Timeline of Animals
Return to home
German Shepherd Country
2Bil BC About this time a bacterium became symbiotic with the cell from which animals and plants developed. Chromosomes from this bacterium’s mitochondria later carried 37 genes in the human body. The bacterium came from a group called the Alphaproteobacteria. The ancestral eukaryote was later believed to be a Lokiarchaeote.
(Econ, 10/27/12, p.79)(Econ, 5/9/15, p.74)
890Mil BC In 2021 it was reported that Canadian geologist may have found the earliest fossil record of animal life on Earth. She found rock layers in the Northwest Territories indicating that three-dimensional structures that resemble modern sponge skeletons are about 890 million years old, which would make them about 350 million years older than the oldest undisputed sponge fossils previously found.
(AP, 7/28/21)
760Mil BC - 550Mil BC In 2012 researchers said tiny vase-shaped creatures' fossils were found in Namibia's Etosha National Park and other sites around the country in rocks dating to this period. A 10-member team of international researchers published their paper in the South African Journal of Science. The discovery pushed the emergence of animal life back millions of years.
(AFP, 2/6/12)
750Mil BC Researchers at UC Riverside in 2009 reported evidence in rock sediments that indicated the presence of sponges dating back from 750 million to 635 million years ago. Sponges were believed to be one of the first animals to evolve from single-celled organisms.
(SFC, 2/6/09, p.A8)
575Mil BC-160 Mil BC Rangeomorphs, a world-wide feathery life form, lived during this period known as the Ediactaran. They fed by filtering tiny organisms from seawater were later considered as the 1st examples of complex animal life.
(SFC, 8/20/04, p.A12)
560Mil BC The Fermeuse formation of Newfoundland, Canada, dated to about this time. In 2014 scientists identified traces of muscle in a cnidarian, Haootia quadriformis, a creature related to modern jellyfish, sea anemones and coral.
(Econ, 8/30/14, p.70)
520Mil BC An arthropod called a fuxhianhuiid, with primitive limbs under its head, as well as the earliest example of a nervous system that extended past the head, lived about this time. A 2013 study reported on fossils of the creature which lived nearly 50 million years before animals first emerged from the sea onto land.
(Live Science, 2/27/13)
520Mil BC An eyeless worm later dubbed Collinsium ciliosum filtered food from the ocean floor using frontal appendages developed into sieving baskets. Fossils of the armored creature were found in the rocks of China’s Yunnan province.
{HistoryBC, Animal}
(Econ, 7/4/15, p.67)
515Mil BC A clawed critter later called Lyrarapax unguispinus lived on the seabed of what became southwest China. It belonged to an extinct early arthropod group called anomalocaridids.
(Econ, 7/19/14,p.68)
500Mil BC A huge shellfish-type creature called anomalocaris lived about this time. In 2011 Australian scientists hailed the discovery of a pair of insect-like eyes belonging to a freakish prehistoric super-predator. The fossilized eyes measuring three cm (1.2 inches) across and with a whopping 16,000 individual lenses.
(AFP, 12/8/11)
480Mil BC Scientists in 2019 said fossils found in Morocco suggest the practice of forming orderly lines may date back to this time and could have had evolutionary advantages. Their study described groups of blind trilobites — known as Ampyx — all facing in the same direction, apparently maintaining contact via their long rearward spines.
(AP, 10/17/19)
397Mil BC Four-legged creatures were mucking around a muddy basin in what is now Poland about this time. In 2010 scientists reported the discovery of their fossilized footprints in the Holy Cross Mountains in southeastern Poland.
(http://tinyurl.com/ybp6x78)
380Mil BC In 2008 scientists traced the origin of fingers and toes to fish-like creatures that roamed the seas about this time. In 1839 Swiss scientist Louis Agassiz described a fossil fish that had been found in Permian marl slate near Durham, northern England. He named it coelacanthus. Over the decades similar fossils were found dating from around 380 million to 70 million years ago.
(AFP, 9/21/08)(Econ, 12/14/13, IL p.10)
375Mil BC In 2006 scientists reported the discovery of a predator fossil fish dating to this time in on Canada’s Ellesmere Island in the High Arctic. It was later named Tiktaalik roseae and further analysis found it to have developed a mobile neck, an important development for living on land. The fish displayed bones at the ends of its fins suggestive of developing fingers and toes.
(SFC, 10/16/08, p.A10)(SFC, 5/12/09, p.A8)
270Mil BC Octopuses separated from other cephalopods about this time.
(Econ, 8/15/15, p.71)
260Mil BC Scientists in 2011 reported the discovery of the remains of a saber-toothed vegetarian. The leaf-crunching animal, about the size of a large dog, lived 260 million years ago in what is now Brazil. Its upper canine teeth were nearly 5 inches long.
(AP, 3/25/11)
237Mil BC A reptile group called lagerpetids, later known from a few partial skeletons from the United States, Argentina, Brazil and Madagascar, first appeared about this time. They were generally small and may have been bipedal insect-eaters and could not fly. In 2020 researchers said the lagerpetids appear to have been the evolutionary precursor to pterosaurs, which became Earth's first flying vertebrates, with birds and then bats appearing much later.
(Reuters, 12/9/20)
230Mil BC - 200Mil BC In 2015 scientists reported that a large primitive amphibian, named Metoposaurus algarvensis, lived about this time in southern Portugal. It grew to the size of a samll car and lived much like crocodiles do feeding mainly on fish
(SFC, 3/25/15, p.A2)
190Mil BC Fossils of frogs date back to about this time.
(Econ 7/8/17, p.71)
187Mil BC Platypuses diverged from other mammals about this time, making them an important part of understanding evolution.
(NY Times, 1/10/21)
170Mil BC The semi-aquatic platypus is thought to have split off from a common ancestor shared with humans approximately about this time. In 2008 scientists laid bare the platypus genome of 2.2 billion base pairs spread across 18,500 genes.
(AFP, 5/8/08)
166Mil BC Monotremes split off from ancestral mammals about this time.
(Econ, 3/31/07, p.88)
160Mil BC A small feather dinosaur lived in China about this time. Its fossils were identified in 2015 named Yi qi, meaning strange wing. Scientists were unable to determine if the creature could fly or glide, do both or neither.
(SFC, 5/1/15, p.D1)
155Mil BC - 150Mil BC In mid-Jurassic rocks of Germany occurred the very rare remains of Archaeopteryx, widely considered as the earliest known bird. It was about the size of a dove, had a long, reptile-like tail but with real feathers, not scales, and it possessed teeth in its beak. The first Archaeopteryx fossil turned up in 1861.
(Econ, 11/10/07, p.101)(SFC, 7/28/11, p.A8)
148Mil BC Marsupials parted company with placentals about this time.
(Econ, 3/31/07, p.88)
130Mil BC Lines leading to mice and men separated about this time.
(Econ, 5/31/14, p.71)
125Mil BC Zhenyuanlong suni, a close cousin of the dinosaur predator Velociraptor, lived about this time in China. In 2015 a nearly complete fossil was unearthed in Liaoning province, the first in its family to have unusually short feathered wings.
(AP, 7/16/15)
110Mil BC An ankylosaur, a plant-eating dinosaur with powerful limbs, armor plating and a club-like tail inhabited northern Alberta. Its fossils, discovered in 2011, were not supposed to be there because the area at this time was covered by water.
(AP, 3/26/11)
97Mil BC - 94Mil BC A giant dinosaur lived in Patagonia about this time. Its first fossils were found in 1987 and later named Argentinosaurus. It is among the largest known dinosaurs.
(SFC, 5/20/14, p.A4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentinosaurus)
95Mil BC About this time birds that were the ancestor of modern birds, evolved an improved sense of smell. In 2011 studies used fossils of Bambiraptor to determine that birds inherited a good sense of smell from dinosaurs, and then improved the faculty. Bambiraptor, dating to this time, was a fast-moving, non-flying critter about the size of a dog.
(AP, 4/13/11)
80Mil BC In 2013 scientists in Utah unveiled the bones of a dinosaur discovered in 2009. It was named Lythronax argestes, or "king of gore," for its large teeth and apparent dominance as a predator. They dated it to about 80 million BC.
(Reuters, 11/7/13)
76Mil BC The horned dinosaur Spinops sternbergorum, which comes from the same herbivore family as the Triceratops, lived about this time. It remains were discovered in 1916 in a quarry known as the "bone bed" in Alberta, Canada. In 2011 scientists identified the bull-size dinosaur as a new species of the Late Cretaceous.
(AP, 12/8/11)(http://tinyurl.com/7s7ubxt)
75Mil BC A small two-legged creature resembling an odd mix of duck, crocodile and ostrich lived in Mongolia about this time. In 2017 scientists named it Halszkaraptor escuilliei after the Polish paleontologist Halszka Osmolska.
{Mongolia, Poland, HistoryBC}
(SFC, 12/7/17, p.A3)
70Mil BC Tyrannosaurus bataars, dating to this time, were first discovered in 1946 during a joint Soviet-Mongolian expedition in Mongolia’s Omnogovi Province.
(SFC, 6/20/12, p.A8)
67Mil BC In 1987 scientists in India found the fossilized remains of an 11½-foot snake, dating to about this time, coiled around a dinosaur egg.
(SFC, 3/3/10, p.A3)
66Mil BC In 2020 researchers described an exquisitely preserved fossil of the plant-eating mammal named Adalatherium hui, which lived in Madagascar about this time during the Cretaceous Period and superficially resembled a badger with its long torso and stubby tail.
(AP, 4/29/20)
50Mil BC Placentals split into four superorders about this time.
(Econ, 3/31/07, p.88)
50Mil BC The dog traces its ancestry back to a 5-toed, weasel-like animal called Miacis, that lived about this time.
(MT, Fall 02, p.14)
49Mil BC The Ambulocetus natans, a walking and swimming whale, inhabited the warm seas which covered eastern Pakistan. In 1996 fossils of the creature, about the size of a modern sea lion, were found by paleontologist Hans Thewissen.
(SFC, 5/12/09, p.A8)
40Mil-35Mil BC Cynodictis resembled a modern dog and lived about this time.
(MT, Fall 02, p.14)
34Mil BC -23Mil BC Indricotherium, a 15-foot tall mammal, lived during this period. It was later said to be the largest known mammal and related to the modern day rhinoceros.
(SFC, 4/2/10, p.C5)
23Mil BC Researchers in 2019 said a giant lion, which they named Simbakubwa kutokaafrika, lived in what is modern-day Kenya around this time, a key period in the evolution of carnivorous mammals.
(AFP, 4/18/19)
21Mil BC A fossil of a creature called Morotopithecus bishopi, a tree-dwelling, ape-like creature that lived in what is now Uganda, was found in the 1960s and indicated that its transverse process had moved backward, behind the opening for the spinal cord. In 2007 Dr. Aaron Filler authored "The Upright Ape: a new origin of the Species," in which he argued that this common ancestor, and ancestors going back many millions of years before, walked upright. Homo sapiens, the human species, continued upright, while apes evolved back toward all fours.
(AP, 7/16/07)
20Mil BC Ugandapithecus Major, a remote cousin of modern great apes, roamed Uganda about this time. The fossilized skull of a male Ugandapithecus Major was discovered in 2011.
(AFP, 8/2/11)
20000 BC-15000 BC In 2019 archaeologists in Mexico found the bones of about 60 mammoths at an airport under construction just north of Mexico City, near human-built ’traps’. The bones were found in sediment layers corresponding to 15,000 to 20,000 years ago.
(AP, 5/22/20)
15Mil BC In Australia a sheep-sized creature with giant claws lived about this time. The wombat-like marsupial was later named Nimbadon lavarackorum. In 2010 scientists discovered a cave filled with fossils of the creature.
(SFC, 7/17/10, p.A2)
14Mil BC In 1990 paleontologists found bones from a 35-foot whale in a quarry in eastern Virginia. It took several years to prepare and identify them as a new species. It was named Eobalaenoptera harrisoni, after Carter Harrison, a Virginia Museum of Natural History volunteer.
(AP, 6/14/04)
12Mil BC A raptorial sperm whale living about this time grew up to 60 feet with some teeth 14 inches long. Fossils were discovered in a Peruvian desert and in 2010 scientists named it Leviathan melvillei.
(SFC, 7/1/10, p.A3)
2Mil BC - 50,000BC In Australia a herbivorous diprotodon, the largest marsupial to ever roam the earth, lived about this time. A fossil of the car sized mega-wombat was unearthed in northern Australia in 2011.
(AFP, 7/6/11)
1Mil BC DNA evidence in 2008 suggested that the black rat originated in South-East Asia about this time and then split into 6 lines, one of which colonized India and the Middle East and then spread to Europe.
(Econ, 3/15/08, p.97)
600000 BC DNA evidence in 2012 indicated that the polar bears species dated back to about this time.
(Econ, 6/16/12, SR p.9)
180000 BC On Malta the Ghar Dalam cave near the harbor of Marsaxlokk revealed bones dating to about this time of an extinct pygmy hippo and elephant.
(AM, Jul/Aug '97 p.42)
135000 BC DNA evidence in 1997 indicated that the modern dog has been around since about this time.
(SFC, 6/13/97, p.A10)(MT, Fall 02, p.14)
48000BC -18000BC In 2011 the journal Current Biology reported that all polar bears today have descended from one female brown bear in Ireland between 20,000 and 50,000 years ago.
(SFC, 7/8/11, p.A6)
43000BC Scientists in 2008 reported that one of two genetically distinct mammoth groups went extinct about this time.
(www.science.psu.edu/alert/Schuster6-2008.htm)
43000BC In 2016 Russian scientists reported that mammoth bones from about this time, found near the Kara Sea in Siberia, indicated that they were hunted by humans.
(SFC, 1/15/16, p.A6)
41000BC A land bridge between Australia and Tasmania formed about this time allowing people to cross into Tasmania. Two thousand years later the megafauna of Tasmania were gone.
(Econ, 9/14/13, SR p.5)
15590BC Saber tooth cats roamed the hills north of Las Vegas about this time. Fossils of the front legs of such a cat were identified in 2012.
(SFC, 12/17/12, p.A5)
c15000BCE Dogs first began to associate with some humans as people began to form settlements.
(WSJ, 11/22/02, p.B1)
14000 BCE The earliest fossils of domestic dogs date to this time. They were found in Germany.
(MT, Fall 02, p.14)
9000BC Canine transmissible venereal tumor (CTVT) is believed to have originated about this time in a single dog. By 2016 it was found in dogs worldwide.
(Econ, 5/21/16, p.70)
8000BC Mastodons roamed over Ohio. In 1887 Newton S. Conway discovered the skeleton of a mastodon on his farm on the Clark-Champaign County line. It became known as the Conway Mastodon.
(SSFC, 1/9/11, p.A10)(http://tinyurl.com/2ecv34t)
8000BC The 15-foot, 3-toed Macrauchenia, a native of Patagonia, went extinct about this time. It had a body like a camel, a neck like a giraffe, and a flexible nose like an elephant’s trunk. Its fossil was discovered by Charles Darwin during his trip to the region (1833-1834).
(SFC, 4/2/10, p.C5)
8000BC It is believed that the Chinese became to first to domesticate wild boars about this time.
(Econ, 12/20/14, p.68)
c7500BCE A research team in 2004 uncovered a carefully buried cat on Cyprus, placed just inches from a human burial that also contained polished stones, shells, tools and jewelry. The graves were estimated to be 9,500 years old.
(AP, 4/9/04)
6380BC Swedish archaeologists in 2020 reported finding the remains of a dog at a human burial site dating to about this time in southern Sweden. The dog was buried with a person near the town of Solvesborg.
(AP, 9/24/20)
6000BC The last wooly rhino died about this time.
(Econ, 8/24/13, p.72)
1000BC Camels were domesticated about this time.
(Econ, 11/19/16, p.71)
246BC-222BC Ptolemy III Euergeter served as Egypt’s 3rd ruler of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. In 2010 archeologists discovered a temple, thought to belong to Queen Berenice, wife of King Ptolemy III who ruled Egypt in the 3rd century B.C. Archeologists believed that the temple might have been dedicated to the ancient cat-goddess Bastet.
(www.crystalinks.com/ptolemaic.html)(AP, 1/19/10)
565 Aug 22, St. Columba reported seeing a monster in Loch Ness.
(MC, 8/22/02)
960 England’s King Edgar imposed an annual tribute of 300 wolf skins on Idwal, king of Wales.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.125)
1000 The flightless elephant bird Aepyornis maximus, which had stalked the savannah and rainforests of Madagascar, was hunted to extinction about this time. The elephant bird died out after a new wave of human settlers arrived. Researchers in 2018 said the creature would have stood at least three meters (10 feet) tall, and had an average weight of 650 kg, making it the largest bird genus yet uncovered.
(AFP, 9/26/18)
1250-1300 Maori ancestors arrived in New Zealand. By 2013 the country had lost 51 species of birds, 3 of frogs, 3 of lizards and one of a freshwater fish.
(Econ, 9/14/13, SR p.5)
1637 The last recorded auroch, a wild antecedent of modern domestic cattle, died in Poland's Jaktorow Forest.
(Econ., 10/3/20, p.68)
1657 The last wolf in Boston, Mass., was killed.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.125)
1751 Feb 25, The 1st performing monkey exhibited in America was in NYC.
(MC, 2/25/02)
1751 Pietro Longhi painted “Exhibition of a Rhinocerous at Venice." It depicted Clara, a touring Indian rhinoceros owned by Dutch sea captain Douwemout Van der Meer.
(SSFC, 3/27/05, p.E1)
1755 The “last specimen" of a dodo bird, a stuffed but rotted relic, was burned at the Ashmoleum Museum at Oxford, England. Fortunately, someone removed the head and the foot of the specimen and saved them. In 1996 by David Quammen authored The Song of the Dodo: Is-land Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions. In 2003 Clara Pinto-Correia authored “Return of the Crazy Bird." The London Museum of natural History later displayed a mounted specimen of Raphus cucullatus.
(www.complete-review.com/reviews/divsci/pintocc.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/c9zpyw)
1765 Mar 24, Austrian Empress Maria Theresa issued a decree to establish a School for Healing Animal Diseases.
(StuAus, April '95, p.23)
1770 Apr, Cockfighting in Puerto Rico, introduced by Spain in the 16th century, was officially recognized for the first time.
(AP, 7/23/12)
1780 A Japanese whaling ship ran aground near the western end of the Aleutian Islands. Rats from the ship reached the nearest island giving it the name Rat Island. The incident introduced the non-native Norway rat, also known as the brown rat, to Alaska. The rats terrorized all but the largest birds on the island. In the Fall of 2008 poison was dropped onto the island from helicopter-hoisted buckets for a week and a half. By mid 2009 there were no signs of living rats and some birds had returned.
(Econ, 1/20/07, p.43)(Reuters, 6/12/09)
1796 Apr 3, The 1st elephant was shipped to the US from Bengal, India, by Broadway show-man Jacob Croninshield.
(SFC, 11/18/00, p.B3)
1796 Apr 13, The 1st elephant arrived in US from India.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1808 A 56-foot oarfish washed ashore in Scotland. This was the first documented sighting of the rare fish.
(SFC, 12/4/10, p.A7)
1816 Naturalist Adelbert von Chamisso spent a month around SF Bay while aboard the Russian ship Rurik, which was circumnavigating the globe. Captain Otto von Kotzebue said the Gov. of California invited the crew to witness a bear and bull fight. Spanish troops captured a grizzly bear and a wild bull and chained them for battle on a beach.
(SFC, 4/1/99, p.E1)(SFC, 3/4/17, p.C1)
1820 Cats were introduce to Macquarie Island, located half-way between New Zealand and Antarctica. Rabbits were introduced in 1878. The eradication of cats led to an epidemic of rabbits, which devastated the native vegetation.
(Econ, 9/14/13, SR p.10)
1826 The Zoological Society of London was established by Sir Stamford Raffles and Sir Humphry Davy.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Zoo)
1828 Apr 27, The London Zoo opened to fellows of the Zoological Society of London. It was originally intended to be used as a collection for scientific study. As of 2017 it was the world's oldest scientific zoo and housed 20,166 animals.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Zoo)(Reuters, 12/23/17)
1831-1832 Animals from the Tower of London menagerie created the core of the London Zoo.
(Hem, 9/04, p.71)
1835 Jun 2, P.T. Barnum and his circus began 1st tour of US.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1836 The Swedish Hunter’s Association was founded with the aim of building up the moose population, which had dropped to some 300.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.128)
1839 Swiss scientist Louis Agassiz described a fossil fish that had been found in Permian marl slate near Durham, northern England. He named it coelocanthus. Over the decades similar fossils were found dating from around 380 million to 70 million years ago.
(Econ, 12/14/13, IL p.10)
1845 Mar 5, Congress appropriated $30,000 to ship camels to western US. [see 1855]
(MC, 3/5/02)
1845 Walter Potter, English taxidermist, opened his stuffed animal museum in Bramble, south of London. Admission was 2 cents.
(SFC, 11/29/02, p.K8)
1847 Dr. Thomas Savage, American doctor and missionary, brought back to the US partial skeletons of gorillas, and gave them the scientific name Troglodytes gorilla.
(ON, 11/04, p.11)
1847 The London Zoo opened to the public to aid funding.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Zoo)
1851 Jan 27, John James Audubon (b. 1785), wildlife painter and conservationist (Audubon Society), died. He was buried in NYC. In 2004 Duff Hart-Davis authored "Audubon's Elephant," and account of his 12 year sojourn to Europe to oversee the production of "Birds of America." In 2004 William Souder authored “Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of the Birds of America."
(HNQ, 7/15/01)(MC, 1/27/02)(WSJ, 3/26/04, p.W6)(SSFC, 6/20/04, p.M6)
1851 In the SF Bay Area a nearly weeklong bull and bear fiesta at Mission Santa Clara featured 12 bulls, two grizzly bears and a considerable number of Indians of whom four were killed on the 2nd day.
(SFC, 3/4/17, p.C4)
1852 May 1, San Francisco’s Board of Aldermen passed Ordnance 228 making it illegal to hold bullfights or to exhibit or fight other animals east of larking and Ninth streets or to advertise the fights on Sundays.
(SFC, 3/4/17, p.C4)
1852 Jun, In San Francisco one of the weekly bull and bear fights held this month near the crumbling old Mission Dolores was described in detail in a journal by Theophile de Rutte.
(SFC, 3/4/17, p.C4)
1855 Mar 3, Congress approved $30,000 to test camels for military use. [see 1845]
(SC, 3/3/02)
1856 Sep 2, Paul Du Chaillu (1831-1903), French-American journalist and hunter, shot and killed his 1st gorilla in Gabon. Over the next 3 years he killed 31 gorillas. In 1861 he published “Explorations & Adventures in Equatorial Africa."
(ON, 11/04, p.12)
1856 San Franciscans paid a quarter to venture into a basement room at the Mountaineer Museum at 143 Clay St. to view grizzly bears collected by John Adams, aka Grizzly Adams (1812-1860). In 1966 Richard Dillon authored "The Legend of Grizzly Adams: California's Greatest Mountain Man."
