China ranked as the top market for rhino horns over the past decade, but the country has taken steps to crack down on smugglers, according to a report from the Wildlife Justice Commission (WJC), a non-profit foundation based in The Hague.

From 2012 to 2021, nearly 9,600 rhinos were poached from across Africa and 7.5 tonnes (8.3 tons) of illegal horns were seized globally, the WJC said, citing its analysis of more than 670 seizures.

Around 27,000 rhinos remain in the wild, according to the WWF.

Read More

The emperor penguin, the tallest and bulkiest of all the world’s penguins, has been officially declared a threatened species by the US government due to the existential risk posed to the birds by the climate crisis.

The penguins, which are endemic to Antarctica, face almost complete annihilation from the loss of sea ice over the course of this century, a situation that has prompted the US Fish and Wildlife Service to place it on the endangered species list.

Read More

Animal rights organisations around the world are celebrating a court ruling in Argentina that has granted a formerly captive cougar rights as a “sentient being.”

Lola Limon, a six-month-old cougar found tied in front of a house in 2019, was initially seized by Buenos Aires police. It is illegal to owner cougars in that country.

Judge Carla Cavaliere acknowledged the 1977 Universal Declaration of Animal Rights, which states, “All animals are born with an equal claim on life and the same rights to existence” and the stipulation that all animals are entitled to the right to respect, attention, care, and protection from humankind.

Lola Limon, the judge ruled, has a right to freedom even though non-human animals are still considered “moveable goods” in Argentina.

Read More

Hong Kong police and customs officers confiscated 75 pedigree kittens and puppies with a market value of up to HK$30,000 (US$3,800) each while they were being smuggled into mainland China in the early hours of Thursday.

A source said he believed the 62 kittens and 13 puppies, estimated to be worth about HK$1.2 million in total, were intended for Shekou for breeding.

Read More

Confiscated ivory from elephants killed more than 30 years ago has turned up in recent raids, say scientists. The tusks were once part of a stockpile seized from poachers and held in sealed containers by the government of Burundi.

In this study, researchers used DNA and carbon dating techniques to show that some of that stored material is now in the hands of smugglers. The authors say seizures should be destroyed and not stored.

Between 2007 and 2016 some 100,000 elephants were killed for their tusks in different parts of Africa.

Read More

Enough commercial fishing line is left in the ocean each year to stretch to the moon and back, according to the most comprehensive study ever completed of lost fishing equipment.

The staggering amounts of lost gear, which includes 25 million pots and traps and 14 billion hooks, was likely having deadly consequences for marine life, one of the study’s authors said.

Enough nets were lost or discarded each year to cover Scotland. If all types of lost line was tied together, it would be able to stretch round the Earth 18 times.

Read More

There are fears that platypus populations might have been wiped out by recent floods in greater Brisbane, sparking new calls for the species to be nationally recognised as threatened.

While the platypus is endangered in South Australia and was listed as vulnerable in Victoria last year, the iconic monotreme is not officially considered threatened in Queensland and New South Wales.

Read More

A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has sentenced a Vietnamese, Nguyen Huy, to three months in a custodial centre for trafficking in Pangolin scale.

This judgement was delivered after Huy pleaded guilty to two charges brought against him by the Nigeria Customs Service.

He was alleged to have been involved in the trafficking of about 200 kilograms of pangolin scales.

Read More

Uniquely coloured songbirds are at high risk of extinction, because they are in demand as pets, research has shown.The pet songbird trade in Asia has already driven several species close to extinction, with birds targeted primarily for their beautiful voices.

Now a study has revealed that particular colours of plumage put birds at greater risk of being taken from the wild and sold. Researchers say breeding birds in captivity for the trade could help.

Read More

Eight Namibian cheetahs have been airlifted to India, part of an ambitious project to reintroduce the big cats after they were driven to extinction there decades ago, officials and vets said.

The wild cheetahs were moved by road from a game park north of the Namibian capital of Windhoek on Friday to board a chartered Boeing 747 dubbed “Cat plane” for an 11-hour flight.

They were welcomed by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, on his 72nd birthday.

Read More

A Chinese woman in Beijing pushed a Labrador out of a window from a fourth-floor apartment during a quarrel with her husband, injuring the animal and sparking a national outrage on the mainland.

While China has a law to protect wild animals, which went into effect in 1988, there is no nationwide law to prohibit the mistreatment of animals including pets.

