Conservation groups from South Africa and around the globe have called on the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) and their Global Tourism Crisis Committee to phase out close-contact wildlife encounters and entertainment practices in tourism to help build a more resilient and sustainable industry going forward…. writes environmental writer Louzel Lombard Steyn.  This as […]

Wildlife is thriving off Simon’s Town during lockdown and “life’s a beach for these locals”, according to the City of Cape Town, South Africa. This beautiful Southern Elephant Seal was photographed early yesterday morning, Monday 18 May 2020, at the Simon’s Town harbour by Dave Hurwitz.  The seal was first sighted yesterday, according to the City, […]

Cape Town, South Africa, has been buzzing this week with the arrival in Hout Bay of another super pod of dolphins. (In April, local residents under lockdown were entertained by thousands of dolphins swimming in the bay.) UPDATE: Super pod of dolphins swims into Hout Bay, South Africa on 23 April 2021. Cape Town resident […]

A 23-year-old man has been arrested by the Hawks in Hartbeesfontein, near Klerksdorp in South Africa, in possession of lion skins, that could have come from the lion-breeding industry, and various drugs.   In a search of a house in Tigane in North West province, the police found three lion skins, mandrax tablets, half and […]

Well-known KwaZulu-Natal snake expert Nick Evans helped the driver of a semi get a 2.5-meter black mamba that was caught in the truck’s engine. “It’s a big black mamba,” Evans said on first identifying the snake. “Not what I was expecting.” When he pulled him out, Evans said the snake was about 2.5 metres long. […]

A Swiss man living in South Africa who fashions himself as a kind of lion whisperer and says his mission is “to  bring animals into people’s hearts” is coming under attack for his behavior with lions and his posts on social media, especially after a video surfaced a few days ago of him hitting one […]

An orphaned baby zebra spent the night in its rescuer’s childhood bedroom last night, as lockdown regulations and other challenges in Zimbabwe meant it was too late to get the newborn to the Free to be Wild Sanctuary where it is headed. Baye Pigors, who founded the sanctuary in 2014, said at 9pm last night […]

The legal global wildlife trade is worth roughly $300 billion. Of more than 31,500 listed terrestrial birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles, approximately 5,500 are traded. Research predicts that a further 3,196 species may be traded in the future, placing a possible 8,775 species at risk of extinction. Serious attempts to regulate the trade in wildlife […]

The city of Zhuhai – known as the ‘Chinese Riviera’ – has become the second city in mainland China to ban the consumption of dog and cat meat, and of wildlife, in what campaigners at animal charity Humane Society International (HSI) hope will be the start of a domino effect of progressive legislation across China […]

Shenzhen has passed a groundbreaking law to ban the consumption and production of dog and cat meat, the first city in China to do so. The ban – which also addresses the wildlife trade – has been welcomed by longtime anti-dog meat trade campaigners Humane Society International as a watershed moment in efforts to ban […]

What a surprise! When the call arrived early Monday morning from the rhino monitoring guard – calling “Mona has got a baby” – we all thought we were still dreaming… writes the team from Thula Thula Game Lodge in South Africa. After despair comes hope. We were all shocked and saddened when Lisa, the daughter […]

People readily help each other. We donate blood and food or help old people across the street. Among non-human animals this propensity to help is very rare. There are a few observations of helping behaviours in non-human animals. For example, vampire bats provide food to other group members and save them from starvation. In more […]

On Saturday morning I entered Kruger very early and had a breakfast appointment at Skukuza planned… writes Kurt Schultz.  Having worked in Kruger and guided and run www.kurtsafari.com for the last 10 years. I spend most of the week in an office, so weekends are my time to get my camera out and get into […]

In listing 32 wild animal species as farm animals under the Animal Improvement Act in 2019, the Department of Agriculture went against the recommendations of the government’s own scientific authority. The scientific report on wildlife breeding was called for by the former Minister of Environmental Affairs (DEFF) and authored by 14 of the country’s top wildlife scientists. […]

A whale – identified as an elusive Layard’s Beaked Whale – was rescued on Friday afternoon in Struisbaai Harbour, South Africa. At first witnesses thought the beaching animal was an injured dolphin… an easy error since beaked whales have a ‘beak’ similar to most dolphin species. However, Marine Scientist Mike Meyer confirmed it was a […]

On 9 May 2019 the Australian Koala Foundation announced they believe “there are no more than 80,000 koalas in Australia”, making the species “functionally extinct”. While this number is dramatically lower than the most recent academic estimates, there’s no doubt koala numbers in many places are in steep decline. It’s hard to say exactly how […]

Tanzania has flown in nine black rhinos to its Serengeti national park from South Africa as part of efforts to restore its population of the critically endangered species. Rampant poaching during the 1960s and 1970s in the Serengeti, famed for its sweeping planes and Africa’s most spectacular wildebeest migration, devastated the population of rare east African black […]

A terrified community in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), South Africa, has been reassured that the government is fixing damaged fences to protect them from wildlife attacks, while it has sadly been revealed that 12 of 13 escaped lions have died. One is still on the loose, terrorising the community while game rangers try to track it down. […]

The first vote at the 18th meeting of the CITES Conference of the Parties has delivered a historic win for African elephants to end the cruel practice of removing live elephants from the wild for export to captive facilities. CITES is the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Iris Ho, senior wildlife specialist […]

Tanzanian President John Magufuli has ordered the sprawling Selous Game Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage site, to be split in two to restrict the access of big game hunters. Covering 50,000 sq km (19,000 sq miles), the Selous reserve is one of the largest protected areas in Africa, and is famed for its elephants, lions, […]

Seeing one leopard is highly unusual, especially in a small game park like Pilanesberg, but Gametrackers field guide Tarryn Rae and her client saw not only one but two, who battled it out over a warthog the one had caught – only for the warthog to escape. “This was a first for me!” Rae told […]

Wildlife near cities face many dangers. Some are easy to detect, such as when new developments destroy natural habitat. Others are less obvious. For example, rat poisons are a useful tool for controlling a common household problem. But many who use them don’t realise that they have dangerous side effects for wildlife. Rat poisons are […]

South Africa’s ‘little’ rhino horn film with a huge message has won one of the world’s top wildlife prizes. The groundbreaking South African film, STROOP – journey into the rhino horn war, which local distributors declined to take on because they didn’t think it would attract enough of an audience, continues to blaze on the […]

Guests on holiday at Giant’s Castle in the Drakensberg, South Africa, were treated to a spectacular ‘clash of the Titans’ scene this weekend as Cape Vultures and Bearded Vultures rushed in to eat, and to chase off a jackal trying to get in on the mountain action. Check out the spectacular photos by Paul Labuschagne, […]

The world’s leading lion scientists argue that captive predator breeding has no conservation value. Successful reintroduction from captivity into the wild among large felids is extremely rare. Nonetheless, the captive predator breeding industry in South Africa operates on the pretext that reintroduction to the wild is a viable strategy and that it contributes to broader […]