(http://tinyurl.com/yaucamr4)(SFC, 7/7/18, p.C1)
1857 West Coast whaler Capt. Charles Melville Scammon discovered a major breeding ground for gray whales in a Baja California lagoon. By 1861 an estimated 10,800 gray whales had been killed in lagoons along the Baha coast. The gray whale population was driven almost to extinction.
(SFC, 8/4/18, p.C4)
1859 The London Fish House unveiled 4 seahorses, long believed to mythical creatures. Seahorses are the only species in which the males become pregnant, providing the young with food and oxygen before giving birth to up to 1,000 babies, each the size of a flea.
(Econ, 9/12/09, p.93)
1861 Thailand's King Mongkut offered to send a pair of elephants to the United States as a gift of the friendship between the two countries. President Abraham Lincoln politely declined.
(AP, 3/24/18)
1862 Jun, SF Lawmakers signed a petition to anoint Lazarus (d.1963) and Bummer (d.1865), 2 popular rat catching dogs, as official city property and exempt from the recently passed muzzle law. In 1984 Malcolm E. Barker authored “Bummer & Lazarus: San Francisco’s Famous Dogs."
(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.D6)(SFC, 1/30/04, p.A23)(SSFC, 7/24/11, p.E11)
1866 Apr 10, The American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) was incorporated.
(AP, 4/9/97)
1874 Mar 17, Kincsem, a horse that never lost a race, was born.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1874 Jul 1, The 1st US zoo opened in Philadelphia.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1874 Cattleman Charles Goodnight rounded up 5 orphaned buffalo calves and set them loose on 10,000 acres in the Palo Duro Canyon of the Texas Panhandle. The herd grew to 250 animals and a number were sent to start herds elsewhere. In 1997 the herd was put under the guardianship of the state. By 2001 it was realized that inbreeding put the herd at risk of extinction. In 2005 Ted Turner agreed to provide 3 bulls from his herd in New Mexico to help the Texas herd.
(WSJ, 8/2/05, p.A1)
1876 Mar 1, Guernsey Cattle Club formed in Farmington, CT.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1879 P.T. Barnum (60) teamed up with James A. Bailey to create "The Greatest Show on Earth." [see Mar 28, 1881]
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R40)
1881 Mar 16, Barnum & Bailey Circus debuted. [see Mar 18]
(MC, 3/16/02)
1881 Mar 18, Barnum and Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth opened in Madison Square Gar-dens. [see Mar 16]
(HN, 3/18/98)
1881 Mar 28, "Greatest Show On Earth" was formed by P.T. Barnum and James A. Bailey. [see 1879 and Mar 16,18, 1881]
(MC, 3/28/02)
1882 Aug 28, Belle Benchley, the first female zoo director in the world, who directed the Zoo-logical Gardens of San Diego, was born.
(HN, 8/28/98)
1883 US big circus owners P.T. Barnum and Adam Forepaugh engaged in a “White Elephant War" to gain audience share. The press discovered that Forepaugh’s elephant, named Light of Asia, was painted. It died a year later. The story was later told by Michael Daly in “Topsy: The Startling Story of the Crooked-Tailed Elephant, P.T. Barnum, and the American Wizard, Thomas Edison" (2013).
(SSFC, 8/11/13, p.F7)
1885 Sep 15, Jumbo (b.~1860), a circus elephant, was killed in Ontario, Canada, after being struck by a goods train while being loaded into a circus carriage. In 2014 John Sutherland authored “Jumbo: The Unauthorized Biography of a Victorian Sensation."
(Econ, 2/8/14, p.81)
1888 Jul, Harold P. Brown, on behalf of Thomas Edison, zapped dogs at Columbia College to demonstrate the supposed danger of alternating current, a mode of power favored by Edison’s rival George Westinghouse. The NY state legislature had recently designated electrocution as the official means for capital punishment.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.A26)(ON, 10/04, p.7)
1888 In Brazil Joao Batista, Baron of Drummond, opened a zoo in Rio de Janeiro. To pull in business he printed animals on tickets and displayed a winning animal on a flag at the end of the day and paying 20 times the cost of the ticket. Side betting soon developed.
(Econ, 5/5/12, p.38)
1889 The British Royal Society for the Protection of Birds was founded.
(www.infomat.net/infomat/rd741/rd1/database/rspb/index.asp)
1890 In California the first opossums were released by humans in Los Angeles County about this time. Tow more releases were documented in 1910 and 1924.
(SFC, 11/26/08, p.G3)
1891 Feb 26, The 1st buffalo was purchased for Golden Gate Park in SF under John McLaren. A pair of bison, named Benjamin Harrison and Sarah Bernhardt, were settled in Golden Gate Park following reports that only 1000 were left in the US.
(SFC, 12/13/99, p.A18)(SC, 2/26/02)(SFC, 10/30/08, p.B1)
1892 Mar 3, 1st cattle tuberculosis test in US was made at Villa Nova, PA.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1893 Feb 26, 2 Clydesdale horses set a record by pulling 48 tons on a sledge in Michigan.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1894 Mar 8, NY passed the 1st state dog license law. [see Mar 10]
(MC, 3/8/02)
1894 Mar 10, New York Gov. Roswell P. Flower signed the nation's first dog-licensing law. The license fee was $2, renewable annually for $1.
(AP, 3/10/99)
1894 May 31, Victor Horsley, medical researcher, published a report in Nature indicating that cats shot through the head stop breathing and that resuscitative efforts helped them survive.
(WSJ, 8/21/96, p.A15)
1897 Apr 6 & 16, Frank M. Chapman, ornithologist with the American Museum of Natural His-tory, observed large numbers of flying hawks over Veracruz, Mexico.
(NH, 10/96, p.37)
1897 The Royal Pigeon Racing Association formed in England. In 2004 it began drug testing among its members for the use of steroids in their pigeons.
(WSJ, 11/11/04, p.A1)
1897 Ottoman authorities disbanded a reactivated League of Prizren, executed its leader and banned Albanian language books.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1897 Wolves disappeared from the Netherlands. In 2011 a wolf was again spotted in the country.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.125)
1898 Mar 26, In South Africa the Sabi Game Reserve, the world's 1st official designated game reserve, opened.
(http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/k/Kruger_National_Park.htm)
1898 Cockfighting in Puerto Rico was banned after the US invaded the island.
(AP, 7/23/12)
1900 May 25, President William McKinley signed the Lacey Act, 16 U.S.C. § 3371–3378, to defend fauna from poachers. It banned the illegal commercial transportation of wildlife. The conservation law was introduced by Iowa Rep. John F. Lacey. It has been amended several times. The most significant times were in 1969, 1981, and in 1989.
(Econ, 9/12/09, p.14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacey_Act)
1900 In London an estimated 300,000 horses pulled cabs and omnibuses as well as a variety of transport wagons. NYC counted some 100,000 horses.
(Econ, 11/26/16, SR p.3)
1900 At the Olympics in Paris a Belgian sharpshooter killed 21 live pigeons. The event was abolished shortly thereafter. Separately the game of croquet was featured for the first and last time.
(WSJ, 7/23/96, p.A6)
1903 Jan 4, Topsy the elephant was poisoned electrocuted in Luna Park, Coney Island, NYC. The 10-foot elephant had killed 3 keepers over the last 2 years. Edison used the opportunity to demonstrate the lethal potential of alternating current, promoted by rival George Westinghouse.
(Econ, 7/26/03, p.33)(Internet)
1903 Mar 14, The 1st national bird reservation was established in Sebastian, Florida.
(MC, 3/14/02)
1905 East Coasters including Theodore Roosevelt, Andrew Carnegie and Frederic Remington set up the American Bison Society. In 1907 they sent 15 animals by rail to the new Wichita Bi-son Refuge in Oklahoma. The society met for the last time in 1935. The society was revitalized in 2005 to secure the ecological future of the animal. In 2009 Steven Rinella authored “Ameri-can Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon."
(Econ, 1/17/09, p.82)
1905 California banned the collection of condor eggs. By 1982 only 22 condors were left in the state. In 1987 government biologists caught the last of 5 wild condors. Between 1992 and 2004 161 condors were released of which about half survived.
(CW, Winter 04, p.26)
1907 Oct 22, The five Ringling brothers of Baraboo, Wisconsin, bought out Barnum & Bailey Circus to form the Greatest Show on Earth.
(HN, 10/22/98)(SFC, 3/6/15, p.A10)
1907 Clarence Birdseye, an Amherst biology student, began selling bobcat and coyote hide from traders in New Mexico, purchased for fifty cents, to furriers in New York for a dollar and a quarter. In 1912 he moved to Labrador to farm foxes and trade furs.
(ON, 8/12, p.5)
1908 Aug 28, Roger Tory Peterson, author, was born in Jamestown, NY. His work included the innovative bird book “A Field Guide to Birds."
(HN, 8/28/00)
1909 Mar 4, US prohibited the interstate transportation of game birds.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1910 Feb 17, In San Francisco 3 elephants appearing at a Broadway vaudeville house went on a rampage while parading in North Beach.
(SSFC, 2/14/10, DB p.42)
1910 Aug 19, The advance guard of the Barnum & Bailey Circus began arriving in San Francisco, claiming to be the biggest ever to visit the Pacific Coast. It included 1,280 people, 85 railroad cars, 700 horses and 400 elephants.
(SSFC, 8/15/10, DB p.42)
1911 Wild oysters in SF Bay Area were pretty much wiped out by this time. The native Olympia oyster, Ostrea lurida, had once blanketed the region from Southern California to Southeastern Alaska. In 2012 a scientific study said the Olympia oyster was functionally extinct.
(SFC, 7/7/12, p.A10)
1911 A group of South Africans took part in the Trans-Saharan Ostrich Expedition to claim the Barbary Ostrich from French West Africa. They then sold the expensive plumes to milliners in across American and Europe.
(Econ, 6/4/11, p.95)
1912 Feb 4, In San Francisco two horses were killed when a huge truck loaded with 45 tons of copper cable broke free on the steep grade of Steiner Street hill. 50 horses were pulling against the truck with 4 horses guiding when the cable broke.
(SSFC, 2/5/12, DB p.42)
1913 Aug 27, In San Francisco a fire at arcade stables on Folsom St. between 5th and 6th killed 95 horses.
(SSFC, 8/25/13, DB p.58)
1914 Sep 1, Martha, the last known passenger pigeon, died at Cincinnati Zoo.
(MC, 9/1/02)
1916 Jul 11, Dan Patch (b.1896), a record-breaking, Indiana-born, harness race horse, died and was buried in Minnesota. He was the first harness race horse to break the 2-minute mile. In 2008 Charles Leersen authored “Crazy Good: The True Story of Dan Patch, The Most Famous Horse in America." Here Leersen details the pharmacopoeia used in racing at the turn of the century.
(WSJ, 5/17/08, p.W9)
1917 Mar 29, Man O'War, racehorse (winner of 20 out of 21 races and $249,465), was born.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1918 Dec 18, In San Francisco police recovered 55 suckling pigs stolen from the Hog Raising Company at Evans and Mendell. More than 150 pigs had been stolen during the past six weeks by children working there.
(SSFC, 12/16/18, DB p.46)
1920 Dec 6, In Boston, Mass., a dog with spectacles was shown at the annual fair of the Ani-mal Rescue League.
(http://tinyurl.com/5hbur6)
1920-1935 In the US thousands of mustangs were sent to slaughter to provide cheap meat in what came to be called the “Great Removal." In 2008 Deanne Stillman authored “Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West."
(Econ, 6/28/08, p.90)
1922 Jul 15, 1st duck-billed platypus was publicly exhibited in US at a NY zoo.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1924 The last known native wolf in California was trapped and killed in Lassen County. In 2011 a wolf named OR7 entered northern California from Oregon. OR7 returned to Oregon but as of 2018 the wolf's progeny appeared to have settled in the state.
(SFC, 2/18/12, p.A9)(SFC, 5/9/18, p.D1)
1924 An Ohio state spider count recorded 306 species.
(USAT, 5/18/04, p.17A)
1925 In Rwanda’s Virunga Mountains the Volcanoes National Park was formed to protect gorillas from poaching.
(SSFC, 6/23/13, p.M3)
1925 Goat races began in Tobago as a working-class alternative to horse racing. In 20011 the Buccoo Goat Race Festival, scheduled for April 25-26, sought support on Facebook.
(AP, 4/16/11)
1926 The last grey wolf disappeared from the Yellowstone region. By 1973 only a few wolves remained in northern Michigan and Minnesota. In 1995 the federal government reintroduced wolves to the greater Yellowstone region (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming) and by 2008 their population reached 1,500.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.44)
1927 New Bedford, Massachusetts sent out its last whaler, the John R. Mantra. In 2016 New Bedford’s whaling museum posted a list online of 127,000 men who embarked on whaling voyages out of Massachusetts from 1809 to 1927.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling_in_the_United_States)
1928 May 19, The 1st annual "Frog Jumping Jubilee" at Angel's Camp, Ca., drew 51 frogs.
(MC, 5/19/02)
1929 Jan 29, The first seeing-eye Dog Guide School in the United States received their char-ter. Seeing Eye, Inc., was founded in Morris Township, New Jersey, by Dorothy Harrison Eustus. In February Morris Frank and Jack Humphrey began operating the 1st Seeing Eye school in the US in Nashville, Tenn. Frank had trained under Humphrey in Switzerland at a kennel owned by Dorothy Eustis. Buddy was Frank's 1st dog and in 1936 became the 1st seeing-eye dog to ride as a passenger on an American commercial airline.
(HNQ, 3/10/01)(www.seeingeye.org/aboutus/?M_ID=472)(ON, 12/03, p.5)
1931 Jul 27, Grasshoppers in Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota destroyed thousands of acres of crops.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1932 Mar 31, 150 wild swans died in Niagara waterfall.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1932 Aug 10, Rin Tin Tin (b.1918), US Hollywood-dog, died. In 2011 Susan Orlean authored “Rin Tin Tin: The Life and Legend." In 1922 Rin Tin Tin was spotted by the maker of a motion picture camera and his career began. He went on to create a total of 26 motion pictures for Warner Brothers and received over 10,000 fan letters per week.
(http://www.tv.com/people/rin-tin-tin/)
1932 Phar Lap, an Australian race horse, took ill and died after being taken to the United States. The giant New Zealand-born chestnut became an icon in Australia during the Great Depression, winning 37 of his 51 races, including one Melbourne Cup in 1930 and two Cox Plates in 1930 and 1931. In 2008 tests proved that Phar Lap was poisoned by arsenic.
(AFP, 6/19/08)
1933 May 3, A white buffalo calf was born in western Montana. He was later named "Big Medicine" and lived until Aug 25, 1959. His hide was molded to a mannequin and that went on display at the Montana Historical Society on Jul 13, 1961.
(Helena Museum flyer, 9/11/97)
1933 Aug, The Puerto Rico legislature forced the governor to reinstate cockfighting, which had been banned, by threatening to block the budget. It won official status and became known as the "gentleman's sport" because of its honor-based betting system in which men yell bets at each other and later pay them.
(SFEC, 4/26/98, p.A3)(AP, 7/23/12)
1934 Apr 3, Jane van Lawick-Goodall, ethologist (studied African chimps, 1974 Walker Prize), was born in London, England. She was a British anthropologist, known for her work with African chimpanzees. In 2000 her autobiography "Africa in My Blood: An Autobiography in Letters, The Early Years, 1934-1966," was edited by Dale Peterson.
(HN, 3/4/99)(SFEC, 6/18/00, BR p.6)(SC, 3/4/02)(MC, 4/3/02)
1935 Apr 29, It was reported that live rabbits were being sewn onto dog-track racing ma-chines in the San Francisco Bay Area counties of San Mateo and Santa Clara.
(SSFC, 4/25/10, DB p.54)
1935 Dec 6, The San Francisco Chronicle reported that rats now exceeded city’s population of people by a factor of 3 to 1.
(SSFC, 12/5/10, DB p.50)
1935 In Australia cane toads (Bufo marinus) from Hawaii were introduced to wipe out beetles that were devastating Queensland's sugar cane industry. The beetles survived and the toads became a pest and a threat to the native quolls, small spotted marsupials. On March 28, 2009, a festive mass killing of the creatures began as “Toad Day Out." The corpses were turned into fertilizer for the very farmers who've battled the pests for years.
(Econ, 7/12/03, p.38)(SFC, 6/10/06, p.B8)(AP, 3/26/09)
1936 Jun 18, In San Francisco Wally the elephant (25) was shot to death following the June 16 trampling death of Fleishhacker Zoo keeper Edward Brown (42).
(SSFC, 6/12/11, DB p.46)(SSFC, 6/19/11, DB p.46)
1936 Nov 9, In China Ruth Harkness and her party found a 3-lb giant panda cub, eyes not yet open, in a hollow tree. They named the cub Su-Lin - Chinese for "something very cute."
(http://femexplorers.com/full_article.php?article_id=17)
1936 Dec 18, Su-Lin, the 1st giant panda to come to US from China, arrived in SF. The giant panda, captured by Ruth Harkness, was the 1st ever seen in the US. In 2005 Vicki Constantine Croke authored “The Lady and the Panda."
(http://femexplorers.com/full_article.php?article_id=17)(SSFC, 7/17/05, p.F2)
1936 India’s Jim Corbett National Park was established to provide endangered Bengal tigers with safe territory.
(AP, 2/10/14)
1937 Mar 18, In Missouri Jim the Wonder Dog died at age 12 at the Lake of the Ozarks. The dog had uncanny abilities that were verified but never explained.
(SFC, 3/29/99, p.A3)
1938 Mar 27, San Francisco SPCA officer Al Girolo broke up a cockfight at the back of 1363 Underwood Street in Hunters Point. 7 men were arrested and 6 roosters seized.
(SSFC, 2/24/13, DB p.42)
1938 Dec, A South African fishing trawler brought up in its nets a coelacanth fish, long thought to be extinct. The fish was identified by naturalist Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer. She sent a sketch of the fish to Prof. J.L.B. Smith who properly identified it as a new species of coelacanth and named it Latimeria chalumnae. It was later mounted and is now on display in the East London Museum.
(NG, 6/1988, p.825,831)(Econ, 12/14/13, IL p.11)
1938 Florida passed a law making it illegal to export alligators.
(SSFC, 5/15/05, p.C2)
1939 Mar 3, The new Goldfish swallowing craze began to sweep college campuses getting a start at the Ivy League's Harvard University.
(HC, Internet, 3/3/98)
1939 Jul 17, Paddy the Wanderer, a stray Airedale, died. The dog had become the unofficial mascot of the docks in Wellington, NZ. A fleet of black taxis led its funeral procession.
(SSFC, 11/14/04, p.F11)
1942 An American anti-submarine research project discovered the mesopelagic zone of the ocean, a layer of ocean that begins a few hundred meters below the surface and is home to an abundance of animals, who rise at night to feed and return to depths between 200 meters and 1 km to escape predation.
(Econ, 4/15/17, p.66)
1944 The last undisputed report of an ivory-billed woodpecker in the continental North America was in Louisiana this year.
(Econ, 10/15/11, p.42)
1945 Maria Dickin decorated Rip, a dog, for finding more than 100 people trapped by German bomb damage in World War II. Dickin was the creator of the Dickin Medal program, Britain's highest honor for animals. Rip died in 1948 and is buried in a pet charity cemetery in east Lon-don. In 2009 the medal sold at auction in London on Friday for 24,250 pounds ($35,700).
(AP, 4/24/09)
1946 Paul Falknor Iams (1915-2003), self-taught animal nutritionist, started Iams Food Co.
(SFC, 11/3/04, p.B15)
1947 Aug 28, Legendary bullfighter Manolete was mortally wounded by a bull during a fight in Linares, Spain; he died the following day at age 30.
(AP, 8/28/97)
1948 Oct 5, The International Union for Conservation of Nature's Species Survival Commission (IUCN) was founded in France. It is composed of biologists who maintain a list of threatened species and is considered the world's largest and most significant environmental conservation organization.
(http://tinyurl.com/yyrn6o6e)
1948 In Florida there was a monkey escape from the Dania Chimpanzee Farm, with most of the monkeys recaptured, but not all of them. In 2021 the colony numbered about 41.
(AP, 5/19/21)
1952 Mar 14, J. Fred Muggs, chimp on the Today show, was born.
(MC, 3/14/02)
1954 The Plum Island Animal Disease Center opened off of New York’s Long Island. Congress voted to close it in 2009.
(SFC, 8/27/13, p.A8)
1954 British Colonel Leofric Boyle began compiling information about endangered species. His card index system grew to become the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
(Econ, 9/14/13, SR p.12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUCN_Red_List)
1957 Mar 1, Kokomo the Chimp became the Today Show animal editor.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1957 Mar 23, US army sold its last homing pigeons.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1958 Apr 14, Sputnik 2 (with dog Laika) burned up in the atmosphere.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1958 May 18, Chairman Mao Tse Tung spoke at the Second Session of the Eight Party Congress and called for schoolchildren to assist in the elimination of the four pests, which included sparrows, rats, flies and mosquitoes. A massive 3-day campaign soon began to exterminate sparrows, which were thought harmful because they ate the peasant's grain. Numerous other birds were killed in the process and the following year a plague of locusts became a problem. In 2001 Judith Shapiro, Donald Worster and Alfred W. Crosby authored “Mao's War Against Nature: Politics & the Environment in Revolutionary China."
(http://tinyurl.com/8gbhg)(Econ, 12/20/08, p.65)(http://tinyurl.com/7m9egc)
1959 May 28, Monkeys Able & Baker zoomed 300 mi (500 km) into space on Jupiter missile and became the 1st animals retrieved from a space mission.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1959 Rex Burch (d.1996), microbiologist, and William Russell, a classics scholar, outlined how the use of animals in scientific research could be made more humane in their book: “The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique."
(www.nal.usda.gov/awic/newsletters/v7n2/7n2burch.htm)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.84)
1959 Alan Abel (1924-2018) formed the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals (SINA), seeking to clothe all naked animals that appear in public. In 1963 Time magazine exposed the organization as a hoax.
(SFC, 9/19/18, p.D6)
1959 The Usutu virus, a life threat to birds, was 1st observed in South African mosquitoes. By 2004 it had spread to Europe and ravaged the blackbird population.
(SFC, 8/21/04, p.B10)
1960 Aug 19, Korabl-Sputnik-2 (Spaceship Satellite-2), also known as Sputnik 5, was launched. On board were the dogs Belka ( Squirrel) and Strelka (Little Arrow). Also on board were 40 mice, 2 rats and a variety of plants. After a day in orbit, the spacecraft's retrorocket was fired and the landing capsule and the dogs were safely recovered. They were the first living animals to survive orbital flight.
(www.spacetoday.org/Astronauts/Animals/Dogs.html)
1960 Aug 23, World's largest frog (3.3 kg) was caught in Equatorial Guinea.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1960 Gavin Maxwell authored “Ring of Bright Water," his classic tale of living with otters.
(Economist, 9/1/12, p.81)
1961 Jan 31, Chimpanzee Ham landed safely and became the 1st primate in space after a 16 minute flight aboard a Mercury-Redstone 2 rocket.
(AH, 2/06, p.14)
1961 Mar 9, Korabl-Sputnik-4, also known as Sputnik 9, was launched with a dog named Chernushka (Blackie) on a one orbit mission. Also onboard the spacecraft was a dummy cosmonaut, mice and a guinea pig.