Read More

Scientists at the University of Hong Kong are developing a rapid test capable of distinguishing between elephant and mammoth ivory that could help fight the illegal trade in elephant ivory.

The new method, which measures isotopes in a one gram sample, could return results within a day, much faster than sending samples overseas for age dating or a weeks-long DNA analysis, said associate professor David Baker, from the university’s school of biological sciences.

About 20,000 elephants are killed every year for their tusks, which are in high demand in some parts of Asia, according to WWF. Mammoths are long-extinct, but their tusks, preserved in the tundra in places such as Siberia, are dug up from the permafrost.

Read More

Three bottlenose dolphins — endearingly named Johnny, Rocky and Rambo — were released earlier this month into the open seas of Indonesia. The aquatic mammals spent years in captivity entertaining tourists prior to their celebrated liberation.

The dolphins had been rescued in 2019 from a small pool at a resort hotel, which purchased the animals after they had already spent years in a traveling circus. The Umah Lumba Rehabilitation, Release and Retirement Center in Bali then nurtured them back to health before setting them free.

Read More

Nigerian officials have seized thousands of donkey penises that were about to be exported to Hong Kong. Sacks of the donkey male genitals were seized at the international airport in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, Sambo Dangaladima.

Although the seizure of donkey genitals meant for export from Nigeria is rare, donkey skins are known to be frequently exported or smuggled out of the country.

Read More

A Chinese woman was horrified after a man adopted her pet Labrador and then tried to extort 5,000 yuan (US$725) from her by threatening to have the animal killed for its meat before vanishing with her pet.

The woman, surnamed Chen, from Shenzhen in southern China, gave her two-year-old Labrador Duobao to a man who said he wanted to adopt it as a pet. But two days after collecting the animal, he told her he had sold it to a dog meat shop and threatened to have it killed in a bid to extort money from her.

Read More

Police in eastern China have shut down a crime group using live sparrows to lure and trap cats for sale as meat for human consumption, an international animal welfare organisation has revealed.

Nearly 150 cats, crammed into 11 cages, and 31 sparrows used as bait were rescued from a location in Jinan, the capital of Shandong province, last Thursday by police acting on a tip-off from animal rights activists, according to Humane Society International (HSI).

The cats, which had mainly been people’s pets, are believed to have been caught by the thieves who placed flapping and chirping sparrows inside a wire bag with a remote controlled trap mechanism.

Read More

Hong Kong animal rights groups have welcomed the government’s move to tighten anti-cruelty laws, but some say the proposed changes do not go far enough to deter abusers.

A bill to amend the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Ordinance will go before the Legislative Council later this year, increasing penalties, introducing a new indictable offence and strengthening enforcement powers to prevent pets from suffering physically and mentally.

The proposals include imposing a “duty of care” on those responsible for animals, requiring owners to safeguard their welfare.

But others wanted the bill widened to cover more types of animals and provide for heavier punishments.

Read More

Australia will phase out battery eggs by 2036, after a lengthy battle between the egg industry and animal welfare groups that the latter says will finally bring the country into line with Europe and New Zealand.

The reform was quietly announced on Thursday with the publication of the Australian Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines for Poultry, a framework that has been in negotiations between governments and industry for seven years.

HKALPO comments

Do we even want to talk about the welfare of the chickens we see in Hong Kong wet markets…

Read More

On Wednesday, August 10, the Chilean Supreme Court rejected the appeal filed by the Interspecies Justice Foundation (FJI) against the decision of the Court of Appeals of San Miguel, which declared inadmissible the amparo – or habeas corpus – presented in favour of the Bornean orangutan “Sandai”, held in captivity at the Parque Zoológico Buin Zoo S.A.

HKALPO comments: -

There is absolutely no justification for keeping intelligent and sentient animals in substandard enclosures like the ones at the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens. The embarrassing lack of space, stimuli and a feigned impression of ‘natural habitat’ creates extremely negative and concerning welfare standards for the animals which are trapped there.

The lack of transparency is also a major issue, with no publications of animal profiles, no official reports on the enclosure sizes despite the numbers of animals increasing, and a failure to publish two large scale consultancy studies commissioned by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department over the past 20 years.

Something needs to be done…

Read More

Cash-strapped Britons are giving up their family pets in numbers not seen since the 2008 financial crash as the cost-of-living soars. Many owners are being forced to decide the additional cost of food plus hundreds of pounds in vet bills is no longer manageable.

Exotic pets such as snakes and lizards are also proving too expensive due to their need for specialist heating and lighting.

Read More