Poaching Archives

Home Poaching

Environment

Inside a Remarkable Local Effort to Stop Elephant Poaching in Zambia

Poachers have killed more than 90 percent of Zambia's elephants since the 1950s. In response, villagers banded together to protect those in North Luangwa National Park last year.

John C. Cannon

A one-horned rhinoceros cools down in Bardiya National Park on October 4th, 2018.

Environment

What’s Killing Nepal’s Rhinos?

Nepal has had remarkable success at tackling the poaching of its greater one-horned rhinos but, since 2015, it has witnessed a sharp increase in deaths from unknown or natural causes.

Abhaya Raj Joshi

News in Brief

The Weird History of Unorthodox Sentencing in the U.S.

A man convicted in an illegal, multi-year deer poaching scheme, was sentenced to watch Bambi once a month. While the punishment is certainly unique, the methodology isn't.

Jack Denton

A female elephant feeds her cub in the early morning hours in Kenya's Lewa Wildlife Conservancy.

Environment

Using Acoustic Gun Shot Localization to Curb Poaching

New technology detects the shockwave of a supersonic bullet traveling through space, which cannot be muffled, to track poachers shooting at elephants and rhinos.

Marianne Messina

Kenyan ranger of the canine unit Maseto Sampei holds his bloodhound during their trace training in the Mara Triangle, the northwestern part of Masai Mara National Reserve managed by non-profit organization Mara Conservancy.

Environment

How Detection Dogs Help Wildlife Rangers Curb Crime in the Maasai Mara National Reserve

Specially trained canines, with their outsized capacity to sniff out even well-hidden people and objects, are helping rangers at several major reserves to do their jobs better.

Sue Palminteri

Zimbabwe game reserve guide Matius Mhambe holds Marimba, a female pangolin.

Environment

Inside Zimbabwe’s Fight to Curb Pangolin Poaching

The animal is considered sacred in certain regions of the country, and that belief is being used to prevent locals from killing the endangered creature for profit.

Andrew Mambondiyani

How Canadian Cops Ended a Decade-Long Fight Over How to Manage the World’s Polar Bears

Over the last 10 years, the poaching and trafficking of animal products has become the fourth-highest-grossing crime in the world. But because wildlife crime is not bound by national borders and each country has its own rules and ideas, its management and policing has become unwieldy at best.

Katherine Laidlaw

Elephants can communicate over long distances with low-frequency rumbles called infrasound.

Environment

Could Earthquake-Monitoring Technology Help Save Elephants?

A new study shows how technology developed to study earthquakes could help conservationists monitor elephant populations from afar.

Kate Wheeling

Graffiti artists depict construction tycoon Premchai Karnasuta (left) next to a black panther in Bangkok, Thailand, on March 16th, 2018. This is the latest subversive depiction of an animal that has come to symbolize wild cat-poaching injustice.

News in Brief

The Week in Photos: From Protests of Nuclear Energy in Taiwan to Animal Rights Graffiti in Thailand

A round-up of images from Viewfinder, Pacific Standard's daily photo feature.

Pacific Standard Staff

A family of elephants walk through Kruger National Park.

Education

Fighting Poachers With Education, Not Guns

The iconic Kruger National Park is an easy target for the poaching of large animals, especially rhinos and elephants. Those fighting the slaughter say that community education and poverty alleviation yield the best results.

Justin Catanoso