(www.spacetoday.org/Astronauts/Animals/Dogs.html)
1961 Aug 27, Francis the Talking Mule was the mystery guest on "What's My Line."
(MC, 8/27/01)
1961 Guy Mountfort (d.2003) and 3 other Britons: zoologist Sir Julian Huxley, broadcaster Peter Scott and wildlife advocate Max Nicholson, founded the Swiss-based World Wildlife Fund (Worldwide Fund for Nature).
(AP, 5/1/03)(Econ, 9/14/13, SR p.8)
1962 Mar 21, A female black bear was taken aboard a B-58 bomber out of Edwards Air Force Base in California, flown up to 35,000 feet at a supersonic speed of 850 miles per hour, and ejected from the bomber in a specially made capsule. She landed safely, and became the first living creature to survive a parachute jump from a plane flying faster than sound.
(www.worldhop.com/Journals/J1/Bear1.html)
c1962 Macaque monkeys began bathing in the hot springs near Nagano.
(SSFC, 8/11/02, p.C10)
1963 The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) was founded. It is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUCN_Red_List)
1964 The global Red List, a list of endangered species, was created. It was initially “a haphazard affair." In the early 1990s, Dr. Georgina Mace (1953-2020), then working for the Zoological Society of London, began the long process of developing the criteria for a more scientifically disciplined list.
(NY Times, 12/1/20)
1965 Jul 3, Trigger (25), the golden palomino horse of Roy Rogers, died. Trigger was mounted by Bishoff's Taxidermy of California and were on display for years at the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum in Victorville, California. The original Trigger is currently on display at The Roy Rogers - Dale Evans Museum in Branson, Missouri. In 2010 Trigger, along with his saddle, took top dollar at an auction of memorabilia.
(www.surfnetinc.com/chuck/hoss-rr.htm)(SFC, 7/7/98, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/2blll9t)
1965 A Navy dolphin named Tuffy carried tools and messages to Sealab II divers off the coast of La Jolla, Ca.
(SFC, 4/11/03, p.D1)
1965 Martin Seligman, psychologist, conducted experiments with dogs subjected to electric shock and found that they “learned helplessness" when unable to escape shocks.
(Econ, 3/31/07, p.63)
1966 Mar 10, Kelso, 5 time Horse of the Year, retired.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1966 Jun, Allen and Beatrix Gardner of the Univ. of Nevada began teaching sign language to a 10-month-old female chimpanzee named Washoe (d.2007).
(www.friendsofwashoe.org/timeline_project_begins.shtml)(SFC, 11/1/07, p.A2)
1966 Oct 15, US Congress passed the Endangered Species Preservation Act. It was expanded in 1973 as the Endangered Species Act. The Devils Hole Pupfish of Death Valley were among the first species protected. By 1972 only 124 remained. By 2007 only 42 were left. The count reached 75 in 2013.
(www.fws.gov/endangered/1966listing.html)(Econ, 1/19/12, p.79)
1967 Peru and 3 other countries in South America banned trade in vicuna, a relative of the llama, after numbers had severely dwindled. A CITES ban followed in 1975.
(Econ, 3/8/08, p.86)(www.rumbosonline.com/articles/4-46-vicuna.htm)
1968 In the SF Bay Area Marine World/Africa U.S.A. opened on 66 acres in Redwood Shores. The animal-themed amusement park moved to Vallejo in 1985 and the Redwood Shores land was developed as the headquarters of Oracle Corp.
(SFC, 3/10/18, p.D1)
1969 American Museum of Natural History in NYC installed a 94-foot, 21,000-pound, synthetic Blue Whale. It was based on a female carcass found in the South Atlantic in 1925.
(WSJ, 7/24/03, p.D10)
1969 Fish and wildlife officials in New York and Vermont banned fish shooting. In 1970 the Vermont Legislature re-instated the sport.
(SFC, 5/11/04, p.A2)
1969-1971 Yellowstone Park officials attempted to force grizzly bears to return to a wild diet. 220 bears, unable to quit junk food, were shot and killed during this period.
(Econ, 11/5/05, p.88)
1970 Mar 1, End of US commercial whale hunting.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1970 Mar 30, Secretariat, race horse, triple crown (1973), was born.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1970 Dec 24, A US Animal Welfare Act was passed expanding the list of animals covered by the 1966 Animal Welfare Act. It included guidelines for the use and care of laboratory animals.
(www.nal.usda.gov/awic/legislat/usdaleg1.htm)
1970 The US sent a 5-dolphin team to Vietnam to guard the Army munitions pier at Cam Ranh Bay. The dolphins were in Vietnam for 6 months and the pier remained safe. It was blown up after they left.
(SFC, 4/11/03, p.D1)(SFC, 5/18/10, p.C3)
1970 Mister Ed the talking horse, star of the 1961 TV sitcom, died. By the time Mister Ed reached the age of 19 he was suffering from a broken leg and a variety of health problems, and was quietly put to death with no publicity. However, in an interview on Los Angeles station KECT's program "Life and Times", Alan Young stated that Mr. Ed died from an inadvertent tranquilizer administered while he was "in retirement" in a stable in Burbank, California.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Ed)
1971 Nov 18, The US federal Airborne-Hunting Act prohibited shooting animals from planes without license.
(WSJ, 12/9/03, p.A1)(www.fws.gov/laws/lawsdigest/AIRBORN.HTML)
1971 Dec 15, Pres. Nixon signed the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burro Act. The $18 million Wild Horse and Burro Program, headed by the Bureau of Land Management, was designed to find homes for wild horses. "Excess" animals were annually culled. The 10-17,000 wild horses grew to some 43,000 in 1998. In 2004 Conrad Burns, Republican Senator for Montana, introduced an amendment that removed protection for wild horses over age 10.
(www.fs.fed.us/rangelands/ecology/wildhorseburro/whb_faqs.shtml)(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A1)(Econ, 6/28/08, p.90)
1971 California banned the import of kangaroo parts.
(SSFC, 5/23/21, p.A6)
1971 Jamaica began protecting crocodiles by law. By 2013 a growing taste for crocodile meat and even eggs had conservationists worried that the reptiles might be wiped from the wild altogether.
(AP, 10/6/13)
1972 Apr 16, The Republic of China presented two Pandas to the US National Zoo: Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling. Ling-Ling died in 1992.
(SFC, 4/16/97, p.C14)(HN, 4/16/98)
1972 Jul 10, Herd of stampeding elephants killed 24 in the Chandka Forest of India.
(MC, 7/10/02)
1972 Alison Jolly (1937-2014), American primatologist, authored “The Evolution of Primate Behaviour," based on her studies of lemurs in Madagascar.
(Econ, 3/1/14, p.94)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alison_Jolly)
1973 Feb 26, Triple Crown horse Secretariat was bought for a record $5.7m.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1973 India began Project Tiger and established a network of tiger reserves. Under Indira Gandhi 9 national parks were set aside to protect tigers. 14 more were later added. By 2010 the tiger population dropped to 1,400 from 40,000 a century earlier.
(http://projecttiger.nic.in/introduction.htm)(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.A16)(NG, 12/97, p.13)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.52)
1973 In Uganda some 14,300 elephants were in the Murchison Falls National Park at this time. By 1980 only 1,400 were left.
(NG, May 1985, p.627)
1974 Dr. Charles Lieber at the VA Medical Center in the Bronx, NY, fed alcohol to baboons along with a nutritionally complete diet. He found that the animals developed every stage of human alcoholic liver disease.
(SSFC, 8/23/09, p.K6)
1975 May 23, The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned the sale of turtles with shells that measured less than four inches in length. The turtles were identified as major carriers of salmonella bacterium and had been widely sold as pets for kids.
(WSJ, 5/30/96, p.B1)(http://tiny.cc/IEWJ3)
1975 Jul 28, The US Dept of Interior designated the grizzly bear a threatened species in the lower 48 states under the US Endangered Species Act. Most of the bears in the lower US lived in and around Yellowstone National Park in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
(http://fieldguide.mt.gov/detail_AMAJB01020.aspx)(Econ, 11/5/05, p.88)
1976 Donald Griffin authored “The Question of Animal Awareness."
(Econ, 7/18/15, p.72)
1976 The US federal government added Mexican wolves to its endangered species list. In 2017 some 113 Mexican wolves were counted between southwestern New Mexico and southeast Arizona.
(SSFC, 2/19/17, p.A8)
1976 Malcolm Douglas (1941-2010), Australia's original TV crocodile hunter, shot to fame with the production of his first documentary, "Across The Top." He had trekked across Australia's harsh hinterland filming his encounters with poisonous snakes and ferocious reptiles.
(AFP, 9/23/10)
1976 The UN Convention on Int’l. Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) imposed a ban on the trade of rhino horn. By the mid-1990s 90% of the world’s rhinos had disappeared.
(Econ, 11/20/10, p.55)
1979 Sep 19, The Bern Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats was signed. It became effective as of June 1, 1982.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.126)(http://tinyurl.com/yez66ct)
1979 Nov 22, Penny Patterson led Koko the gorilla from Stanford to a new home at the Gorilla Foundation in Woodside.
(SFC, 11/19/04, p.F2)
1980 Jun 2, The California State Senate voted 30-0 to pass a bill prohibiting the destruction of any pet through instructions left in an owner’s will.
(SFC, 5/27/05, p.F5)
1980 Jun 2, The California State Fish and Game Commission approved a captive-breeding plan to save the vanishing California condor from extinction.
(SFC, 5/27/05, p.F5)
1980 Jul 10, Nepo (14), a killer whale, was found dead in his Redwood City Marine World show tank.
(SFC, 7/8/05, p.F2)
1980 Indonesia established Komodo National Park to help protect the predatory Komodo dragons, a type of lizard that can grow to 10 feet. The park was named a World Heritage Site in 1991.
(SFC, 12/23/21, p.A4)
1980 In Indonesia a 7 ½ mile wall was built in West Java province to keep out jungle animals.
(SFC, 9/14/02, p.A20)
1981 In Wyoming a rancher found a solitary enclave of the black-footed ferret. The prairie-dg-eating member of the weasel family had been thought to be extinct. Plans in 2013 called for boosting the ferret count to 3,000 across its 12-state historic range.
(SFC, 12/24/13, p.A4)
1982 May 3, Sinbad the Sailor, the star horse of Ronald Reagan’s “Death Valley Days" TV series, died when he was struck by lightning at Kanab, Utah.
(SSFC, 5/3/09, p.C12)
1982 Jul 23, The Intl. Whaling Commission (IWC) voted for a total ban on commercial whaling starting in 1985.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling)
1982 Sep 9, Robert Thibadeau at CMU-10A: Pittsburgh Zoo Options: The zoo is a worthwhile place to visit, but in my three years in Pittsburgh I have watched it deteriorate for lack of funds. Fortunately they have this wonderful 'adopt an animal' program. The adoption can be a day or month. Orangutanns (sic) eat light at $.75 a day or $22.50 a month, and for $15 a day or $450 a month you get yourself an entire elephant. Double that and you can probably have his name changed to Clyde. Triple it and I bet they will let you dye him pink. Visitation rights come with any adoption. The flyer is on my office door -- 5321.
(http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sef/Orig-Smiley.htm)
1982 The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources was established by international convention.
(Econ, 7/16/16, p.68)
1982 Major Adrian Coles (d.2017) founded the British Hedgehog Preservation Society.
(https://www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/)(Econ, 4/15/17, p.82)
1982 In Nepal elephant polo began under the direction of Jim Edwards, a jungle safari organizer.
(WSJ, 1/16/98, p.A1)
1982 In Oman efforts to breed captive oryx and release them back into the Arabian Peninsula, the only place this species is found, began, a decade after the last one was apparently shot in the wild. By 2011 about 1,000 of the wild Arabian or White Oryx thrived owing to nearly three decades of successful breeding.
(AP, 6/16/11)
1983 Jul 25, 1st nonhuman primate, a baboon, was conceived in a lab dish in San Antonio.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1983 Zoo officials in Kazakhstan reportedly claimed that a teenage elephant named Batyr could reproduce Russian to utter 20 phrases, including "Batyr is good." But there was no scientific study on the claim.
(AP, 11/2/12)
1986 Spain banned whaling. No Blue Whales, having been hunted to near extinction, were spotted off Spain's coastline until 2017.
(SSFC, 8/29/21, p.B10)
1987 Apr 19, The last free-flying condor in California, a 19-pound, 7-year-old male, was captured. He was released in 2002.
(SFC, 3/3/00, p.A21)(SFC, 5/2/02, p.A6)
1988 Apr 29, Molloko, the 1st California condor chick conceived in captivity, was born in the San Diego Zoo.
(www.highbeam.com/library/docFree.asp?DOCID=1G1:6703253)
1988 Jun 6, In NYC 2 large snapping turtles were found in a Bronx sewage plant.
(http://ebeltz.net/column/chs/1988colu.html)
1988 Belgium passed a law that forbade the ritual execution of animals at home.
(WSJ, 1/4/07, p.A1)
1988-2013 China’s panda population increased from 1,114 to 1,864 during this period. By 2016 China counted 67 protected panda reserves.
(Econ, 9/10/16, p.36)
1989 Sep 18, California’s Gov. Deukmejian signed into law a bill making it illegal to eat household pets.
(SSFC, 9/14/14, DB p.42)
1989 Nedim Buyukmihci, animal rights leader, founded the nonprofit Animal Place sanctuary in Vacaville, Ca.
(SFCM, 8/24/03, p.8)
1989 Kenya burned a vast pile of elephant tusks in Nairobi National Park in an effort to curb the killing of elephants.
(Econ, 2/8/14, p.60)
1989 The UN Convention on Int’l. Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) imposed a total ban on the trade of ivory and elephant hide. In 2007 the ban was extended for another 9 years.
(WSJ, 1/7/97, p.A1)(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A20)(SFC, 4/18/00, p.A9)(Econ, 3/8/08, p.85)
1980-1989 In Romania a huge building spree, inspired by Nicolae Ceausescu’s visit to North Korea, leveled entire neighborhoods in Bucharest and left a large number of stray dogs roaming the streets. Their number reached 100-200,000 in 1997. Ceausescu ripped out 80% of the historical center to create the Civic Center district.
(SFEC,11/30/97, p.A20)(SSFC, 6/18/17, p.F6)
1990 Apr 10, H.J. Heinz said it would not sell tuna caught in nets that also trap dolphins.
(http://tinyurl.com/kj7mq)
1990 Oct 24, Humphrey the whale swam out the Golden Gate ending a 3-day visit to SF Bay. He had become famous in 1985 after a 3-week tour of the SF Bay and Sacramento River.
(SSFC, 10/25/15, DB p.50)
1990s A movement began to establish the Australian bilby, an long-eared, endangered marsupial of the bandicoot family, as a symbol for an Australian Easter.
(WSJ, 3/25/05, p.A1)
1991 Marlington, West Virginia, held its first roadkill festival as a joke. The festival received a boost in 1998 when the state passed a law making the gathering of roadkill legal.
(Econ, 10/5/13, p.34)
1991 Britain banned the ownership of pit bull terriers following a spate of attacks by the dangerous dogs.
(AFP, 3/22/12)
1991 The Canary Islands banned bullfighting.
(SFC, 3/6/10, p.A2)
1992 May 21, The EU adopted the Habitats Directive, more formally known as Council Directive 92/43/EEC on the Conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.126)(http://tinyurl.com/c27o68l)
1992 Mark Whitacre blew the whistle on a global conspiracy to fix the price of lysine, an animal feed additive. His story inspired the film “The Informant" (2009).
(Econ, 3/29/14, p.67)
1993 China banned the use of rhino horn and demand fell sharply.
(Econ 5/6/17, p.69)
1993 Norway resumed the hunting of minke whales after a six-year self-imposed moratorium.
(SFC, 5/9/98, p.A7)
1994 Prof. Melvin Bradley (d.2203 at 83) authored his 2-volume "The Missouri Mule: His Origin and Times."
(SFC, 1/21/02, p.A16)
1994 China lifted a ban on dogs in Beijing. Strict licensing was enforced until 2003.
(Econ 7/8/17, p.38)
1994 Mexico declared black bears a protected species. They were hunted out of about 80% of their original habitat in Mexico in the last half of the 20th century.
(AP, 10/19/12)
1995 Carol Buckley and Scott Blais founded the Elephant Sanctuary on a 800-acre farm in Hohenwald, Tenn.
(SSFC, 2/24/02, Par p.14)
1995 Prof. Marc. Hauser, Harvard psychologist, claimed that cotton-top tamarins can recognize themselves in mirrors. His results were questioned and in 2001 Hauser published another paper admitting failure to replicate earlier findings. His work on the cognitive abilities of monkeys were again questioned in 2007.
(Econ, 8/28/10, p.69)
1995 William Oliver (1947- 2014), English champion of wild pigs, managed to get the government of India and Assam state to agree to protect the endangered pigmy hogs.
(Econ, 9/27/14, p.94)
1995 Finnish hunting regulations began protecting wolverines. The increasing wolverine population soon began impacting the reindeer population.
(Econ, 12/24/16, p.26)
1996 Mar 10, Birdwatchers noted the "act of raptor love" between two red-tailed hawks on the Hotel Carlyle at 2:30 p.m. in New York City. It lasted a full five seconds.
(WSJ, 4/17/96, p.A-18)
1996 Apr 13, The annual Canadian seal hunt in Newfoundland went out of control and some 16,500 seals were slaughtered instead of the 8,000 quota.
(SFC, 4/13/96, p.A-15)
1996 May 25, In Indonesia’s southern Sumatran province of Lampung, villagers were being harassed by herds of marauding elephants. The elephants had been driven from their usual habitats by deforestation. Two people were trampled and villagers in the Perwakilan Suwoh subdistrict have been attacked.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.A5)
1996 Jul 4, Koko, the first gorilla to use sign language, turned 25 and asked for a box of scary, rubber snakes and lizards. Koko was the offspring of Jackie, who was donated to the SF Zoo by benefactor Carroll Soo-Hoo (d.1998 at 84).
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A24)(SFC, 7/3/98, p.D6)
1996 Aug 16, In Brookfield, Ill., a 3-year-old boy fell 15-feet into a concrete area of a zoo’s gorilla exhibit and was rescued by Binti-jua, a 7-year-old gorilla with her own 2-year-old on her back.
(SFC, 8/17/96, p.A3)(MC, 8/16/02)
1996 Aug 21, In Australia rescuers worked to save some 200 pilot whales on the southwestern coast near Dunsborough. Most were herded to sea but 14 died.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E3)
1996 Sep 1, In India wolves were reported to have killed 33 children in the area of Banbirpur in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Some reports had it that at least some of the killings were by dis-guised human beings.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A16)
1996 Frans de Waal authored "The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and other Animals."
(MT, Fall 02, p.33)
1997 Mar 1, At Spring Lake near Santa Rosa, Ca., Paul Duclos caught a 24-pound large-mouth bass, photographed it, weighed it and released it. The official record was a 22-pound, 4-ounce bass caught in Montgomery Lake, Ga. To be official the fish has to be killed, properly weighed and certified by the Int’l. Gamefish Assoc.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, p.C3)
1997 Apr 28, It was reported that a type of Mad Cow Disease was killing deer and elk in the Fort Collins region of Colorado and Wyoming. The "spongiform encephalopathies" riddled the brain with holes and it was wondered if the disease might be transmitted to humans as the fatal Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease.
(SFC, 4/28/97, p.A5)
1997 A North American ban on cattle feed that included bovine brain and spinal tissue went into effect to prevent the spread of mad cow disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
(SFC, 12/30/03, p.A1)
1997 May 10, It was reported that Iceland would resume whaling. Whaling had stopped there in 1989.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A8)
1997 May 17, From Gabon it was reported that controlled logging in the tropical forests has led to savage territorial wars among the native chimpanzees. The population was estimated to have dropped from 50,000 to 30,000.
(SFC, 5/17/97, p.A4)
1997 May 31, It was reported that more than 60 monk seals were killed from eating fish that had ingested a toxic algae off of Mauritania’s Atlantic coast. It was estimated that only some 350 of the monk seals were left worldwide.
(SFC, 5/31/97, p.A17)
1997 Oct 26, It was reported that hundreds of shorebirds washed up dead along the 25-mile stretch of Monterey Bay beaches. A non-toxic refined-sardine oil had been spilled into the bay and stuck the birds’ feathers together. The source of the oil was not yet determined. The substance was later thought to be a hydrogenated vegetable oil.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.D2)(SFC,10/29/97, p.A24)
1998 Feb 7, It was reported that over 1200 Hooker’s sea lion pups had died in the sub-Antarctic islands south of New Zealand from an unknown disease.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A5)
1998 Mar 30, In eastern Arizona nearly a dozen Mexican gray wolves were released into the White Mountains after an absence of 30 years.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.A3)
1998 Aug 3, In Austria Hermann Nitsch (b.1938) ignored animal rights protestors and began a 6-day festival during which he planned to kill pigs and bulls and paint pictures with their blood. This was his 100th such performance (named the 6-Day Play after its length) and it took place at his castle, Schloss Prinzendorf.
(SFC, 8/4/98, p.E3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Nitsch)
1998 Aug 15, In Britain it was reported that 6,000 mink from a fur farm in Ringworm had been released by animal rights activists. The released mink caused a wildlife disaster as they preyed on all wildlife.
(SFC, 8/15/98, p.A5)
1998 Aug 29, A England new type of mosquito was reported to be breeding in the under-ground Tube with a taste for the rats and mice that lived there.
(SFC, 8/28/98, p.A5)
1998 Sep 10, Keiko the killer whale, star of the 1993 "Free Willy" movie, was returned to Ice-land, where he was captured in 1979 at age 2. Much of his early life was spent at a Mexico City amusement park.
(SFC, 9/11/98, p.A10)(SFC, 10/17/03, p.D1)
1998 In France Eric Baratay and Elisabeth Hardouin-Fugier authored "Zoo: A History of Zoo-logical Gardens in the West." An English translation by Oliver Welsh was published in 2002.
(SSFC, 8/4/02, p.M6)
1999 Mar 18, In Malaysia an outbreak of encephalitis caused an order for the extermination of 64,000 pigs and the evacuation of 11,000 people.
(SFC, 3/19/99, p.A14)
1999 May 17, In Neah Bay, Washington state, Makah Indian hunters legally harpooned their first gray whale in 70-75 years.
(SFC, 5/18/99, p.A3)(AP, 5/17/00)
1999 May 19, Researchers reported that pollen from corn infused with genes from the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is toxic to monarch butterfly larvae when sprinkled on milkweed, a natural food source for the caterpillars. The genetically manipulated corn comprised about 20% of the US crop.
(SFC, 5/20/99, p.A1,15)
1999 Aug 20, The Peregrine falcon was removed from the list of endangered species.
(SFC, 8/20/99, p.A2)
1999 Aug 25, It was reported that Mickey Rooney had joined animal rights activists to support legislation to outlaw "crush" videos, which depict small animals being killed by scantily clad women.
