Pretoria - The Tembisa Regional Court has convicted and sentenced 49-year-old Ping Wu to five years direct imprisonment for money laundering. Spokesperson for the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks), Captain Dineo Lucy Sekgotodi, said in April 2019, the Hawks serious organised crime investigation team based in Middelburg registered an undercover investigation into allegations of illegal trade in rhino horn. "The scope of the project was to address a syndicate in Gauteng who were illegally dealing in rhino horns," said Sekgotodi.