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Colombo, Sri Lanka (AFP) — Sri Lanka will ban single-use plastics, the government said Tuesday, in a move that follows a series of wild elephant and deer deaths from plastic poisoning. Cabinet spokesman and media minister Bandula Gunawardana said the manufacture or sale of plastic cutlery, cocktail shakers and artificial flowers will be prohibited from June. The move was recommended by a panel appointed 18 months ago to study the impact of plastic waste on […]
The pandemic and climate change is testing as never before the delicate balance of human co-habitation with the natural world. As an Australian prison is evacuated after it was overrun by the plague of mice ravaging the east of the country, we look at some of the most spectacular recent examples. – Australia mice plague – Battling a massive plague of mice after the end of a three-year drought, eastern Australia is seeing crops […]
Nasal and anal samples taken from 28 elephants at a forest reserve in India COIMBATORE, India (AFP) — Twenty-eight elephants have been tested for Covid-19 at a forest reserve in southern India, officials said Wednesday, after the reported death of a rare Asiatic lion from the virus. In what is believed to be the first known death of an animal in India from the coronavirus, a nine-year-old lioness at a zoo in Chennai in […]
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AFP) — Breeding elephants trampled a suspected rhino poacher to death at the weekend in South Africa’s famed Kruger National Park, an official said Monday. Rangers on routine patrol spotted three poachers who ran into the elephant herd while trying to flee. The rangers later discovered a “badly trampled” man who had succumbed to his injuries, according to South African National Parks (SANParks) spokesman Isaac Phaahla. Another man was also attacked […]
SINGAPORE, Singapore (AFP) — Singapore began destroying nine tonnes of seized ivory Tuesday, the largest such action globally in recent years, including contraband tusks that came from more than 300 African elephants. The destruction by an industrial rock crusher was held on the eve of World Elephant Day, and aims to prevent the items from re-entering the market and disrupt the global supply chain of illegally traded ivory, Singapore’s National Parks Board said. A spokeswoman […]
YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) — Conservationists have warned a sudden change in Myanmar’s law allowing the commercial farming of tigers, pangolins and other endangered species risks further fuelling demand in China for rare wildlife products. The Southeast Asian nation is already a hub for the illegal trafficking of wildlife, a trade driven by demand from neighbouring China and worth an estimated $20 billion worldwide. In June, Myanmar’s Forest Department quietly gave the green light to private […]
GABORONE, Botswana (AFP) — Hundreds of elephants have died mysteriously in Botswana’s famed Okavango Delta, the head of the wildlife department said Thursday, ruling out poaching as the tusks were found intact. The landlocked southern African country has the world’s largest elephant population, estimated to be around 130,000. “We have had a report of 356 dead elephants in the area north of the Okavango Delta and we have confirmed 275 so far,” Cyril Taolo, the […]
NEW DEHLI, India (AFP) — India pledged to investigate Thursday the death of a pregnant elephant that ate explosives-filled fruit, as cricket and Bollywood stars joined a chorus of outrage over the incident. The elephant died in agony last week in the southern state of Kerala, the latest casualty in a growing conflict in South Asia between large animals and humans as ever more forest is lost to urban expansion. Footage of the animal standing […]
by Sophie DEVILLER and Jonathan KLEIN Agence France Presse Separated from their mothers, jabbed with metal hooks, and sometimes deprived of food — many Thai elephants are tamed by force before being sold to lucrative tourism sites increasingly advertised as ‘sanctuaries’ to cruelty-conscious travelers. Balanced precariously on hind legs, two-year-old Ploy holds a ball in her trunk and flings it towards a hoop, one of many tricks she is learning in Ban Ta Klang, a […]
By Darlene Superville Associated Press NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Melania Trump briefly lost her footing when a baby elephant startled her with a sudden move, but the first lady was anything but out of step when children at an orphanage welcomed her to their home with African song and dance. It didn’t take long for the typically reserved U.S. first lady to dive fully into the moment. Mrs. Trump arrived at The Nest orphanage […]
KUALA, Lumpur (AFP) — A wild elephant in Malaysia has died after being hit by a tourist bus on a busy highway, an official said Friday, the second pachyderm to meet its end in the area in two months. The 10-year-old bull was killed on the road connecting the western state of Perak with Kelantan in the east, which passes through thick jungle. “A bull elephant was knocked down by a bus and died. We […]
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AFP) — Two young elephants washed out to sea were saved from drowning Sunday by the Sri Lankan navy in the second such incident off the island in as many weeks. The navy said the pair of wild elephants were brought ashore after a “mammoth effort” involving navy divers, ropes and a flotilla of boats to tow them back to shallow waters. Photos showed the elephants in distress, barely keeping their trunks […]