(SFC, 8/25/99, p.C5)
1999 Barbara Smuts authored "Sex and Friendship in Baboons."
(MT, Fall 02, p.12)
1999 In the Philippines some 40 million people were left in the dark after swarms of jellyfish were sucked into the cooling system of a power plant, sparking fears of a military coup.
(Economist, 4/4/20, p.70)
1999-2001 Gambian rats first began showing up on Grassy Key after a local exotic animal breeder released eight of the rats into the wild. The rodents, officially known as the Gambian pouched rat, are the largest known breed of rats in the world. They can grow up to three feet in length and weigh as much as nine pounds.
(http://tinyurl.com/c9rn3q6)
2000 Feb, Rescue Bear 0001 arrived at the Animals Asia Foundation in Chengdu, China. He was named Andrew by the Hong Kong philanthropist who donated $1 million to create the animal sanctuary. Andrew (15) died in 2006 from a liver cancer likely related to years of being tapped for bile fluid.
(SFC, 2/16/06, p.A14)
2000 Jul 15, From China it was reported that an attack force of 700,000 ducks and chickens, trained to hunt and eat insects at the sound of a whistle, were placed in the locust-plagued fields of Xinjiang province.
(SFC, 7/15/00, p.A24)
2000 Jul 24, In Minneapolis, Minn., 80 people were arrested as demonstrators protested against a meeting of the Int’l. Society for Animal Genetics.
(SFC, 7/25/00, p.A4)
2000 The invasive New Zealand mud snail, believed to have been imported in the mid-1980s in a shipment of trout eggs to an Idaho hatchery, was first spotted in the Owens River in California's eastern Sierra. By 2018 they were established throughout California and other western states.
(SSFC, 10/28/18, p.C11)
2000-2010 More than 54,000 wild birds, including critically endangered species, were laundered through the Solomon islands into the global wildlife trade during this period. In 2012 TRAFFIC, a wildlife group, said Singapore and Malaysia accounted for 93 percent of all birds imported from Solomon Islands.
(AFP, 7/17/12)
2001 Mar 6, The EU ordered all livestock markets closed for 2 weeks to contain foot-and-mouth disease.
(SFC, 3/7/01, p.A10)
2001 Mar 21, In Vermont a flock of 234 sheep were seized by federal agents over fears of infection with a version of mad cow disease. The sheep had originated in Belgium in 1996.
(SFC, 3/22/01, p.A3)
2001 Apr 28, It was reported that researchers at the Univ. of Pennsylvania had used gene therapy to reverse a form of congenital blindness in dogs.
(SFC, 4/28/01, p.A3)
2001 Aug 14, In India it was reported that 15 wild elephants had died in Nameri National Park in Assam state from an unknown disease.
(SFC, 8/15/01, p.A7)
2001 Sep 1, Scientists gathered in the French Alps to discuss a medicine called ivermectine given to livestock to protect them from parasites. Dung from the animals was toxic and virtually indestructible and threatened the survival of insects, birds and bats.
(SSFC, 9/2/01, p.A20)
2001 Laura Hillenbrand authored her best selling book “Seabiscuit," the story of the champion race horse (1933-1947).
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.94)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabiscuit)
2001 Rome declared the ruins of the Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary to be a cultural heritage.
(SFC, 11/15/02, p.J1)
2002 Mar 6, It was reported that new regulations (Kuschelregel, the cuddle rule) required German pig farmers to spend at least 20 seconds each day looking at each pig.
(WSJ, 3/6/02, p.A1)
2002 May 11, It was reported that a dead orca whale found off the Washington state coast contained toxic PCBs so high that test equipment needed to be recalibrated. Levels were measured at 1,000 parts-per-million.
(SFC, 5/11/02, p.A5)
2002 Sep 24-25, In the Canary Islands over a dozen beaked whales beached themselves following NATO exercises that involved a cluster of warships and submarines. 9 of the whales washed ashore dead and showed lesions in the brain and hearing system, consistent with acoustic impact.
(SFC, 9/26/02, p.A20)(SFC, 10/7/02, p.A6)
2002 Sep 7, In Portugal the town of Reguengos de Monsaraz openly flouted a new bullfighting law, killing a bull in the ring without government permission, and selling the beef for human consumption afterward. The matador and the festival organizers will be arraigned in the first le-gal test of the new anti-bullfighting law. Killing in the bullring had been banned since 1928. However, Parliament voted in July to allow bulls to be put to death, but only in cities and towns that have carried on the bullfighting tradition for 50 years or more.
(AP, 9/8/02)
2002 Sep 14, In Ivory Coast’s Azagny National Park there are only 39,000 western chimpanzees left of an original 600,000. The western chimpanzee, one of four subspecies of the common chimpanzee, is already extinct in the wild in Benin, Gambia and Togo. It is almost extinct in Senegal, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Guinea Bissau and Ghana.
(AP, 9/14/02)
2002 Sep, At least a dozen beaked whales beached themselves following NATO exercises that involved a cluster of warships and submarines. 8 of the whales died.
(SFC, 9/26/02, p.A20)
2002 Oct 24, It was reported that over 8,000 backyard poultry had been killed in southern California to stop the spread of Exotic Newcastle disease. The deadly avian infection last sur-faced in California the 1970s when some 12 million birds were destroyed. The number of chickens killed reached 100,000.
(SFC, 10/24/02, p.G2)(SFC, 10/26/02, p.A3)(SFC, 12/28/02, p.A3)
2002 Oct 28, It was reported that 200 farms in China tap 7,000 live, caged bears for their bile in an excruciating process. Owners slice into the bears to milk bile from their gall bladder with a tube. Bear bile is viewed as a panacea in traditional Chinese medicine. Many bears do not sur-vive the initial operation and few live longer than 10 years, less than half the average life expectancy.
(Reuters, 10/28/02)
2002 Oct, Pat Derby opened the Ark 2002 elephant sanctuary in San Andreas, Ca.
(SFC, 6/21/04, p.A8)
2002 Nov 13, A U.N. body voted to restrict the international trade of bigleaf mahogany, sea horses and 26 species of sea turtles, but failed to pass legislation to protect two species of threatened sharks.
(AP, 11/14/02)
2002 Nov 20, Louisiana began offering a $4-a-tail bounty on the swamp-dwelling nutria rodent, due to wetlands damage from devoured plants.
(SFC, 11/20/02, p.A2)
2002 Dec 1, The US federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) began rounding up over 2,650 wild horses in Nevada to prevent starving and rangeland destruction.
(SFC, 11/29/02, p.J7)
2002 Matthew Scully authored "Dominion: The Power of Man, the suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy," in which he pleaded for the humane treatment of animals.
(WSJ, 10/30/02, p.D8)
2002 The snakehead fish was first seen in Maryland, after an 18-inch adult was caught in a local pond. The powerful fish has no natural predators in the region and is also a determined survivalist, surviving for up to four days on land. It has since migrated to the nearby Potomac River and its tributaries. In 2012 the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Inland Fisheries (DNR) offered $200 gift cards through Bass Pro Shops to residents who capture and kill a snakehead.
(www.dnr.state.md.us/dnrnews/infocus/snakehead.asp)
2002 Oklahoma banned cockfighting following a referendum. In 2005 state senator Frank Shurden proposed gamecock boxing with cocks wearing foam-filled muffs and protective vests.
(Econ, 2/5/05, p.27)
2002 The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found 64,700 pounds of shark fins on a single Honolulu-bound vessel they boarded southwest of Mexico. Federal agents estimated that they were taken from 28,000 sharks, most of them blue.
(CW, Winter 04, p.14)
2002 Japan’s Kindai Univ. managed to rear adult tuna from eggs for the first time.
(Econ, 9/24/16, p.39)
2003 Jan 15, The EU Parliament voted to ban the use of animals to test cosmetics by 2009. Imports of cosmetics using animal testing would also be banned.
(WSJ, 1/16/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 12, It was reported that the Congo Ebola outbreak was decimating the gorilla population with up to 800 lost at the Lossi sanctuary.
(WSJ, 3/12/03, p.A1)
2003 Feb 22, In Rome, Italy, some 2,000 cat lovers marched in the city’s 1st Cat Pride march and demanded protection for the many, local stray cats.
(SSFC, 2/23/03, A2)
2003 Feb 23, In Malawi a lion, who escaped from Kasungu National Park and attacked and killed about 7 people, was shot and killed by game hunters.
(AP, 2/24/03)
2003 Mar 12, It was reported that the Congo Ebola outbreak was decimating the gorilla population with up to 800 lost at the Lossi sanctuary. The ape population of west equatorial Africa had fallen 50% since 1983 due to hunting and Ebola.
(WSJ, 3/12/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/7/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 25, The US Navy brought in 2 specially trained bottle-nosed Atlantic dolphins to help ferret out mines in the approaches of the port of Umm Qasr.
(AP, 3/26/03)
2003 Apr 1, A cloned Javan bantang was born by a beef cow in Iowa. Only 3-5,000 cattle-like bantengs remained worldwide.
(SFC, 4/8/03, p.A3)
2003 Apr 9, A large shipment of African rodents, including Gambian rats, dormice and sun squirrels, arrived in Dallas aboard a commercial flight from Ghana. An "unusually large number of sick and dead animals." Some of the larger animals had consumed the smaller ones. African rodents imported as pets caused a monkeypox outbreak in the Midwest that sickened dozens of adults and children with a virus related to smallpox.
(AP, 11/29/06)
2003 Apr 17, The prairie dog population stood at 10-15 million over some 1.5 million acres. A century ago they numbered in the billions over some 100 million acres.
(WSJ, 4/17/03, p.A1)
2003 Apr 18, In the Florida Keys at least 28 pilot whales stranded themselves and 5 were re-ported dead.
(SFC, 4/19/03, p.A4)
2003 Apr 29, California biologists reported that some 92 southern sea otters had died since the beginning of the year between Point Conception and Half Moon Bay. A cat parasite, Toxo-plasma gondii, was cited as one factor weakening the animals.
(SFC, 4/30/03, A1)(SFC, 5/7/03, p.A1)
2003 May 3, It was reported that British researchers had shown that fish feel pain.
(SFC, 5/3/03, p.B8)
2003 May 28, Prometea, the world's 1st cloned horse, was born in Cremona, Italy.
(SFC, 8/7/03, p.A2)
2003 Jun 25, An Australian military spokesman said the army will kill as many as 15,000 kangaroos to keep a southeastern army base from being overgrazed.
(AP, 6/25/03)
2003 Jul 7, It was reported that the night crawler, Lumbricus terristris, was not native to northern American forests and that its introduction was causing problems on the forest floor.
(WSJ, 7/8/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 2, Two South China tigers, the first ever to leave the country, arrived in South Africa as part of a project to save the endangered species.
(AP, 9/3/03)
2003 Sep 29, In Japan a 23-month-old bull tested positive for new strain of mad cow disease. A quarantine of 604 cows followed to prevent the spread of the disease.
(AP, 10/8/03)
2003 Oct 17, A new family of frogs was reported from the western India. The purple, burrowing frog family, named Nasikabatrachus sahydrensis, appeared to date back some 200 million years.
(SFC, 10/17/03, p.A10)
2003 Nov 7, Prof. Donald Griffin (88) of Harvard, leading proponent of animal consciousness, died. "There is now abundant evidence of non-human cognition and consciousness."
(WSJ, 11/28/03, p.B1)
2003 Dec 11, Scientists reported on a partial list of genes that make people human based on comparisons with the chimpanzee genome.
(AP, 12/12/03)
2003 Dec 12, Keiko the killer whale (27), whose early life inspired the film "Free Willy," died in Norway of apparent pneumonia.
(SFC, 12/13/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 16, Taiwan's lawmakers banned the selling of dog meat and introduced heavy fines for killing pets for food or fur.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Dec 23, A cow, slaughtered in Washington state on Dec 9, was reported to have tested positive for mad cow disease, the 1st such US case. The $2.6 billion beef export industry was hit as 7 nations quickly suspended imports of US beef: Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan and Australia. The infected Holstein was imported into the United States from Canada about two years ago. A US beef recall soon spread to 8 states and Guam.
(AP, 12/24/03)(SFC, 12/24/03, p.A1)(AP, 12/27/03)(SFC, 12/29/03, p.A1)
2003 Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson authored "The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals."
(SSFC, 11/30/03, p.M3)
2003 Sharman Apt Russell authored "An Obsession with Butterflies."
(WSJ, 6/20/03, p.W10)
2003 Ted Rheingold (1970-2017) and Steven Reading co-founded Dogster, an online community for dog lovers.
(SFC, 9/7/17 p.C5)
2003 Alaska resumed limited aerial wolf hunting. In 1996 and 2000 Alaska voters turned down proposals to resume aerial predation control.
(Econ, 3/26/05, p.36)
2003 Some 3,951 bears were killed by hunters in Maine. 92% of them were bagged by the use of bait or dogs.
(WSJ, 10/28/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 8, A mountain lion was shot and killed following 2 attacks on people. Mark Jeffrey Reynolds (35) was found dead and partly eaten near his bike in the Whiting Ranch Wilderness in Orange County, Ca.
(SSFC, 1/11/04, p.A23)
2004 Mar 18, Jahari, a 13-year-old lowland gorilla, broke out of the Dallas Zoo and was shot to death after snatching up a toddler with his teeth and attacking 3 people.
(SFC, 3/20/04, p.A2)
2004 Apr 15, It was reported that over 20 sea otters have turned up dead or sick at Morro Bay over the last week. Scientists suspected a natural marine toxin. 62 otters died by the end of the month and the opossum parasite Sarcocystis neurona was later found to be responsible.
(SFC, 4/15/04, p.A1)(SFC, 5/21/04, p.B10)
2004 Apr 28, The Dian Fossey fund reported that the lowland gorilla population in eastern Congo has dropped over 70% since 1994 due to human warfare.
(WSJ, 4/29/04, p.A1)
2004 May 11, In West Virginia it was reported that some 2,000 bats and 200 birds were likely killed by whirling blades at a Tucker County wind farm.
(USAT, 5/11/04, p.10A)
2004 May 18, Kubi, SF Zoo’s 29-year-old gorilla, died, 11 days following his May 7 surgery to remove a diseased lung.
(SFC, 5/19/04, p.A1)
2004 May 20, Detroit Zoo officials said they will stop exhibiting elephants on ethical grounds because elephants can develop arthritis and stress-related ailments in captivity.
(Reuters, 5/20/04)
2004 Jun 10, German researchers reported that a border collie named Rico understands more than 200 words and can learn new ones as quickly as many children.
(AP, 6/10/04)
2004 Jun, In Georgia Chris Griffin reportedly killed a 1,000-pound hog with 9-inch tusks at the River Oak Plantation. Only a photo portrayed the “Hogzilla" kill. In 2005 experts from National Geographic confirmed the kill but reduced the size to about 800 pounds.
(AP, 7/29/04)(SFC, 3/22/05, p.A2)
2004 Jul 16, Peru’s National Agrarian Research Institute launched a new super-cuy (guinea pig), weighing up to 10 pounds, to help improve the Peruvian diet.
(Econ, 7/17/04, p.37)
2004 Jul, In Tanzania over 10,000 flamingos died at the Lake Manyara National Park. Officials were puzzled and no other wildlife appeared affected.
(SFC, 7/24/04, p.B10)
2004 Aug 9, Officials in South Africa prepared to kill some 30,000 ostriches following the deaths of over 1,500 due to avian influenza.
(SFC, 8/10/04, p.A3)
2004 Aug 12, I was reported that a huge ant colony measuring 100 kilometers (62 miles) across had been found under the southern Australian city of Melbourne. The ants were a mutant variety of Argentine ants.
(AP, 8/12/04)
2004 Aug 12, Laboratory monkeys that started out as careless procrastinators became super-efficient workers after injections into their brains that suppressed a gene linked to their ability to anticipate a reward.
(LAT, 8/12/04)
2004 Aug 21, A Chinese official said a lethal strain of avian influenza had been found among pigs at several farms.
(SFC, 8/21/04, p.A9)
2004 Aug 23, Researchers presented results on genetically engineered mice capable of running farther and longer than those bred naturally.
(SFC, 8/24/04, p.A2)
2004 Sep 8, It was reported that some 60 hippos had died of unknown causes over the last 2 months in Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park.
(SFC, 9/8/04, p.A6)
2004 Sep 28, Kenya said it will push for an international ban on trade in lion trophies and skins, expressing concern that the African lion is "under threat."
(AP, 9/28/04)
2004 Jan 1, In Norway a new law went into effect to allow foreign hunters to hunt seals. The legislation raised the seal kill quota to 2,000.
(SFC, 11/27/04, p.A10)
2004 Nov 28, On southern Australia’s King Island about 80 whales and dolphins died after beaching, and about 50 more were still at risk.
(AP, 11/29/04)
2004 Dec 7, In Illinois after Babs the gorilla died at age 30, keepers at Brookfield Zoo, decided to allow surviving gorillas to mourn the most influential female in their social family. One by one, the gorillas filed into the Tropic World building where Babs' body lay, arms outstretched. Curator Melinda Pruett Jones called it a "gorilla wake."
(AP, 12/8/04)
2004 Dec 22, A Texas woman paid $50,000 for a cloned cat, Little Nicky, created by Genetic Savings and Clone of Sausalito, Ca.
(SFC, 12/23/04, p.A1)
2004 Stanley Corem authored “How Dogs Think: Understanding the Canine Mind."
(NH, 2/05, p.48)
2004 Mark Derr authored “A Dog’s History of America."
(SSFC, 10/3/04, p.M3)
2004 M.R. Montgomery authored “A Cow’s Life: The Surprising History of Cattle and How the Black Angus Came to Be Home on the Range."
(NH, 2/05, p.52)
2004 Mark Obmascik authored "The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession." It was about a 1998 competition to see as many birds as possible in one year.
(SSFC, 3/28/04, p.M1)
2004 John Jeremiah Sullivan authored “Blood Horses: Notes of a Sportswriter’s Son," an eloquent tour of the history of men and horses.
(Econ, 6/19/04, p.80)
2005 Feb, Vietnam signed an agreement with the World Society for the Protection of Animals to phase out its bear bile farms, where an estimated 3,000 bears were held for their bile. In China an estimated 7,000 caged bears were milked for their bile.
(SFC, 4/25/05, p.A8)
2005 Mar 10, It was reported that a Texas ranch has implemented a computer-assisted remote hunting website allowing paying hunters to bag big game from their home computers.
(SFC, 3/10/05, p.A1)
2005 Mar 14, Experts said poachers are killing between 6,000 and 12,000 elephants a year to supply illegal ivory markets in Sudan to meet growing Chinese demand. Most of the elephants are killed in southern Sudan, Congo and the Central African Republic, with some ivory also coming from Kenya and Chad.
(AP, 3/14/05)
2005 Apr 11, Some 12,000 Wisconsin citizens took part in an advisory poll on shooting free-roaming domestic cats. 57% voted to allow shooting them. An advisory committee dropped the issue May 13 following an outcry from animal rights groups.
(Econ, 4/16/05, p.27)(SFC, 5/14/05, p.A2)
2005 Apr 26, In Australia, a state official said thousands of wild camels will be shot in the Out-back from helicopters in an effort to reduce their numbers.
(AP, 4/26/05)
2005 May 1, Thai fishermen netted a 646-pound Mekong giant catfish believed to have been the world's largest freshwater fish ever caught in Thailand.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 May 6, An Indian federal probe into disappearing tigers in a state-protected reserve has found the entire population of big cats has been wiped out by poachers. "The special investigation team in its preliminary assessment report has indicated that there was no evidence to prove the presence of tigers in Sariska (national park)."
(AP, 5/6/05)
2005 May 11, The Wildlife Conservation Society announced that the Laotian rock rat, also called khanyou, belonged to a new species with the formal name Laonastes aenigmamus.
(SFC, 5/12/05, p.A2)
2005 May, US airlines were required to begin disclosing the death of dogs being shipped as cargo. By mid 2010 122 dog deaths were reported.
(SFC, 7/17/10, p.A4)
2005 Jun 23, A fast food chain in northern Japan began offering a whale burger, even as anti-whaling nations urged Japan to cut back on its catch at an international conference on whaling.
(AP, 6/23/05)``
2005 Jul 15, It was reported that an estimated 100,000 gamecock breeders operated in the US, where cockfights were only legal in Louisiana and New Mexico. Breeders prepared the birds with injections of testosterone and methamphetamines.
(WSJ, 7/15/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct, Wildlife researchers with the South Florida Natural Resources Center found a dead, headless python after it apparently tried to digest a 6-foot-long (2-meter-long) American alligator. The mostly intact dead gator was found sticking out of a hole in the midsection of the python, and wads of gator skin were found in the snake's gastrointestinal tract.
(http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/10/1006_051006_pythoneatsgator.html)
2005 Richard Adams authored “The Philosopher Fish: Sturgeon, Caviar, and the Geography of Desire."
(Econ, 2/26/05, p.85)
2005 Vilmos Csanyi authored “If Dogs Could Talk: Exploring the Canine Mind."
(NH, 2/05, p.48)
2006 Dec 5, Knut became the first polar bear born to be born in Germany’s Berlin Zoo in 30 years. He was rejected by his mother and spent his first 44 days in an incubator. Zookeeper Thomas Doerflein (d.2008 at 44) raised the cub by hand.
(www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,461624,00.html)(SFC, 9/26/08, p.B9)
2006 William J and Winifred A. Krause authored “The Opossum: Its Amazing Story."
(http://web.missouri.edu/~krausew/Histology/Home_files/opossum.pdf)
2006 Biologist Bill Erickson of the US Environmental Protection Agency wrote a memo de-scribing hundreds of documented wildlife deaths due to poisoning from pesticides aimed at rats. Later studies indicated that new generations of rat poisons were killing a large variety of wild animals including mountain lions, foxes, eagles, owls and vultures.
(SFC, 12/17/10, p.A23)
2007 Mar 6, In western India wildlife officials said poachers had killed three highly endangered Asiatic lions in their only remaining sanctuary, removing their claws and bones and raising fears for the future of these rare cats.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 24, Thieves in Cambodia poisoned a 62-year-old domesticated elephant and sawed off its tusks to sell on the black market. In 2008 2 men were arrested for the killing and faced up to 3 years in prison for the intentional destruction of private property.
(AP, 3/27/07)(AP, 3/26/08)
2007 May 7, Hong Kong newspapers reported that an unidentified animal illness has spread in two southern Chinese cities, infecting at least 1,300 pigs and killing more than 300. The diseased pigs began dying in Gaoyao and Yunfu in Guangdong province following Chinese New Year celebrations in February. The illness was soon identified as a strain of blue ear disease. Blue ear disease, also called porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, was first identified in the United States in 1987. The disease this year killed an estimated 45 million pigs in China.
(AP, 5/8/07)(SFC, 5/8/07, p.A17)(AP, 5/10/07)(Econ, 12/20/14, p.68)
2007 Jun 23, Authorities said an outbreak of distemper has been killing seal pups off the coast of Denmark, warning that thousands of seals could die if the disease spreads to other northern European countries.
(AP, 6/23/07)
2007 Aug 20, In China Jia Youling, chief veterinary officer, said that the Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS), aka as blue-ear pig disease, head been brought under control. He said 257,000 pigs in 26 provinces had been infected. 68,000 had died from the dis-ease and 175,000 were destroyed.
(Econ, 8/25/07, p.41)
2007 Oct 9, In Puerto Rico animal control workers seized dozens of dogs and cats from housing projects in the town of Barceloneta and hurled them to their deaths from a bridge in the neighboring town of Vega Baja. Mayor Sol Luis Fontanez blamed a contractor hired to take the animals to a shelter. In 2008 a Puerto Rican judge found a contractor and two of his workers not guilty of animal cruelty due to lack of evidence. International anger led more than 50,000 people worldwide to sign a petition threatening to boycott travel to the Caribbean island. Tour-ism officials estimated Puerto Rico lost more than $15 million as a result.
(AP, 10/13/07)(AP, 9/10/08)(AP, 9/16/10)
2007 Oct 30, Washoe the chimp (42), who had learned American sign Language, died at Central Washington Univ. in Ellensburg, Wa. Cognitive researchers had adopted the 10-month-old chimp from military researchers in 1966.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.A2)
2007 Nov 11, Animal rights activists attacked as inhumane an Australian state government's plans to shoot more than 10,000 wild horses to protect the environment.
(AP, 11/11/07)
2007 Dec 25, A Siberian tiger named Tatiana (4) escaped its enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo, killing Carlos Sousa (17) of San Jose and mauling two others. The same animal had chewed a keeper’s arm during an attack last December.
(AP, 12/26/07)(SFC, 12/26/07, p.A1)(SFC, 12/27/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 29, Nonja (55), a Sumatran orangutan, was found dead at the Miami Metro Zoo. She had lived in Miami since 1983 and was believed to be the world’s oldest orangutan.
(AP, 12/30/07)
2007 In New York state it was discovered that bats were dying a disease called white-nose syndrome, a fungal diseases. In 2011 the fungus Geomyces destructans was identified as the cause. The fungus responsible was later identified as Pseudogymnoascus destructans.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.36)(SFC, 10/28/11, p.A18)(SSFC, 7/7/19, p.C10)
2008 Jan 3, Sir David Attenborough told the Independent that between a third and half of the world's 6,000 amphibian species could be wiped out in the next few decades by a species chytrid fungus.
(http://tinyurl.com/38tyec)(SFC, 1/5/08, p.B6)
2008 Jan 30, It was reported that bats were dying off by the thousands as they hibernated in caves and mines around New York and Vermont, sending researchers scrambling to find the cause of mysterious condition dubbed "white nose syndrome." Up to 11,000 bats were found dead last winter and many more were showing signs of illness this winter.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Mar 23, It was reported that 1,195 migrating bison had been culled in Montana after leaving Yellowstone in search of food. The culling was expected to continue through April.
(SSFC, 3/23/08, p.A4)
2008 Mar 28, The grey wolf of the northern Rocky Mountains was taken off the federal protection list after reaching a population of some 1,500 in the greater Yellowstone region. Wolves were reintroduced in 1995 after disappearing from the area in 1926. On July 18 a judge re-stored protection for the wolves in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, derailing plans for public wolf hunts this fall. On Sep 29 a federal court overturned the Bush administration’s decision to re-move gray wolves from the endangered species list in the Great lakes region.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.44)(SFC, 7/19/08, p.A4)(WSJ, 9/30/08, p.A1)
2008 Mar, In South Africa tens of thousands of swallows fell dead in Limpopo province as wet weather prevented them from eating properly less than a week before their migration for Europe.
(SFC, 4/12/08, p.B6)
2008 May 1, South Africa lifted a 13-year ban on killing elephants. The country had some 18,000 elephants.
(WSJ, 5/2/08, p.A8)
2008 May 3, Big Brown pulled won the Kentucky Derby 4 3/4 lengths ahead of the filly Eight Belles, who was euthanized by injection on the track with 2 broken ankles.
(AP, 5/4/08)
2008 May 4, In the Cayman Islands 5 captive Grand Cayman Blue Iguanas, critically endangered lizards that resemble miniature turquoise dragons, were found scattered across a breeding park in the British dependency after they apparently were stomped and gouged.
(AP, 5/7/08)
2008 May 13, Timothy Kooyman (24), a homeless man in Rancho Cucamonga, Ca., was arrested on animal cruelty charges. In 2009 additional charges of using scissors to cut off feline tails was added to counts of soaking cats in gas and torching them. Kooyman pleaded insanity.
(www.animalshelter.org/forum/Serial_Cat_Torturer,_Timothy_Kooyman/m_1804/tm.htm) (SFC, 2/27/09, p.B4)
2008 May 14, US Interior Sec. Dirk Kempthorne said the government will list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, making it the 1st animal to win protection due to global warming.
(SFC, 5/15/08, p.A1)
2008 May 19, In Australia the Tasmania state government said the Tasmanian devil will be listed as an endangered species this week as a result of a deadly and disfiguring cancer out-break. Animal rights activists said Australian authorities have started the controversial killing of about 400 kangaroos on the outskirts of Australia's capital of Canberra.
(AFP, 5/19/08)(AP, 5/19/08)
2008 May 22, Several companies agreed to pay a combined $24 million to pet owners to re-solve lawsuits over contaminated pet food linked to the illness and death of animals. The settlement involving Canada-based Menu Foods Income Fund and other pet food manufacturers and suppliers was outlined in documents filed in the US District Court in New Jersey.
(Reuters, 5/23/08)
2008 Mar 28, The grey wolf of the northern Rocky Mountains was taken off the federal protection list after reaching a population of some 1,500 in the greater Yellowstone region. Wolves were reintroduced in 1995 after disappearing from the area in 1926. On July 18 a judge re-stored protection for the wolves in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, derailing plans for public wolf hunts this fall. On Sep 29 a federal court overturned the Bush administration’s decision to re-move gray wolves from the endangered species list in the Great lakes region.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.44)(SFC, 7/19/08, p.A4)(WSJ, 9/30/08, p.A1)
2008 Jun 25, Spain's parliament voiced its support for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has called for such rights for non-humans.
(Reuters, 6/25/08)
2008 Jul 22, California Gov. Schwarzenegger signed SB685 giving state pet owners the right to set up a legally enforceable trust to care for their animals. The bill was sponsored by Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo).
(SFC, 7/26/08, p.C1)(http://tinyurl.com/5uppps)
2008 Aug, Puerto Rico passed an animal protection law, nearly a year after authorities charged the owner and two employees of a private animal control company with taking away dozens of pet dogs and some cats from public housing projects and throwing them off a bridge.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2008 Sep 7, The conservation group WWF said Australian koalas are dying by the thousands as a result of land clearing in the country's northeast, while millions of birds and reptiles are also perishing. Queensland state last week revealed that 375,000 hectares of bush were cleared in 2005-06, a figure WWF said would have resulted in the deaths of two million mammals.
(AP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 9, Morocco said it would start vaccinating all livestock after the outbreak of Peste des Petits Ruminants, a deadly viral disease, ahead of the Eid festival when millions of animals are sacrificed.
(AFP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 22, in Australia 400 sheep died in a road accident, prompting animal rights activists to repeat their call for an end to the long distance transportation of livestock for slaughter.
(AFP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 27, It was reported that the elephant population in Congo’s Virunga National Park had dropped to under 200, mostly due to poaching. In 1964 there were an estimated 2,900. In 2006 the number had dropped to 400.
(Econ, 9/27/08, p.62)
2008 Oct 1, In Australia a major report to the government on global warming suggested that Australians should eat kangaroos instead of cattle and sheep.
(AP, 10/1/08)
2008 Oct 14, Gray wolves in the northern US Rocky Mountains returned to the endangered species list, thanks to a court victory by environmental groups over the US government [see Mar 28, 2008].
(AFP, 10/14/08)
2008 Oct 17, The Bush administration named the beluga whale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet an endangered species, despite opposition from Gov. Palin. Only 375 beluga whales remained there as opposed to some 1,300 in the 1970s. In 2011 a US federal judge upheld the listing.
(SFC, 10/18/08, p.A3)(SFC, 11/22/11, p.A6)
2008 Oct 20, In China, a veterinarian said some 1,500 dogs, bred for their raccoon-like fur, have died after eating feed tainted with the same chemical that contaminated dairy products and sickened tens of thousands of babies nationwide.
(AP, 10/20/08)
2008 Oct 28, Namibia sold more than seven tons of ivory for $1.1 million, in the first legal auction of elephant tusks in nearly a decade, exclusively for Chinese and Japanese buyers.
(AP, 10/28/08)
2008 Oct 30, In Australia 4 teenagers were charged with attacking an almost blind greater flamingo at Adelaide Zoo. The bird is believed to be the oldest of its kind in the world.
(AFP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 31, The Leakey Foundation awarded its Leakey Prize to American primatologist Jane Goodall and Japanese scientist Toshidada Nishida for their work with chimpanzees.
(SFC, 10/30/08, p.B1)
2008 Nov 3, Zimbabwean officials say they have sold almost 4 tons of ivory for over $450,000 and the money will go to the country's cash-strapped wildlife authorities.
(AP, 11/3/08)
2008 Nov 17, The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said a ton of ivory items and 57 suspects were netted in a four-month operation billed Africa's largest-ever crackdown on wildlife crime. Operation Baba also seized cheetah, leopard, serval cat and python skins as well as hippo teeth at several markets, airports and border crossings in Congo Brazzaville, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia.
(AFP, 11/17/08)
2008 Dec 9, A South African man accused of attempting to smuggle hundreds of rare chameleons, snakes, lizards and frogs out of Madagascar inside his jacket and luggage was convicted and sentenced to a year in jail.
(AP, 12/9/08)
2008 James Lever, a book editor, authored “Me Cheetah: My Life in Hollywood," a pseudo-autobiography by Tarzan’s friendly chimpanzee. It was first published in Britain before the author’s name was revealed. The American edition came out in 2009.
(WSJ, 3/13/09, p.W10)
2008 Marion Nestle authored “Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine," which illuminates the connections between the food supplies of humans, farm animals and pets.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.97)
2008 Irene Pepperberg authored “Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Uncovered a Hid-den World of Animal Intelligence – And Formed a Deep bond in the Process.
(Econ, 10/25/08, p.100)
2008 In Nepal a WWF survey found just 121 adult tigers of breeding age in the country.
(AFP, 6/3/11)
2009 Jan 16, In India a herd of nearly 150 hungry elephants rampaged through a village in the remote northeast, trampling to death a young family as they slept in their hut.
(AP, 1/17/09)
2009 Jan 16, South African police and game park rangers said they have arrested 11 suspects in an international rhinoceros poaching ring. Some of the rhinos had their horns hacked from them while they were still alive.
(AP, 1/16/09)
2009 Jan 30, Indian officials said tigers have killed at least three children and four adults in northern Uttar Pradesh in recent weeks, forcing frightened villagers to stay indoors while forest rangers search for the wild cats.
(AP, 1/30/09)
2009 Feb 4, Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe signed into law new animal-cruelty restrictions that make aggravated cruelty to cats, dogs and horses a felony on the first offense. According to the US Humane Society Arkansas became the 46th state to make cruelty to animals a felony.
(AP, 2/5/09)
2009 Feb 16, In Stamford, Connecticut, a 200-pound domesticated chimpanzee was shot dead by police after a violent rampage that left a friend of its owner badly mauled. Travis (15) had once starred in TV commercials for Old Navy and Coca-Cola. The chimp was acting so agitated earlier that afternoon that the owner gave him the anti-anxiety drug Xanax in some tea. Owner Sandra Herold later denied giving Xanax to the chimp. Charla Nash lost her hands, nose, lips and eyelids in the attack. Doctors later said she will be blind for life.
(AP, 2/17/09)(SFC, 2/19/09, p.A5)(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Feb 21, In western Indonesia a Sumatran tiger mauled two illegal loggers to death, bringing to 5 the number of people killed by the critically endangered cats in less than a month.
(AP, 2/22/09)
2009 Mar 9, In Sweden researchers reported that a chimpanzee named Santino had collected a stash of rocks and then hurled them at visitors at the Furuvik Zoo, confirming that apes can plan ahead just like humans.
(SFC, 3/10/09, p.A3)
2009 Mar 14, In Algeria Islamists cut the throat of a shepherd and 300 of his sheep in Chatabia village near the Tunisian border. Three family members and an elected official died in a bomb explosion the following morning as they headed to the site of the killing.
(AFP, 3/16/09)
2009 Mar 18, Russia said it was banning the hunting of baby harp seals, weeks after PM Putin reportedly called the hunt a bloody industry.
(SFC, 3/19/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 19, A report issued by the US Interior Department said one-third of the nation's endangered birds are in Hawaii. 31 Hawaiian bird species were listed as endangered, more than anywhere else in the country. The native birds were threatened by the destruction of their habitats by invasive plant species and feral animals like pigs, goats and sheep, habitat loss and in-sect born diseases. The report also said energy production of all types — wind, ethanol and mountaintop coal mining — was contributing to steep drops in bird populations.
(AP, 3/20/09)
2009 Mar 23, Canadian officials declared the nation’s annual seal hunt open, despite a potential EU ban on the import of seal products.
(SFC, 3/24/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 23, In eastern Indonesia 2 Komodo dragons mauled a fruit-picker to death. An 8-year-old boy was killed in 2007, the first recorded deadly attack on a human by one of the endangered lizards in three decades.
(AP, 3/24/09)
2009 Mar 24, In Indonesia rangers found the bodies of 2 rare Sumatran elephants with gun-shots to the head hours after they were used for a patrol against illegal loggers and several hundred yards from their camp.
(AP, 3/31/09)
2009 Mar 25, Conservation International, a Washington D.C.-based conservation group, announced the discovery of over 50 new animal species in a remote, mountainous region of Papua New Guinea. The group spent the past several months analyzing more than 600 animal species found during its expedition to the South Pacific island nation in July and August.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, China’s state media said forestry officials in far western China have resorted to scattering abortion pills near gerbil burrows in a bid to halt a rodent plague threatening the desert region's fragile ecosystem.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 27, New research suggested that crabs not only suffer pain but also retain a memory of it. In 2021 a British government study said crabs and lobsters have the capacity to feel pain and suffer distress when harmed.
(http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/03/27/crabs.memorypain/)(SSFC, 11/28/21, p.B10)
2009 Mar 29, In Australia thousands of poisonous cane toads met their fate as gleeful hunters gathered for a celebratory mass killing of the hated amphibians, with many of the creatures' corpses being turned into fertilizer for the very farmers they've plagued for years.
(AP, 3/29/09)
2009 Apr 20, In Florida 7 more Venezuelan polo horses sickened just before a tournament died overnight, raising the death toll to 21. Officials said they may have been killed by some type of poison. On April 23 Franck’s Pharmacy admitted to having prepared a generic version of Biodyl, a vitamin supplement banned in the US, which was administered to all the dead horses.
(AP, 4/20/09)(SFC, 4/24/09, p.A7)
2009 Apr 24, In India's remote northeast Assam state wild elephants demolished two thatched-roof huts, killing five villagers in a pre-dawn attack. India's northeast has the world's highest number of wild Asiatic elephants, with 7,000 estimated in the states of Assam and Meghalaya alone.
(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 27, America, Canada, Europe and Japan promised to cooperate on validating alter-natives to using animals in medical research. An estimated 50-100 million animals were used in research annually around the world.
(Econ, 5/9/09, p.18)
2009 Apr 27, In Kenya 2 men pleaded guilty in court to illegally possessing 1,500 pounds (700 kilograms) of elephant tusks in what was believed to be the largest seizure of illegal ivory in re-cent years. Rangers and police arrested the two, a Kenyan and a Tanzanian, on April 25, when the Kenya Wildlife Service acted on a tip about planned ivory smuggling in Amboseli National Park.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 29, Egypt began slaughtering the roughly 300,000 pigs in the country as a precautionary measure against the spread of swine flu even though no cases have been reported here yet.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 30, The Iraqi government decided to kill three wild boars at the Baghdad Zoo amid worldwide fears of swine flu. No date was set for their killing. Two US Marines and a sailor were killed during combat operations in Anbar province.
(AP, 5/1/09)(SFC, 5/2/09, p.A2)
2009 May 2, Mine That Bird, a gelding from New Mexico trained by Bennie Woolley Jr., won the 135th Kentucky Derby. With an inspired ride on the rail from Calvin Borel the 50-to-1 odds win was one of the greatest upsets in America's most famous horse race.
(AP, 5/3/09)(SSFC, 5/3/09, p.C1)
2009 May 2, In Trinidad 4 police officers allegedly hijacked a smuggling boat from Venezuela and stole 1,000 endangered birds and monkeys along with 400 pounds of wild animal meat. Investigators acting on a tip found birds and monkeys in people's homes, in pet shops and even along roads in Port-of-Spain.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, Wolves in parts of the northern Rockies and the Great Lakes region come off the endangered species list, opening them to public hunts in some states for the first time in decades. States such as Idaho and Montana planned to resume hunting the animals this fall, but no hunting has been proposed in the Great Lakes region. About 300 wolves in Wyoming will remain on the list because the US Fish and Wildlife Service rejected the state's plan for a "predator zone" where wolves could be shot on sight. An estimated 4,000 wolves lived in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 5, Australia's army started shooting 6,000 kangaroos to thin their population on an army training ground near the capital, outraging conservationists who have vowed to protest.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 5, The European Parliament voted to update the rules on the use of animals in re-search and to ban imports of seal products, including fur coats and even omega-3 pills, trying to force Canada to end the annual seal hunt that animal rights groups call barbaric.
(AP, 5/5/09)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.84)
2009 May 7, Animal welfare activists said more than 300 stray dogs, dumped on isolated is-lands in Malaysia’s Selangor state, turned to cannibalism after weeks of starvation.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, In northwestern Indonesia 2 rare Sumatran elephants, believed to have been poisoned with cyanide-laced pineapples, were found dead with their tusks removed. Just 3,000 Sumatran elephants are believed to still be living in their natural surroundings.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 14, In Australia a court suspended a government program to kill 7,000 kangaroos on federal land near the Australian capital, halting efforts to thin a mushrooming population of the beloved marsupials that authorities say are threatening endangered species.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 18, A leading animal rights group criticized Egypt for using "shocking and cruel" methods to slaughter the country's pigs over swine flu fears, responding to a YouTube video that showed men skewering squealing piglets with large kitchen knives and hitting others with crowbars.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 19, Scientists in New York unveiled the skeleton of what they said could be the common ancestor to humans, apes and other primates. The tiny creature, officially known as Darwinius masillae, but dubbed Ida, lived 47 million years ago and is unusually well preserved. The monkey-like creature, discovered in 1983, was preserved through the ages in Germany's Messel Pit, a crater rich in Eocene Epoch fossils.
(AFP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, Environmental groups in Indonesia said Singapore-based Asia Pulp & Paper, one of the world's largest paper companies, plans to clear a large swath of unprotected forest in Indonesia being used as a sanctuary for critically endangered orangutans.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 23, It was reported that millions of bats in at least 7 US states (Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia) have died from white-nose syndrome, a fungal diseases. In 2011 the fungus Geomyces destructans was identified as the cause. The fungus responsible was later identified as Pseudogymnoascus destructans.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.36)(SFC, 10/28/11, p.A18)(SSFC, 7/7/19, p.C10)
2009 May 26, In New Zealand an animal keeper was mauled to death by a rare white tiger at a wildlife park in New Zealand while visitors watched in horror. South African national Dalu Mncube was attacked after he and a colleague entered the cage at Zion Wildlife Park on New Zealand's North Island to clean it.
(AP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 30, In South Africa 55 pilot whales beached near Cape Point, prompting a massive rescue operation. The rescue efforts failed and 44 of the whales were shot to end their suffering. The rest died of stress and organ failure.
(AP, 5/30/09)(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Malawi an international organization began moving more than 60 elephants from Phirilongwe village, south of Lake Malawi, to the Majete Wildlife Reserve. Local farmers had used violence to protect their crops from raids by the elephants, and at least 10 people and a number of elephants have recently died in such confrontations.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 12, In Indonesia a male Sumatran elephant was found dead in a pulp plantation in Riau province, Sumatra with its tusks removed. Six other endangered Sumatran elephants had been killed in Riau in the last two months and two were found with missing tusks.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 14, In Florida Tyler Hayes Weinman (18), whose divorced parents live in the neighborhoods where many of the cats were killed, was charged with 19 counts each of animal cruelty and improperly disposing of an animal body. Police said they investigated more than 30 cat deaths since May and were flooded with tips from concerned citizens.
(AP, 6/15/09)(SFC, 6/15/09, p.A6)
2009 Jun 17, The number of Nebraska cattle herds quarantined because of bovine tuberculosis concerns jumped to 42 and Colorado and South Dakota were warned the disease may have already spread there.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 18, Canadian officials said about 70,000 harbor seals were killed in this year’s hunt out of a commercial quota of 273,000 animals. The 7-month hunt had ended earlier this week.
(SFC, 6/19/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 21, Ukrainian border guards seized 250 turtles being smuggled into the country on a train from Uzbekistan, where they had been hidden and strapped down with tape to prevent them from moving.
(AFP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jul 1, Bolivia enacted what animal rights defenders called the world's first law that prohibits the use of animals in circuses. A handful of other countries have banned the use of wild animals in circuses, but the Bolivian ban includes domestic animals as well. The law would be-come effective on July 1, 2010.
(AP, 7/30/09)(AP, 4/16/10)
2009 Jul 1, In Namibia the annual seal hunt opened despite objections by animal welfare groups. Hunters were expected to club over 90,000 seals including 85,000 pups by Nov 15.
(SFC, 7/7/09, p.A2)(AFP, 8/4/09)
2009 Jul 1, In San Sebastian, Spain, a meeting was underway of five regional fisheries management organizations, tasked primarily with protecting tuna populations worldwide. The groups representing 80 countries met for the first time in two years to assess stocks of the fish and determine what more can be done to save the 23 tuna populations, nine of which are under threat.
(AP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jul 1, In southern Thailand a rampaging elephant stomped three rubber tappers to death after it was left to wander freely by its handler.
(AP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jul 14, In Nairobi, Kenya, authorities seized over 660 pounds of illegal ivory and black rhinoceros horn, some of it still bloody, on a Mozambique-to-Asia plane.
(SFC, 7/15/09, p.A2)
2009 Jul 17, In Namibia 2 European journalists were fined $625 (US) by a court for filming the annual seal hunt along the coast of the southern African nation. On July 31 British investigative journalist Jim Wilckens and South African cameraman Bart Smithers were found guilty of violating the Marine Resources Act by entering a restricted area without permission.
(AFP, 7/18/09)(AFP, 8/4/09)
2009 Jul 23, In China female panda You You (pronounced Yo Yo) gave birth to the new cub at the Wolong Giant Panda Research Center in southwestern Sichuan. This was the first successful birth of a panda cub from artificial insemination using frozen sperm, giving a new option for the notoriously poor breeders.
(AP, 7/24/09)
2009 Jul 27, European Union nations gave their final approval to a ban on imports of seal products in an effort to force Canada to end its annual seal hunt.
(AP, 7/27/09)
2009 Aug 12, In Montana a grizzly bear named Maximus, one of the largest in the state, was found shot to death on a ranch near Dupuyer. He had stood 7½ feet tall and weighed 800 lbs.
(SSFC, 8/23/09, p.A7)
2009 Aug 16, In Uruguay some 20 dead Fraser's dolphins turned up this weekend on the Punta Negra beach in Piriapolis outside Montevideo. Experts theorized the tropical dolphins be-came disoriented or were carried there by changing water currents.
(AP, 8/18/09)
2009 Aug 22, In Indonesia a group of thieves killed an endangered Sumatran tiger in a zoo in Jambi province on Sumatra island and stole most of its body. Police suspected the theft was motivated by the animal's valuable fur and bones. The number of Sumatran tigers has dwindled to about 250 from about 1,000 in the 1970s, according to the Washington DC-based World Wildlife Fund.
(AP, 8/23/09)
2009 Aug 22, The West Australian town of Broome, with deep historical ties to Japan, voted to sever its sister city relationship with the Japanese village of Taiji to protest an annual dolphin slaughter near there. At an extraordinary meeting on October 13 Broome rescinded the decision, which it said was made in haste and without wide consultation, and issued an apology to the Japanese community in Broome and Taiji, their families and friends for any disrespect caused by council's resolution. But it noted that it did not condone the harvest of dolphins in Taiji, with which it forged sister-city relations in 1981.
(AP, 8/24/09)(AFP, 10/16/09)
2009 Aug 24, It was reported that Peruvian police expecting to find a shipment of cocaine hidden in a crate holding two live turkeys were surprised to discover the drug surgically implanted inside the birds.
(AP, 8/24/09)
2009 Sep 1, Idaho hunters began stalking gray wolves, following their removal from the federal endangered species a few months earlier. The quota for this season was 220. The quota in Montana was set at 75.
(SFC, 9/2/09, p.A8)
2009 Sep 1, In the Bahamas an amended fisheries laws took effect to give full protection to all sea turtles found in the Atlantic archipelago's waters by banning the harvest, possession, purchase and sale of the endangered reptiles, including their eggs.
(AP, 8/30/09)
2009 Sep 9, Conservationists said poaching and drought-related hunger have killed more than 100 of Kenya's famous elephants in the north of the country so far this year. Around 23,000 elephants live in Kenya but populations can be devastated by poaching within a couple of years. A recent survey in Chad showed its elephant population had declined from 3,800 to just over 600 in the past three years.
(AP, 9/9/09)
2009 Sep 25, An environmental group said a gecko with leopard-like spots on its body and a fanged frog that eats birds are among 163 new species discovered last year in the Mekong River region of Southeast Asia, which included Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.
(AP, 9/25/09)
2009 Sep 25, Palau announced to the UN General Assembly that it is creating a shark and ray sanctuary over some 240,000 square miles around its coastline. Palau had just one boat to patrol the protected waters. Some 20,000 people populated the 190-square mile archipelago.
(SFC, 9/25/09, p.A6)
2009 Sep 29, Ethiopian and Kenyan authorities seized more than 2,600 pounds (1,200 kilo-grams) of ivory from nearly 100 illegally killed elephants. Specially trained dogs sniffed out a consignment of bloodstained tusks at Kenya's national airport. Another shipment of tusks sent by the same individual had been seized a day earlier at the airport in Ethiopia's capital.
(AP, 9/30/09)
2009 Sep 30, Bangladesh awarded a farmer who killed more than 83,000 rats and launched a monthlong campaign nationwide to kill millions more, to protect crops and reduce the need for food imports.
(AP, 9/30/09)
2009 Oct 13, Montana wildlife commissioners shut down gray wolf hunting in backcountry adjacent to Yellowstone National Park after 9 wolves were killed in recent weeks. The statewide quota was kept at 75.
(SFC, 10/14/09, p.A4)
2009 Oct 19, Japan said it has caught 59 whales off Hokkaido, one short of the maximum al-lowed by international guidelines, under a research program that critics say is a cover for commercial whaling.
(AP, 10/19/09)
2009 Oct 22, The Obama administration said it is designating over 200,000 square miles in Alaska and off its coast as critical habitat for polar bears.
(SFC, 10/22/09, p.A7)
2009 Oct 27, In Canada 2 coyotes attacked and killed Taylor Mitchell (19), a singer-songwriter from Toronto, as she hiked alone in Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Nova Scotia.
(SFC, 10/29/09, p.A2)
2009 Oct 30, The BBC said Anton Turner (38), a British guide working on a children's television show in Tanzania, was killed after being charged by an elephant. The show "Serious Explorers" followed David Livingstone's famous 19th-century trek across the African continent.
(AP, 10/31/09)
2009 Nov 2, In Kashmir the bodies of 2 senior rebels, mauled to death by a wild bear, were recovered. Police said they were members of the region's most powerful group, Hizbul Mujahedin and had been active in Indian Kashmir for more than six years.
(AFP, 11/3/09)
2009 Nov 13, India officials said all elephants living in Indian zoos and circuses will be moved to wildlife parks and game sanctuaries where the animals can graze more freely.
(AP, 11/13/09)
2009 Nov 16, Thai police arrested Samart Chokechoyma (36) and Kanokwan Wongsaroj (38) on charges of smuggling African ivory into the country to supply shops that sell jewelry and trinkets, including to customers in the US. DNA tests showed that it was of African origin.
(AP, 11/17/09)
2009 Nov 19, Four whaling ships left Japan for a five-month hunt in the Southern Ocean, using a loophole in an international moratorium that allows their killing for lethal "research."
(AFP, 11/20/09)
2009 Nov 24, In Nepal the 2-day Gadhimai festival, celebrated every five years, was attended by many Hindus from India as well as Nepal. More than 200,000 buffaloes, pigs, goats, chickens and pigeons were expected to be slaughtered this year.
(AP, 11/20/09)(AP, 11/24/09)
2009 Nov 25, Australian Northern Territory officials said some 6,000 feral camels are running wild in the remote outback community of Docker River in search of water, smashing infrastructure and invading the airstrip.
(AFP, 11/25/09)
2009 Nov 27, Bison returned to Mexico for the first time since the 1800s, with Mexican authorities releasing 23 donated US animals in northern Chihuahua state. The donated bison came from the Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota.
(AP, 11/27/09)
2009 Nov 30, Interpol and the Kenya Wildlife Service said African authorities over the last 3 months had raided shops, intercepted vehicles at checkpoints and used sniffer dogs to detect and seize over 3,800 pounds (1,768kg) of illegal elephant ivory in a six-nation operation. This involved the wildlife authorities, police and customs departments of Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
(AP, 11/30/09)
2009 Dec 2, Cambodian police confiscated two tons of live snakes and tortoises and arrested two men trying to smuggle the slithering cargo up a river from Cambodia to Vietnam. Police arrested two Cambodians, aged 17 and 20, who said they were hired to transport the cargo but did not know the identities of their employers.
(AP, 12/3/09)
2009 Dec 5, In Ohio a barn fire killed two workers and 43 horses at a harness racing track in Lebanon.
(AP, 12/7/09)
2009 Dec 7, ITV, the British TV channel behind hit show "I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!", apologized for the death of a rat during filming in Australia, as the stars who killed it faced police charges.
(AFP, 12/7/09)
2009 Dec 11, Australia's PM Kevin Rudd threatened legal action against Japan if it does not stop its research whaling program that kills up to 1,000 whales a year.
(AP, 12/11/09)
2009 Dec 12, In Italy at least 5 sperm whales died after a pod of nine beached on the southern coast. Experts called it a rare and puzzling mass beaching for such a large species. Officials were considering euthanizing the last two whales still trapped in high waves.
(AP, 12/12/09)
2009 Dec 15, Australian scientists reported the discovery of an octopus in Indonesia that collects coconut shells for shelter, unusually sophisticated behavior that the researchers believe is the first evidence of tool use in an invertebrate animal.
(AP, 12/15/09)
2009 Dec 15, Mexican authorities found the decapitated bodies of four men in the border city of Tijuana. A grenade attack on a police station in western Mexico wounded a pregnant woman and her 3-year-old daughter. US officials delivered five helicopters to Mexico to help the country in its fight against drug cartels. 7 vehicles were burned in Mexico City. Investigators found evidence linking an animal rights group to homemade bombs that burned the cars.
(AP, 12/15/09)(AP, 12/16/09)
2009 Dec 17, Malaysian marine police rescued 62 pangolins. 2 days later Malaysian wildlife authorities said they rescued 130 pangolins and arrested two men attempting to smuggle the protected species. They were expected to be illegally exported to China, Japan and Hong Kong, where animal's meat is considered a delicacy with medicinal qualities.
(AFP, 12/20/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangolin)
2009 Dec 20, Four of the world's last known 8 northern white rhinos landed in Kenya and were transported to a game park. No white rhinos are known to remain in the wild, and the animals transported have produced no offspring after nearly 24 years in a Czech zoo. Officials hoped the endangered mammals will reproduce and save their subspecies. Two northern whites remained behind; two others are in San Diego.
(AP, 12/20/09)
2009 Dec 22, Chinese local media reported that a man who killed and ate what may have been the last wild Indochinese tiger in China was sentenced to 12 years in jail. Kang Wannian, a villager from Mengla, Yunnan Province, met the tiger in February while gathering freshwater clams in a nature reserve near China's border with Laos. He claimed to have killed it in self-defense.
(Reuters, 12/22/09)
2009 Dec 23, Japanese whalers and militant conservationists clashed in the Antarctic Ocean over two days, with weapons including water cannon, blinding lasers and bottles of rancid acid.
(AP, 12/23/09)
2009 Dec 26, In New Zealand some 20 pilot whales died on Colville Beach after stranding but holiday-makers and conservation workers managed to coax 43 others back out to sea. Some 105 long-finned pilot whales, stranded on South Island, died.
(AP, 12/27/09)(AP, 12/28/09)
2009 Dec 28, In northern Nevada federal officials began a 2-month roundup of some 2,500 wild horses due to overpopulation. Federal managers on Feb 5 said the roundup was completed with 1,922 mustangs removed from the Calico Mountains Complex. 86 horses died in the government roundup, mostly from stress and trauma.
(SFC, 12/29/09, p.A8)(SFC, 2/6/10, p.A6)(SFC, 4/20/10, p.A6)
2009 Dec 28, In central Kenya poachers killed an endangered southern white rhino in a privately owned ranch and cut off its horns. Wildlife Service rangers tracked down the suspected poachers and suspected buyers on Dec 3 and caught them with two rhino horns weighing more than 7 kg (16 pounds) and 647,000 Kenyan shillings ($8,500) in cash. 12 suspects, all of them Kenyans, were arrested as other suspects escaped.
(AP, 1/4/10)
2009 Dec 31, In St. George, Utah, a trailer at an RV park containing some 19 pet pythons caught fire. 11 of the snakes survived.
(SFC, 1/2/10, p.A4)
2009 Jonathan Safran Foer authored “Eating Animals."
(SSFC, 11/8/09, p.E1)
2009 Brad Kessler authored “Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, A short History of Herding and the Art of Making Cheese."
(Econ, 7/4/09, p.81)
2009 In California an almost completely hairless deer was found dead near Groveland in the western Sierra Nevada. Exotic lice plucked from the deer were identified as Bovicola tibialis, a species that normally feeds on fallow deer native to Europe and Asia. Another exotic louse, Damalinia (Cervicola), documented since 1996 in Oregon, had also spread to deer in northern California.
(SFC, 5/27/13, p.A7)
2009 In Florida the tally of manatee deaths reached a record 429 for the year, surpassing the 2006 record of 417.
(SFC, 1/9/10, p.A4)
2009 British animal rights activist Debbie Vincent became the public face of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) after seven members of the group were jailed for a total of 50 years for their role in an animal rights campaign.
(AFP, 4/17/14)
2009 In southern China the city of Yulin, Guangxi province, introduced an annual dog-eating festival.
(Econ 7/8/17, p.38)
2009 In the Netherlands 6 people died this year from Q-fever. Some 2,300 had become infected by Coxiella burnetti, the infectious bug responsible for the disease. The bug is released into the air during birthing or miscarriages by infected goats. 40,000 pregnant goats were slated to be destroyed in early 2010.
(Econ, 1/9/10, p.52)
2010 Jan 1, It was reported that Australian researchers have cracked the genetic origin of the deadly cancer that is threatening to wipe out Tasmanian devils, raising hopes that the animal's future is safe.
(AFP, 1/1/10)
2010 Jan 4, In Kenya US citizen Sharon Brown (39) and her daughter Margaux (1) were trampled to death when a lone elephant charged out of the brush just outside Mount Kenya National Park.
(AP, 1/6/10)
2010 Jan 8, In Puerto Rico officials said they have killed 800 monkeys blamed for scavenging crops and damaging natural resources in southwest region. Most of those killed were patas monkeys. About 200 rhesus monkeys were sent to the Caribbean Primate Research Center at the University of Puerto Rico and to other countries. The monkeys had escaped from research labs in the 1960s and '70s.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 13, In Florida a 3-day state-coordinated hunt began to track down invasive pythons. It was feared that the African rock python would begin breeding with the Burmese python, which has already gained a foothold in the Everglades, and produce a new “super snake."
(SFC, 1/15/10, p.A8)
2010 Jan 13, In Seattle, Washington Tohru Shigemura (71), a Japanese psychiatrist traveling the world as a big game hunter, was charged in connection with smuggling black bear gall bladders. He had pretended to be a US citizen to buy guns, which he used to kill 6 black bears in and around the Quinault Indian Reservation.
(SFC, 1/14/10, p.A4)
2010 Jan 14, Austrian scientists stopped a 2-week old avalanche experiment that involved burying pigs in snow and monitoring their deaths, following vehement protests by animal rights activists.
(SFC, 1/15/10, p.A2)
2010 Jan 19, The World Wildlife Fund warned that the wild tiger faced extinction in China after having been decimated by poaching and the destruction of its natural habitat.
(AFP, 1/19/10)
2010 Jan 22, In Vietnam 19 rare Asiatic moon bears, found at an illegal Taiwanese-owned operation in southern Vietnam, reached a new home at Tam Dao National Park, joining 29 bears already at the rescue center. Ultrasound tests had found evidence of thickened gall bladders, a telltale sign of gall bladder milking. Some may need to have the organ removed be-cause of extensive damage.
(AP, 1/22/10)
2010 Jan 22, Police in Mexico City rescued 150 ferrets from armed robbers after a high speed chase. 14 boxes of ferrets imported from the US were taken by force by 3 robbers from a truck after it left the Mexico City airport. Two suspects were under arrest and another escaped.
(AP, 1/22/10)
2010 Jan 22, In South Africa the national parks authority said poachers have killed 14 rhinos this year. The parks authority announced military patrols in Kruger National Park, where 7 of the rhinos were killed. The other 7 were killed in the North West province.
(AFP, 1/23/10)
2010 Jan 23, In New Zealand 48 pilot whales stranded at Port Levy on South Island, but scores of volunteers joined Department of Conservation workers to refloat them off the shallow, muddy inlet. By the next day rescuers managed to coax 33 back out into deep waters, but an-other 15 of the pod died.
(AP, 1/24/10)
2010 Jan 27, In Thailand 13 tiger range states attended the first Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation. The aim of the 3-day meeting was to convince countries to pledge to spend more on tiger conservation and set targets for boosting their numbers. The meeting was being organized by Thailand and the Global Tiger Initiative, a coalition formed in 2008 by the World Bank, the Smithsonian Institute and nearly 40 conservation groups. It aimed to double tiger numbers by 2022. The 13 countries attending were Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, In-dia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.
(AP, 1/27/10)
2010 Jan 29, In New Zealand police seized weapons used by two men to slaughter more than 30 dogs owned by a neighbor in what animal welfare authorities said could be the country's worst animal cruelty case.
(AP, 1/29/10)
2010 Jan 29, In Thailand a dozen Asian nations and Russia vowed to double the number of wild tigers by 2022, crack down on poaching that has devastated the big cats and prohibit the building of roads and bridges that could harm their habitats. The 13 countries included Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.
(AP, 1/29/10)
2010 Feb 6, Spanish matador Jairo Miguel Sanchez Alonso (16) killed six bulls in one after-noon, pulling off a feat normally attempted only by seasoned veterans and winning trophies for his skill, ears from animals he had just slain.
(AP, 2/6/10)
2010 Feb 8, The Obama administration said it will spend $78.5 million on efforts to contain the Asian carp, which threatened to endanger the Great Lakes’ $7 billion fishing industry.
(SFC, 2/9/10, p.A4)
2010 Feb 8, In Australia ITV Studios, producer of "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here," was fined 3,000 Australian dollars ($2,615) after pleading guilty of animal cruelty after two reality show contestants skinned, cooked and ate a rat during filming in Australia.
(AP, 2/9/10)
2010 Feb 11, In the Antarctic Ocean Sea Shepherd protesters shot butyric acid, produced from stinking rancid butter, at Japanese whalers to try to disrupt the annual whale hunt. The activists maintained that butyric acid is nontoxic.
(AP, 2/12/10)
2010 Feb 11, Willem Wijnstekers, head of the UN program to protect endangered species, said that Zimbabwe security forces had killed over 200 rhinos over the past 2 years putting that population on the verge of extinction.
(SFC, 2/12/10, p.A2)
2010 Feb 14, In New Zealand Department of Conservation workers found 9 whales dead on Stewart Island's West Ruggedy Beach after they were alerted by a passer-by. Wild seas and strong winds made it impossible to mount a rescue for 19 survivors. Conservation officials were forced to euthanize the animals.
(AP, 2/15/10)
2010 Feb 17, It was reported that a mysterious illness was killing brown pelicans along the northern California coast. Some 100 birds were in for treatment at the Int’l. Bird Rescue Re-search Center in Cordelia. Some 300 others found treatment at the center’s San Pedro branch. Biologists on Feb 22 said stormy weather had caused the disappearance of prey in stirred up waters possible due to El Nino and recent big storms.
(SFC, 2/17/10, p.A1)(SFC, 2/23/10, p.C2)
2010 Feb 23, It was reported that Florida wildlife officials have created a special python hunting season to stop the spread of the nonnative snakes throughout the Everglades. A $26 permit allow hunters to kill the reptiles from March 8 to April 17.
(SFC, 2/23/10, p.A6)
2010 Feb 24, In Orlando, Florida, SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau was killed after Tilikum, a 12,000 pound killer whale, grabbed her hair and pulled her under water. The orca, profiled in the 2013 documentary Blackfish, died at SeaWorld Orlando in early 2017 at an estimated age of 36.
(AP, 2/25/10)(SFC, 1/7/17, p.A7)
2010 Feb 24, Thailand officials seized two tons of elephant tusks from Africa hidden in pallets labeled as mobile phone parts in the country's largest ivory seizure.
(AP, 2/25/10)
2010 Feb 26, Mozambique state media said 2 young men accused of having sex with a goat in central Mozambique are facing criminal charges, and the goat's owner is demanding they make traditional wedding arrangements.
(AFP, 2/26/10)
2010 Feb 27, Militant anti-whalers declared an end to this season's pursuit of Japanese harpoon ships in Antarctic waters, saying it was their most successful and intensely fought campaign so far.
(AFP, 2/27/10)
2010 Mar 5, In Spain the regions of Madrid, Valencia and southern Murcia said they will keep bullfighting legal and give the sport cultural heritage protection.
(SFC, 3/6/10, p.A2)
2010 Mar 7, In the US Academy Awards the film “The Hurt Locker" triumphed with six prizes and made Kathryn Bigelow the first woman ever to win the directing Oscar. Sandra Bullock won as best actress for "The Blind Side"; Jeff Bridges as best actor for "Crazy Heart"; Mo'Nique as supporting actress for "Precious: Based on the Novel `Push' by Sapphire"; and Christoph Waltz as supporting actor for "Inglourious Basterds." The best documentary feature was won by “The Cove," an examination of a bloody dolphin hunt filmed with hidden cameras in Taiji, Japan.
(AP, 3/8/10)(SSFC, 3/14/10, p.A4)
2010 Mar 8, In Alaska the body of rural teacher Candice Berner (32) was found a mile outside of Chignik Lake. Wolf tracks surrounded the body.
(SFC, 3/12/10, p.A8)
2010 Mar 13, In Qatar a two week UN conference opened with a focus on the Atlantic bluefin tuna and other marine life in the world's overfished oceans. The 175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) discussed new proposals on regulating the trade in number of plant and animal species.
(AP, 3/13/10)
2010 Mar 15, At the CITES conference in Qatar a top official with the UN wildlife agency said the world has "failed miserably" at protecting tigers in the wild, bringing an animal that is a symbol for many cultures and religions to "the verge of extinction."
(AP, 3/15/10)
2010 Mar 16, At the CITES meeting in Qatar a marine conservation group, Oceana, said surging demand for shark fin soup among Asia's booming middle classes is driving many species of these big fish to the brink of extinction.
(AP, 3/16/10)
2010 Mar 18, In Qatar the CITES convention said consumer appetite for caviar is pushing sturgeon to the brink of extinction. Fishing nations led by Japan rejected a US backed proposal to ban export of the Atlantic bluefin tuna. A proposal to ban the int’l. sale of polar bear skins also failed to pass.
(SFC, 3/19/10, p.A2,5)
2010 Mar 19, In Las Vegas a fire at the private Gilcrease Nature Sanctuary killed over 250 exotic birds and a dog.
(SFC, 3/20/10, p.A5)
2010 Mar 19, Polish authorities said a herd of some 300 bison in southeastern Poland is at risk from tuberculosis after one recently died of the disease.
(AP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 21, Conservationists at the CITES meeting in Qatar said the Internet has emerged as one of the greatest threats to rare species, fueling the illegal wildlife trade and making it easier to buy everything from live baby lions to wine made from tiger bones.
(AP, 3/21/10)
2010 Mar 21, In Indonesia a rare Sumatran tiger dragged a man, identified as Darmilus (26), from a hut in Seponjen village near the protected Berbak National Park, and broke his neck as friends tried to rescue the victim.
(AP, 3/22/10)
2010 Mar 23, At the CITES convention in Qatar Asian nations blocked US-backed proposals to protect the heavily fished hammerhead and oceanic whitetip sharks on concerns that regulating the booming trade in fins could hurt poor coastal nations.
(AP, 3/23/10)
2010 Mar 24, The UN and Interpol released a joint report saying gorillas in central Africa are in danger from illegal logging, mining and from hunters who are killing great apes for meat.
(AP, 3/24/10)
2010 Mar 25, In Qatar the CITES UN wildlife meeting rejected efforts to regulate the trade in overfished porbeagle sharks, reversing an earlier ruling at the conference and leaving none of the proposed shark species with protection. Asia nations managed to reopen the debate on the final day of the conference and voted to kill the proposal.
(AP, 3/25/10)
2010 Apr 3, It was reported that some 4.5 million animals in Mongolia had perished over the last 3 months. A dry summer in 2009 followed by low temperatures and a heavy snow cover, a phenomenon called the zud, afflicted 19 of the countries 21 provinces.
(Econ, 4/3/10, p.44)
2010 Apr 7, Innovation for the Development and Protection of the Environment (IDPE) said that from March 3-28 Congo government troops killed 7 hippos and 5 elephants as well as five antelopes, four baboons, three chimpanzees and two buffalo in Virunga national Park, a UNESCO world heritage. The soldiers "use their wives and cousins to sell the meat" in villages near the park, the IDPE said in a report that included photos of decomposing elephant carcasses.
(AFP, 4/8/10)
2010 Apr 8, Canada’s annual seal hunt began with this year’s quota raised by 50,000 to 330,000 due to a rising seal herd population estimated at 6.9 million.
(SFC, 4/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 20, The US Supreme Court struck down a federal law aimed at banning videos that show graphic violence against animals, saying it violates the right to free speech.
(AP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 22, The world’s first cloned polo pony was born in the US.
(www.thehorse.com/articles/25447/first-cloned-polo-pony-is-born)
2010 Apr 29, In Vietnam a Javan rhino, one of the world's rarest large mammals, was found shot dead with its horn chopped off in a southern national park, a suspected victim of poachers. There were only three to five Javan rhinos believed left in Vietnam. The animal was first caught on camera at the park in 1999.
(AP, 5/10/10)
2010 Apr, In Canada some 100 dogs appeared to have been "slaughtered" inhumanely, shortly after the end of the Winter Games. The incident became public after an employee of Outdoor Adventures Whistler filed a compensation claim with the province, saying he was suffering from stress after being forced to shoot the animals and bury them.
(Reuters, 1/31/11)
2010 May 13, Scientists reported that 6% of the world’s lizard species will disappear in the next 40 years and up to 20% in the next 70 years if climate change continues unabated.
(SFC, 5/14/10, p.A4)
2010 May 15, In Brazil a fire destroyed what may be the world's largest scientific collection of dead snakes, spiders and scorpions. The Instituto Butantan’s collection of nearly 80,000 specimens was the main source for research on thousands of species.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 26, In Greece a horde of frogs caused a two-hour closure on a major highway near the city of Thessaloniki. The city's traffic police chief said that the "millions" of frogs were probably looking for food.
(AP, 5/26/10)
2010 May 28, Hawaii became the first US state to ban the sale or possession of shark fins, used in the creation of some Chinese delicacies, in an effort to help prevent their overfishing.
(SFC, 5/29/10, p.A4)
2010 May 28, Australia said it will challenge Japan's whale hunting in the Antarctic at the International Court of Justice, a major legal escalation in its campaign to ban the practice despite Tokyo's insistence on the right to so-called scientific whaling.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 28, In South Africa an expert with the country's national parks said poachers killed a record number of rhinos in South Africa last year and are already on track to surpass that number again in 2010.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 28, In Alaska a backpacker shot and killed a grizzly bear with his handgun in Denali National Park. A man and woman reported that they were hiking when the bear emerged from trailside brush and charged the woman.
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 May 31, Australia filed an international lawsuit against Japan arguing that its whale cull does not qualify for a scientific exemption to a 1986 ban. Japan said the next day that it would staunchly defend its research hunt that kills hundreds of whales per year.
(AP, 6/1/10)
2010 May 31, A Malaysian government official, Malacca Chief Minister Mohamad Ali Rustam, defended an Indian company's plans to build an animal testing medicine lab in his state, saying that God created monkeys and rats for experiments to benefit humans.
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 Jun 10, The Zimbabwe state wildlife authority said poachers last week killed 10 elephants in a single attack in southeastern Gonarezhou national park. All the tusks were re-moved, leaving the carcasses on a river bank.
(AP, 6/10/10)
2010 Jun 13, Nepal’s PM Madhav Kumar Nepal and Forest Minister Deepak Bohara summoned conservation officials and the chiefs of police and army ordering them to come up with a strategy to halt the killing of endangered rhinos. 28 of the endangered animals had been killed over the past 11 months.
(AP, 6/14/10)
2010 Jun 21, In Indonesia the discovery of three dead Javan rhinos has intensified efforts to save one of the world's most endangered mammals from extinction, with an electric fence being built around a new sanctuary and breeding ground.
(AP, 6/21/10)
2010 Jun 25, In Morocco a 5-day meeting of the International Whaling Commission ended. Native people of Greenland won a long battle to extend their annual whale hunt to humpbacks, overriding objections from conservation-minded members of the IWC. A 2008 investigation showed about one-fourth of the whales the Greenlanders caught were sold on the market in violation of the commission's rules.
(AP, 6/26/10)
2010 Jun 25, In Venezuela it was reported that fish and birds covered with tar-like oil are washing up on the eastern shores of Lake Maracaibo, angering fishermen who fear their livelihood is at stake because of the country's state-run oil company.
(AP, 6/26/10)
2010 Jul 2, Jakarta's annual month-long flora and fauna expo opened. It included sales of the world's most threatened ploughshare tortoise and the critically endangered radiated tortoises, both from Madagascar. While the government has passed legislation banning such illegal trade, dealers continue to blatantly sell endangered species without fear of arrest or prosecution.
(AP, 7/3o/10)
2010 Jul 4, In Bellevue, Iowa, a pair of runaway horses in harness crashed into a Fourth of July parade float and collapsed, ending a rampage that injured nearly two dozen people and killed one.
(AP, 7/5/10)(SFC, 7/5/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 6, California Gov. Schwarzenegger signed into law a bill extending voter approved mandates for the humane treatment of egg-laying hens in the state.
(SFC, 7/7/10, p.C1)
2010 Jul 9, In California scuba divers began killing invasive Asian clams in Lake Tahoe. Long rubber mats were laid over half an acre in a test effort starve the clams of oxygen.
(SFC, 7/10/10, p.C2)
2010 Jul 10, It was reported that Amazon river dolphins were being killed by fishermen for bait and that the population was dropping 7 percent a year. The gentle and curious dolphins were easy targets for nets and harpoons as they swim fearlessly up to fishing boats.
(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 10, Baghdad officials said 58,000 stray dogs have been killed in and around the Iraqi capital over the past three months as part of a campaign to combat dog attacks.
(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 13, In Malaysia a police raid for stolen vehicles found 42 of them at a warehouse in Malaysia along with and hundreds of birds and other protected wildlife. Officers found some 700 birds and caged leopard cats, albino pygmy monkeys and other animals. They included about 20 protected species.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 15, Australian scientists reported their discovery of bizarre prehistoric sea life hundreds of kilometers below the Great Barrier Reef, in an unprecedented mission to document species under threat from ocean warming.
(AFP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 16, In Mexico Roberto Cabrera (38), with a mysterious bulge under his T-shirt, was stopped, searched and detained at Mexico City's international airport after arriving from Peru. Authorities found 18 tiny endangered monkeys in a girdle he was wearing. Two of the monkeys were dead.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 28, In Spain a bullfighting ban, passed in Catalonia's parliament, provoked passionate reactions throughout the country.
(Reuters, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, South African wildlife authorities said poachers killed 152 endangered rhinoceros in the country so far this year, about 20 more than the number killed in the whole of 2009.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Aug 5, A federal judge in Montana reinstated protections for wolves in Montana and Idaho.
(SFC, 8/6/10, p.A5)
2010 Aug 12, In Zimbabwe a wounded buffalo, known as one of the most aggressive animals in the African bush, gored veteran Zimbabwean conservationist Steve Kok (71) to death, ending his years of dedication to saving wild animals from poachers' traps.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 18, In Spain a bull leapt into the packed grandstands of a bullring at the Tafalla arena in the northern region of Navarra and ran amok, charging and trampling spectators and leaving 40 people injured.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 20, The European Union's high court temporarily exempted Inuit hunters in Canada and Greenland from the bloc's new trade ban on seal products, while asking European Parliament and EU governments to justify the ban.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, Mexican police detained six suspects on the southern Pacific coast with 3,756 illegally harvested eggs from protected sea turtles.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, In northern New Zealand 58 pilot whales died after they washed onto an isolated beach. Rescue volunteers' initial efforts to refloat 15 others that survived failed. A fresh at-tempt to save the beached sea mammals was planned for the next day.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 24, A Kenyan official said wildlife officers have seized two tons of elephant ivory and five rhino horns at the main airport that were to be illegally shipped to Malaysia.
(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 25, Police in northeastern Congo said they have seized 116 elephant tusks and arrested two men following a truck crash.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 26, A Malaysian man was arrested after his bag bursting with 95 live boa constrictors broke open on a luggage conveyer belt at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Keng Liang "Anson" Wong (52), who had been previously convicted of wildlife trafficking in the United States, later pleaded guilty to wildlife smuggling.
(AP, 9/4/10)
2010 Aug 28, In northern Greece break-ins over the last 24 hours at two fur farms near the city of Kastoria set more than 50,000 minks on the loose. The cost to the farm owners could pass euro1 million ($1.27 million).
(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Sep 8, In Australia a kangaroo was beaten to death with a metal pole in the Great Ot-way National Park in the southern state of Victoria. Three 8th grade pupils were later suspended from school as authorities investigated the beating.
(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 14, It was reported that only about 3,500 tigers worldwide were left in the wild, with less than a third of them breeding females. Most of the tigers were in India.
(SFC, 9/15/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 15, In Puerto Rico a man, accused of dragging a stubborn horse last February alongside his truck, became the first person convicted by a local jury under an animal protection law enacted after dogs were thrown to their deaths from a bridge. On Nov 17 Georgenan Lopez (24) received a 12-year prison sentence, becoming the first person convicted by a jury under the animal cruelty law implemented in August 2008.
(AP, 9/16/10)(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Sep 16, Australian scientists said they had made a breakthrough in the fight to save the cancer-hit Tasmanian devil by mapping the species' genome for the first time.
(AFP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 21, A new report, "Mauritius: The trade in primates for research," said wild long-tailed monkeys sustain broken limbs and other injuries when trappers catch the primates and transfer them to breeding farms on the island nation of Mauritius. The report said Mauritius justifies the catching of wild monkeys on the grounds that the long-tailed macaque is not native, is a pest and is not deserving of conservation concerns.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, South African police said 11 suspected members of an alleged rhino poaching syndicate have been arrested, as part of an ongoing investigation. The suspects included 2 veterinarians and a game farmer.
(AFP, 9/21/10)(SFC, 9/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 21, In New Zealand a pod of 74-80 pilot whales stranded themselves on a remote northern beach, the second time in a month that a mass beaching has happened in the region. 25 of the animals were already dead when officials arrived at Spirits Bay beach. Only 24 of the stranded whales survived.
(AP, 9/22/10)(SFC, 9/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 23, In eastern India a speeding freight train struck a herd of elephants overnight in a densely forested region, killing seven. India's wild elephant population was recently estimated at around 26,000.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 24, Investigators of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, who visited an animal reserve near the southern border town of Beit Bridge and the Limpopo river, reported that occupiers slaughtered 300 zebra for their skins in the last two months. 7 African antelope were killed this week.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 29, In northwest Ireland managers at Anderson's Mink Farm said that many of their cages and fences were cut and opened over the weekend, freeing an estimated 5,000 animals into the wilds of County Donegal. About 28,000 others declined to bolt for freedom.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, New Zealand rescuers cut free a humpback whale that had been entangled for at least two days in a heavy nylon rope that officials said would have caused its slow death.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Oct 5, South Africa launched a special wildlife crime unit to tackle a dramatic surge in rhino poaching driven by demand for the animal's horn in Asia for use in traditional medicines.
(AFP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 6, Scientists unveiled a spectacular array of more than 200 new species discovered in the Pacific islands of Papua New Guinea, including a white-tailed mouse and a tiny, long-snouted frog.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Malaysia a newborn baby died after being snatched by a monkey from her family's living room in Negri Sembilan state. Wildlife authorities fatally shot the monkey, which had remained near the house and might have been attracted by a female pet monkey the family kept in a cage.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 9, It was reported that Madeleine Pickens, the wife of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, has acquired a Nevada ranch for use as a wild horse sanctuary, the Mustang Monument Pre-serve. The 14,000 acre property included grazing rights to 540,000 acres of public land. She was also said to be negotiating for and adjoining 4,000-acre ranch with grazing rights to 24,000 acres. She hoped to return all 34,000 in government funded holding facilities and pastures to their natural habitat.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A7)
2010 Oct 12, In Japan residents of Taiji village, notorious for the dolphin hunt documented in the film "The Cove," slaughtered a pod of dolphins but spared the youngest animals.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 13, In Brazil Milton Marcondes of the Humpback Whale Institute said at least 75 humpback whales have died in 2010. The previous high was 41 in 2007.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, In Madagascar conservationists said a new species of carnivorous mammal, likely highly endangered, has been discovered in the wetlands of Lake Alaotra, the largest expanse of fresh water on the Indian Ocean island. It has been baptized Durrell's vontsira (Salanoia durelli) after the late British naturalist Gerald Durrell, who led conservation projects in Madagascar.
(AFP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 22, A shark attack off the coast of Santa Barbara County, Ca., killed surfer Lucas Ransom (19).
(SFC, 10/23/10, p.A12)
2010 Oct 22, In Canada Alberta Provincial Court Judge Ken Tjosvold found Syncrude, one of Canada's largest oil sands producers, guilty in the deaths of the 1,600 ducks in a toxic waste pond last June. Syncrude accepted the C$3 million sentencing proposal.
(Reuters, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, World Wildlife spokeswoman Marie von Zeipel, speaking at a seminar in Sweden, estimated that only 3,200 tigers remain in the wild and that this population would shrink 97% over the next 100 years.
(SFC, 10/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 22, Thai police raided a warehouse where wildlife smugglers were storing thousands of illegally collected reptiles for shipment overseas.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 26, In Belize the body of Bruce Cullerton, an American who also held Belizean citizenship, was found. He had been killed by a 30-pound (59 kilogram) jaguar, that had escaped from its cage last week during Hurricane Richard. Max, the jaguar, was recaptured and euthanized On Oct 27.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, Scientists said a new type of snub-nosed monkey has been found in a remote forested region of northern Myanmar, which is under threat from logging and a Chinese dam project.
(Reuters, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 30, In Japan representatives to a UN conference on biodiversity agreed to expand protected areas on land and at sea in the hopes of slowing the rate of extinction of the world’s animals and plant. Scientists have estimated that the Earth is losing species at 100 to 1,000 times the historical average.
(SFC, 10/30/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 31, In Kenya a suspected elephant poacher was killed on the outskirts of Meru National Park. 2 suspected poachers were killed last week in Tsavo National Park following the poaching deaths of 4 other elephants.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 30, Zimbabwean businessman Peter Evershed (59) was mauled by five lions while showering under a tree at the Chitake Springs bush camp.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 2, Missouri passed the Puppy Mill Cruelty Prevention Act. The state was home to 1,462 licensed commercial dog breeders.
(Econ, 11/6/10, p.36)
2010 Nov 3, A federal judge in Reno ordered 6 months of prison time for 2 men who admitted to shooting wild horses while drinking and leaving them to die.
(SFC, 11/4/10, p.A9)
2011 Nov 10, The Illinois Senate overrode Gov. Pat Quinn’s veto on a roadkill bill, House Bill 3178. The measure requires the scavenger to only harvest the animals during the legal hunting or trapping season, with the required stamps and permits. It allowed anyone with a state furbearer license to salvage pelts or even food from animals killed on the road.
(SSFC, 1/8/12, p.A10)(http://tinyurl.com/73pcrm4)
2010 Nov 13, In Germany a fire at the Karlsruhe zoo killed 26 animals including Shetland ponies, goats, sheep and a llama.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 19, South African officials said wildlife officials found the decomposing bodies of 18 rhinos, dehorned victims of poaching, on a private game preserve near Kruger National Park.
(SFC, 11/20/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 21, A global tiger summit meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, approved a wide-ranging program with the goal of doubling the world's tiger population in the wild by 2022 backed by governments of the 13 countries that still have tiger populations: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam and Russia. Experts said wild tigers could become extinct in 12 years if countries where they still roam fail to take quick action to protect their habitats and step up the fight against poaching.
(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 26, Kenya’s Wildlife Service said its agents shot dead 2 suspected poachers shooting at a herd of elephants in a national park.
(SFC, 11/27/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 27, In France delegates at an Atlantic conservation conference in Paris took measures to protect sea turtles and several types of sharks. ICCAT members agreed to reduce the allowable Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna catch to 12,900 tons from 13,500 tons. The allowable western Atlantic catch was reduced to 1,750 tons from 1,800, a level that American and Canadian fisherman already had been unable to meet due to stock decline.
(AP, 11/27/10)(SSFC, 11/28/10, p.A10)
2010 Nov 26, In Indonesia 5 endangered Sumatran elephants were found dead in Riau province on Sumatra island. Conservationists suspected that farmers poisoned the animals to stop them from damaging crops.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Dec 4, A Nevada panel voted to establish the state’s first-ever bear hunting season. Some 200-300 lived along Nevada’s eastern Sierra.
(SSFC, 12/5/10, p.A14)
2010 Dec 5, A shark tore the arm off an elderly German tourist at an Egyptian Red Sea resort, killing her almost immediately, only days after sharks badly mauled four other European tourists in the waters.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 6, New Zealand officials attackers wielding bats or clubs slaughtered two dozen fur seals, including newborn pups, over several days at the Ohau Point colony, one of the country’s most popular sanctuaries for watching the animals. Oahu Point was only reoccupied for breeding in 1990, and about 600 fur seal pups were born there in 2004.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 7, Hendrik Coetzee (35), an acclaimed South African outdoorsman, was dragged from his craft by a crocodile on the Lukuga River in Congo. 2 Americans watched, horrified, and paddled to safety. Coetzee was leading a kayaking expedition from the source of the White Nile into Congo.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec, The massive B09B iceberg grounded near a penguin colony in East Antarctica, forcing them to make a lengthy trek to find food. By 2013 some 150,000 penguins had died after the penguins were forced to walk more than 60 km (37 miles) to find food, impeding their breeding attempts.
(AFP, 2/14/16)
2010 The Missouri Department of Corrections established a Puppies for Parole program in which inmates train animals with behavioral or other issues that make them difficult to adopt. Inmates managed to train deaf dogs to respond to hand signals.
(Reuters, 2/9/11)(http://doc.mo.gov/documents/dai/PuppiesForParole_flyer.pdf)
2010 South Africa lost 333 rhinos to poaching in 2010, the highest number ever recorded and almost triple the previous year's losses.
(AP, 1/12/11)
2010 Vietnam wiped out its own last known Javan rhinoceros despite efforts to protect it. The last of the population was found dead in a national park, shot through the leg with its horn hacked off. Illegal rhino killings in South Africa skyrocketed, from 122 in 2009 to 333 in 2010 and a record 448 in 2011. By 2012 crushed rhino horn powder fetched up to $55,000 per kg in Asia ($25,000 per pound).
(AFP, 4/4/12)
2010-2012 In Tanzania the number of elephants at the Selous Game Reserve droped from 40,000 to 13,000 during this period. In 2014 it was reported that more than 100,000 African elephants had been killed during this period for their tusks.
(SFC, 8/23/14, p.A2)
2011 Jan 1, In Arkansas some 3,000 red-winged blackbirds died and fell from the sky over a 1-mile area of Beebe. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said that it began receiving reports about the dead birds about 11:30 p.m. the previous night.
(AP, 1/2/11)(AP, 1/2/11)(SFC, 1/4/11, p.A5)
2011 Jan 4, Officials in Louisiana said 500 birds were discovered dead, shortly after thousands of birds were discovered dead in neighboring Arkansas.
(AFP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, In Japan a giant bluefin tuna fetched a record 32.49 million yen, or nearly $396,000, in Tokyo, in the first auction of the year at the world's largest wholesale fish market.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, Swedish officials said 50 to 100 jackdaw birds, a type of crow. were found lying in a snow-covered street in the southwestern town of Falkoeping.
(AFP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 8, An Italian association for bird protection said that over 700 dead birds have been picked up since Jan. 1 from the streets of Faenza, about 30 miles (50 km) southeast of Bologna. They appeared to have overeaten sunflower seeds, which damage their livers and kidneys. The seeds were mostly waste from a nearby oil factory.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 11, German authorities ordered 140 pigs slaughtered after tests showed high levels of cancer-causing dioxin in swine at a farm near Verden that purchased tainted animal feed.
(SFC, 1/12/11, p.A2)
2011 Jan 14, In Tennessee an 8,000-pound elephant named Edie (26) backed Knoxville zoo trainer Stephanie James (33) into a wall and crushed her to death.
(Reuters, 1/16/11)
2011 Jan 17, Japanese researchers said they will launch a project this year to resurrect the long-extinct mammoth by using cloning technology to bring the ancient pachyderm back to life in around five years time.
(AP, 1/17/11)
2011 Jan 20, Dubai media reported that undercover agents have wrapped up a real sting operation, finding devices that delivered electric shocks to camels to make them run faster in races. Small vibrating robot "jockeys" were being used atop camels for racing in the United Arab Emirates.
(AP, 1/20/11)
2011 Jan 20, WWF officials said Gabon has arrested five people, four Nigerians and a woman from Benin. who were found with the heads of 12 chimpanzees and an endangered gorilla. The seizure was the largest of its kind in a decade.
(AP, 1/21/11)
2011 Jan 25, Zimbabwe's wildlife chief said poachers are using aircraft to hunt and kill rhinoceros as demand in Asia for their horns' supposed medicinal benefits grows.
(AP, 1/25/11)
2011 Jan 27, The European Commission launched legal action against Sweden for allowing hunters to shoot 20 wolves this year even though the species is threatened with extinction.
(AFP, 1/27/11)
2011 Jan 31, Pakistan wildlife authorities said they have found the carcasses of six endangered river dolphins in Pakistan over the last month. Sindh Wildlife Department deputy head Ghulam Mohammad accused local fisherman, saying their poison and nets were to blame for the deaths of the blind Indus River Dolphin. A 2006 survey put the number left at 1,300.
(AP, 1/31/11)
2011 Feb 4, In New Zealand rescuers struggled to save scores of pilot whales after 80 beached themselves. 14 died and others were not expected to last the night. 66 survivors of the pod freed themselves and swam back to sea during a late night high tide.
(AP, 2/4/11)(AP, 2/5/11)
2011 Feb 5, In northern Mexico Serengeti Zoo owner Alberto Hernandez said 14 parrots, 13 serpents, five iguanas, two crocodiles and a capuchin monkey died after power failures cut off electrical heating at the zoo in the town of Aldama, Chihuahua state.
(AP, 2/6/11)
2011 Feb 6, In South Africa game park rangers shot and killed 3 suspected rhinoceros poachers in confrontations in Kruger National Park. A 4th poacher was killed a day earlier in a KwaZulu-Natal park.
(AP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 6, Zimbabwe state media reported that the nation’s ivory stockpile has rocketed to 42,000 kilos up from a previous record of 29,000, but the country cannot sell it due to a ban. It reportedly costs Zimbabwe $13 million annually to secure the stockpile, valued at $10 million.
(AFP, 2/6/11)
2011 Feb 9, Indonesia's biggest palm oil producer pledged to follow new standards to protect carbon-rich forests and peatlands, in a move cautiously welcomed by environmentalists including Greenpeace. A suspect was arrested in his Jakarta art shop during a raid carried out by police and forestry officials for allegedly using the Internet to sell hundreds of illegal wildlife parts, from ivory and tiger skins to the teeth of the world's smallest bears.
(AFP, 2/9/11)(AP, 2/17/11)
2011 Feb 11, Canada asked the World Trade Organization to set up a panel to resolve its dispute with the European Union over the EU's ban on trade in seal products.
(Reuters, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 15, Kyrgyzstan officials say budgetary constraints are forcing them to shoot an estimated 10,000 stray dogs in Bishkek rather than build shelters for them.
(AP, 2/15/11)
2011 Feb 16, A government official said Japan, as of Feb 10, has temporarily suspended its annual Antarctic whaling after repeated harassment by a conservationist group.
(AP, 2/16/11)
2011 Feb 17, An Australian diver was killed by sharks in south Australia, in only the second fatal shark attack in Australian waters in more than two years.
(AP, 2/17/11)
2011 Feb 20, In New Zealand a pod of 107 pilot whales were found stranded on a remote New Zealand beach. All members of the pod died, including 48 that were euthanized.
(AP, 2/21/11)
2011 Feb 25, Panama customs director Gloria Moreno de Lopez said that nearly a half ton (421 kilos) shark fins were found at Panama's international airport in a shipment labeled as dried fish. She says the container originated in Ecuador and was bound for New York City.
(AP, 2/26/11)
2011 Feb 25, Thai authorities displayed a ton of illicitly smuggled African elephant ivory and rhino horns seized at Bangkok's airport, a haul described as a victory for better international intelligence sharing among wildlife officials.
(AP, 2/25/11)
2011 Mar 2, The US Fish and Wildlife Service declared the eastern cougar to be extinct, confirming a widely held belief among wildlife biologists that native populations of the big cat were wiped out by man a century ago.
(AP, 3/2/11)
2011 Mar 3, Mexican agricultural officials say they have euthanized 114 peacocks, ostriches and other birds at a zoo due to an avian virus.
(AP, 3/4/11)
2011 Mar 4, Mankind may have unleashed the sixth known mass extinction in Earth's history, according to a paper released by the science journal Nature. In the last five centuries, at least 80 out of 5,570 mammal species have bitten the dust, providing a clear warning of the peril to biodiversity.
(AFP, 3/4/11)
2011 Mar 4, A US Navy training exercise off the coast of San Diego led to the death of at least 3 dolphins and prompted a probe into whether the military violated a federal law protecting marine mammals.
(SSFC, 3/27/11, p.A10)
2011 Mar 8, In southern California hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of sardines floated dead in the King Harbor area of Redondo Beach. Authorities said a storm had chased the sardines toward shore where they died due to a lack of oxygen. The millions of sardines soon tested positive for domoic acid, a powerful neurotoxin. This acid is often found in the stomach of fish that have been feeding on plankton during toxic algae blooms.
(SFC, 3/9/11, p.A9)(AP, 3/12/11)
2011 Mar 9, In Australia Todd Bairstow (28) was fishing with his dog at a creek near the town of Weipa in northern Queensland when a four-meter (13-feet) saltwater crocodile lunged at him and tried to drag him under the water. The crocodile only retreated after Bairstow's friend heard his screams from the nearby pub and helped beat off the predator.
(AP, 3/11/11)
2011 Mar 16, The Malta-registered MS Olivia was grounded on Nightingale Island in the Tristan da Cunha chain. All 22 crew were rescued by 17th March. The ship broke in two and some 20,000 penguins became coated in oil. There was a risk rats from the ship could come ashore and eat the chicks and eggs of native seabirds.
(AP, 3/22/11)(www.tristandc.com/newsmsoliva.php)
2011 Mar 17, In Australia a pod of long-finned pilot whales beached themselves at Bruny Island, south of the Tasmanian state capital Hobart. 21 whales died but 11 were saved.
(AP, 3/18/11)
2011 Mar 18, US wildlife advocates and the Dept. of Interior reached an agreement to lift gray wolf protections in Montana and Idaho and allow hunting of the predators to resume.
(SFC, 3/19/11, p.A5)
2011 Mar 19, In Germany Knut, a four-year-old celebrity bear, died in front of hundreds of visitors, taking keepers, animal experts and fans by surprise.
(AP, 3/20/11)
2011 Mar 23, Scientists warned that up to 45 rare species of wallaby, bandicoot and other Australian animals could become extinct within 20 years unless urgent action is taken to control introduced predators and other threats.
(AP, 3/23/11)
2011 Mar 25, A global network of conservationists said Africa's rhinos face their worst poaching crisis in decades with organized crime syndicates killing more than 800 in the past three years alone.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 28, Australia's annual cane toad cull was declared a success by organizers who said that more than 14,000 of the noxious pests had perished as a result. The number of cane toads across Australia is estimated to have ballooned to more than 200 million since being introduced from Brazil in the 1930s to control scarab beetles infesting the country's sugar cane.
(AFP, 3/28/11)
2011 Mar 29, Thailand police raided secret ivory carving workshops in central in Nakorn Sawan province, seizing an allegedly illegal haul of elephant and walrus tusks.
(AP, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 30, A new study in the journal Conservation Letters by an American and Canadian research team suggested that the discovery of more than 100 dead dolphins on Gulf of Mexico shores likely reflects only a small fraction of the total killed by the BP oil spill last year.
(AFP, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 30, Thailand confiscated two tons of African elephant tusks worth millions of dollars being smuggled through a Bangkok port. This was the country's largest ivory seizure.
(AP, 4/1/11)
2011 Apr 7, Thailand authorities seized 1,800 Bengal monitor lizards being smuggled on pickup trucks to the capital. Their meat could sell for $7.50-$15 per pound ($16-$33 per kg) in China, making them worth more than $60,000.
(AP, 4/8/11)
2011 Apr 14, Russia was reported to have banned the hunting of polar bears this year, thanks to a group with close ties to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a longtime defender of large endangered animals.
(AP, 4/14/11)
2011 Apr 14, In Vietnam authorities in the central Quang Nam province agreed to set up the reserve dedicated to the secretive saola, a relative of antelopes and cattle and one of the world's rarest animals, which was only discovered in 1992. This was the second Sao La conservation zone in Vietnam, after the first one located at the Bach Ma National Park in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue.
(AFP, 4/18/11)(http://tinyurl.com/3u3l889)
2011 Apr 24, In New Mexico Margaret Salcedo (48) was mauled to death by a pack of four pit bulls in the town of Truth or Consequences.
(Reuters, 4/25/11)
2011 Apr 24, Turkmenistan culminated a weekend horse show with opening of the four new lavish race tracks. The country boasted around 3,000 Akhal-Teke horses, of which 500 are owned by the President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov.
(AP, 4/24/11)
2011 Apr, In Chad at least 30 elephants were poached this month.
(Econ, 5/21/11, p.56)
2011 May 4, The US Interior Dept. declared wolves fully recovered in most of the Northern Rockies, opening the door for hunts in the Fall.
(SFC, 5/5/11, p.A7)
2011 May 4, A Gervais beaked whale washed up on the southeastern coast of Puerto Rico. A necropsy of the whale found more than 10 pounds (4.5 kg) of twisted plastic inside its stomach.
(AP, 5/7/11)
2011 May 4, Ukrainian prosecutors said they have opened a criminal investigation against the former head of the Kiev Zoo, where hundreds of animals have died or gone mysteriously missing in recent years. Svitlana Berzina was suspected of embezzling some $47,000 (euro32,000) from the zoo by commissioning projects that weren't fully carried out, if at all. Berzina was fired last year after nearly one-half of the zoo's animals either died or disappeared.
(AP, 5/4/11)
2011 May 5, In Vietnam customs officials intercepted 661 pounds (300 kg) of smuggled African elephant tusks from Tanzania at a northern port city.
(AP, 5/6/11)
2011 May 6, Kenyan authorities said they have seized the tusks of 58 elephants, totaling one ton of ivory, after sniffer dogs led investigators to containers at the country's main airport that were bound for Nigeria.
(AP, 5/6/11)
2011 May 13, In Thailand authorities at Bangkok's international airport arrested a first-class passenger whose suitcases were filled with baby leopards, panthers, a bear and monkeys. The animals had been drugged and were headed for Dubai.
(AP, 5/13/11)
2011 May 15, In China a one dog per family policy went into effect in Beijing.
(SSFC, 5/15/11, p.A5)
2011 May 21, It was reported that a mutated form of equine herpes virus-1 has killed at least 7 horses and sickened another 37 in 8 states including 14 in California.
(SFC, 5/21/11, p.D1)
2011 May 21, Thailand police arrested a man suspected of being a key player in one of Thailand's largest tiger trafficking rings.
(AP, 5/22/11)
2011 May 24, In India representatives of eight countries with large wild elephant populations pledged to eradicate poaching of the animals and smuggling of ivory to ensure their survival for future generations. The "Elephant 8 Ministerial Meet" included officials from Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, Botswana, Congo, Kenya and Tanzania.
(AP, 5/24/11)
2011 May, Ecuador banned bullfighting in which bull dies after five centuries of tradition.
(SSFC, 7/3/11, p.A4)
2011 Jun 1, In Thailand customs authorities found 431 turtles and other rare reptiles stuffed into four suitcases and smuggled into the Bangkok airport.
(AP, 6/2/11)
2011 Jun 7, Authorities in Uruguay remained puzzled by the fact that more than 600 dead penguins had washed up on the shores at La Paloma and Piriapolils since the weekend. Marine biologists were trying to determine why such a large number of penguins were found dead.
(AP, 6/7/11)
2011 Jun 9, California officials reported that giant Central Valley water pumps killed 6 million young splittail fish last month and tens of thousands of imperiled chinook salmon since October.
(SFC, 6/9/11, p.A1)
2011 Jun 9, It was announced that the world’s wealthiest dog has died. Trouble, the pet of billionaire hotel tycoon Leona Helmsley, died at age 12. Helmsley provoked controversy when she cut several of her grandchildren from her will and left the money for the care and maintenance of her pet Maltese. The money will now go into the Helmsley Charitable Trust.
(NYT, 6/9/11)
2011 Jun 9, Indian news reported that 2 wild elephants killed a man and injured other people in Myysore.
(SFC, 6/9/11, p.A2)
2011 Jun 10, Officials from NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) were trying to find the person who has been shooting and killing gray seals. In the past month, five adult seals, all with gunshot wounds to the head, have been found dead on Cape Cod (MA) beaches.
(Boston Globe, 6/10/11)(New Bedford MA Standard-Times, 6/10/11)
2011 Jun 11, A 140 lb. male mountain lion was struck by an SUV on a highway in Milford, CT. The driver was unhurt but the mountain lion died from its injuries. Since mountain lions are not native to Connecticut, officials from the Department of Environmental Protection believed the animal had been held in captivity and then escaped from its owner.
(Hartford Courant, 6/11/11)(Reuters, 6/12/11)
2011 Jun 28, The Dutch parliament agreed with the Dutch Party for the Animals (pvdD) and passed a bill banning the slaughter of livestock without stunning it first, removing an exemption that has allowed Jews and Muslims to butcher animals according to centuries old dietary rules.
(SFC, 6/28/11, p.A2)(Econ, 12/21/13, p.80)
2011 Jun 28, The UN officially declared that the rinderpest disease has been wiped off the face of the Earth. The UN program to eradicate the animal disease began in 1945 and cost some $5 billion.
(SFC, 6/28/11, p.A4)
2011 Jun, Scientists from the Philippines and the California Academy of Sciences completed a 6-week study of the island of Luzon and discovered over 3000 new species of land animals, plants and deep sea creatures.
(SFC, 6/25/11, p.A8)
2011 Jul 1, In Indonesia an 18-month-old Sumatran tiger died seven days after it fell into a trap and within three hours of being tranquilized by local conservation officials. The trap was on the border of an acacia forest and an APP logging concession. Estimates of the number of Sumatran tigers remaining in the world range from 300 to 400.
(AP, 7/26/11)
2011 Jul 1, In Italy a horse smashed into a barrier and died during training for a famed race around Sienna’s cobblestone piazza, leading to calls from animal rights groups for a suspension of the risky bareback contest. Some 50 horses have died since 1970.
(AP, 7/2/11)
2011 Jul 4, The WWF said South Africa lost 193 rhinos in the first six months of the year, with 126 of them killed in Kruger National Park.
(AFP, 7/4/11)
2011 Jul 5, The Bahamas banned commercial fishing of sharks, awarding protection to the more than 40 species circling the island chain that touts itself as the shark diving capital of the world. The ban applies to an estimated 243,000 square miles (630,000 square km) of water surrounding the archipelago.
(AP, 7/6/11)
2011 Jul 6, In Wyoming a female grizzly bear attacked and killed a man who encountered the bruin and her cubs while he was hiking with his wife in Yellowstone National Park.
(Reuters, 7/6/11)
2011 Jul 7, The journal Current Biology reported that all polar bears today have descended from one female brown bear in Ireland between 20,000 and 50,000 years ago.
(SFC, 7/8/11, p.A6)
2011 Jul 9, An Indian wildlife official said 3 wild elephants were electrocuted after they toppled a high-tension electricity line near Dudhwa National Park, Uttar Pradesh state.
(AFP, 7/9/11)
2011 Jul 20, Kenyan authorities burned five tons of contraband elephant ivory in hopes of raising awareness about rising levels of poaching. Africa had 1.3 million elephants in the 1970s but only 500,000 remained today.
(AP, 7/20/11)
2011 Jul 21, Ecuadoran authorities said they have seized 357 dead sharks from a boat fishing illegally in the protected waters off the Galapagos Islands.
(SFC, 7/22/11, p.A2)
2011 Jul 23, Rescuers in Scotland said they have guided 44 pilot whales stranded in an estuary back to sea, but 25 other whales from the pod did not survive the incident and died.
(AP, 7/23/11)
2011 Aug 3, Conservationists urged Malaysia to impose a national ban on the trade and consumption of turtle eggs to ensure the survival of the marine creatures. Turtles once arrived in their thousands to lay eggs on Malaysian beaches but are now increasingly rare due to poaching and coastal development.
(AFP, 8/3/11)
2011 Aug 5, In the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard a polar bear mauled one person to death and left four other members of a British youth expeditions group seriously injured.
(AFP, 8/5/11)
2011 Aug 9, In Sri Lanka wildlife groups announced they were withdrawing their support for an elephant count after Wildlife Minister S.M. Chandransena was quoted as saying 300 young elephants will be captured and handed over to Buddhist temples after the census. The groups had agreed to deploy about 200 volunteers to help the Wildlife Department count the animals.
(AP, 8/9/11)
2011 Aug 11, Brazilian police arrested seven people and seized more than 2,600 animals in a 2-day crackdown on the illegal trafficking of wild animals. The watchdog group Renctas says about 15% of the $10 billion to $20 billion global illegal animal trade takes place in Brazil.
(AP, 8/11/11)
2011 Aug 11, Sri Lanka closed all its national parks to tourists for a 3-day census of elephants. Officials believed the Sri Lanka elephant population to be 5,000 to 6,000, down from an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 in the early 1900s.
(AP, 8/12/11)
2011 Aug 26, The UN wildlife trade regulator said it was lifting its 2005 suspension on wildlife commerce with Nigeria, citing the country's improved efforts to combat illegal trade.
(AFP, 8/26/11)
2011 Sep 2, In Zimbabwe an independent conservation group said a new influx of settlers at a nature preserve in the southeast is destroying the sanctuary of at least 70 elephants.
(AP, 9/2/11)
2011 Sep 3, In the Philippines villagers and veteran hunters in Bunawan township in Agusan del Sur province captured a one-ton saltwater crocodile which they plan to make the star of a planned ecotourism park.
(AP, 9/5/11)
2011 Sep 6, Indian PM Manmohan Singh arrived in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka on an official visit aimed at boosting the sometimes fraught relations between India and its smaller Muslim-majority neighbor. Bangladesh and India signed two deals to tackle poaching of critically-endangered Bengal tigers from the world's largest mangrove forest.
(AFP, 9/6/11)(AFP, 9/7/11)
2011 Sep 6, Thailand authorities arrested two men in the northeast for trying to smuggle more 120 dogs into Vietnam to be sold for human consumption. 31 of the dogs were dead.
(AP, 9/6/11)
2011 Sep 13, A Sri Lankan minister led a protest march that forced organizers to abandon an annual Hindu sacrifice ritual in which hundreds of goats were due to slaughtered. The grisly ritual, in which goats are decapitated in public using a large hatchet, was first banned in the 1980s but was revived as locals believe the animals' blood grants favors from the gods.
(AFP, 9/13/11)
2011 Sep 15, Japan's Fisheries Agency said that its fleet has harvested 49 minke, 95 sei and 50 Bryde's whales and one sperm whale during its three-month Pacific expedition.
(AP, 9/15/11)
2011 Sep 16, The US National Marine Fisheries Service moved the loggerhead turtle population of in the North Pacific from threatened to endangered.
(SFC, 9/17/11, p.C2)
2011 Sep 16, In Montana Ty Bell and Steve Stevenson were on a black bear hunting trip with two other people along the Montana-Idaho border when they were attacked by a grizzly bear they had wounded. Stevenson died of a single gunshot to the chest as Bell tried to kill the bear.
(AP, 9/23/11)
2011 Sep 19, Zimbabwe's wildlife authority said poachers have begun poisoning watering holes, killing nine elephants and at least five lions in recent weeks.
(AP, 9/19/11)
2011 Sep 25, Spain's powerful northeastern region of Catalonia bid farewell to the country's emblematic tradition of bullfighting with a final bash at the Barcelona bullring. A regional ban on the bloody pastime takes effect Jan. 1, 2012.
(AP, 9/25/11)
2011 Sep 25, Thailand authorities rescued nearly 100 endangered pangolins, scaly anteaters worth about $32,000, that they say were to be sold and eaten outside the country.
(AP, 9/26/11)
2011 Sep 28, Officials said South Africa and Vietnam have launched talks toward an agreement to curb rhino poaching, which has soared in recent years driven by booming demand in Asia.
(AFP, 9/28/11)
2011 Sep 30, In Connecticut a 20-month-old girl died after being attacked by as many as three pit bulls inside an apartment house in West Haven. The dogs were euthanized.
(Reuters, 10/1/11)
2011 Sep, A Florida homeowner first spotted a giant African land snail. By 2013 more than 1,000 of the mollusks were being caught each week in Miami-Dade and 117,000 in total since the first spotting. A typical snail can produce about 1,200 eggs a year and the creatures are a particular pest in homes because of their fondness for stucco, devoured for the calcium content they need for their shells.
(Reuters, 4/14/13)
2011 Sep, A mammoth was excavated from the Siberian permafrost after it was found by a Russian boy named Jenya (11). In 2012 scientists suggested that the mammoth might have been killed by human hunters 20-30 thousand years ago.
(SFC, 10/6/12, p.A4)
2011 Oct 7, California’s Gov. Jerry Brown signed measures to ban the importation, possession and sale of shark fins. The importation ban begins in January, but sale and use will continue to July 2013.
(SFC, 10/8/11, p.A1)
2011 Oct 7, Spanish bullfighter Juan Jose Padilla (39) was pinned to the ground and gored by a bull in Zaragoza. He is likely to suffer facial paralysis and lose the sight in one eye after a terrifying goring.
(AP, 10/8/11)
2011 Oct 10, In Australia Bryn Martin (64) disappeared while swimming toward a buoy off Perth city's central Cottesloe Beach. Officials suspected that a shark attack killed Martin.
(AP, 10/10/11)
2011 Oct 18, In Ohio sheriff's deputies shot 48 animals, including 18 rare Bengal tigers and 17 lions, after Terry Thompson, owner of the private Muskingum County Animal Farm near Zanesville, threw their cages open and then committed suicide.
(AP, 10/20/11)
2011 Oct 22, Off southwest Australia a great white shark killed an American recreational diver in a third fatality in recent weeks.
(AP, 10/22/11)
2011 Oct 26, A high-end jewelry manufacturer in the US Virgin Islands was ordered to forfeit thousands of pounds (kg) of protected black coral and pay a $1.8 million fine for trading in it. Gem Manufacturing Inc. pleaded guilty to seven counts of violating the Endangered Species Act and the Lacey Act.
(AP, 10/26/11)
2011 Oct 31, Bangladesh wildlife officials said Bangladesh will declare three river areas in its southwest as dolphin sanctuaries, in a bid to protect the country's population of endangered freshwater cetaceans.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2011 Nov 3, Wildlife group WWF said rhino poaching in South Africa has hit a new record high, with 341 of the animals lost to poachers so far this year as black-market demand for rhino horn soars.
(AFP, 11/3/11)
2011 Nov 3, In Vietnam an Interpol meeting in Hanoi unveiled a campaign to help save the world's last wild tigers in the 13 Asian countries where they still exist, winning praise from conservationists.
(AP, 11/3/11)
2011 Nov 10, The International Union for Conservation of Nature said the Western Black Rhino of Africa has been declared officially extinct. The Javan Rhino was said to be "probably extinct" in Vietnam, after poachers killed the last animal there in 2010. A small but declining population of the Javan Rhino still survived on the Indonesian island of Java.
(AP, 11/10/11)
2011 Nov 12, In Australia 22 sperm whales and 2 minke whales died after getting stranded near Ocean Beach, Tasmania. Rescuers over the next 2 days saved two huge sperm whales stranded at Macquarie Harbor. Another died and a 4th remained stranded as weather worsened.
(AFP, 11/14/11)(AP, 11/15/11)
2011 Nov 14, It was reported that villagers living on the Indonesian side of Borneo killed at least 750 endangered orangutans in a year, some to protect crops from being raided and others for their meat, a new survey shows. The information was based on interviews with 6983 people between April 2008 and September 2009.
(AP, 11/14/11)
2011 Nov 15, Hong Kong customs officers intercepted a record haul of 33 rhino horns, 758 ivory chopsticks and 127 bracelets hidden inside a container shipped from South Africa.
(AFP, 11/16/11)
2011 Nov 15, New Zealand conservation officials euthanized 18 beached pilot whales following a mass stranding on a South Island beach that left a total of 65 whales dead.
(SFC, 11/16/11, p.A2)
2011 Nov 18, US Congress lifted a 5-year-old ban on funding horse meat inspections in a spending bill Pres. Obama signed into law to keep the government afloat until mid-December. The last US slaughterhouse that butchered horses closed in 2007 in Illinois. Animal welfare activists have warned of massive public outcry in any town where a slaughterhouse may open.
(AP, 11/30/11)
2011 Nov 19, In Turkey delegates at an international conservation meeting agreed on a measure mandating that silky sharks accidentally caught in fishing gear be released back into the sea alive. The 48-member International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) failed to reach consensus on other threatened shark species. To fight illegal fishing, ICCAT members decided that vessels measuring 12 meters or more, instead of the previous 20 meters or more, would be inspected on arrival to port.
(AP, 11/19/11)
2011 Nov 22, Romanian lawmakers voted to make it legal to euthanize the thousands of stray dogs that roam the country's streets, angering animal rights activists who have lobbied for months to stop the measure. The law will allow officials to round up homeless dogs from the street, hold them in shelters for 30 days and then have them killed. President Traian Basescu was expected to sign the law.
(AP, 11/22/11)
2011 Nov 23, Indonesian police said they have arrested two plantation workers for killing 20 endangered orangutans and other apes as pest control for palm oil companies. They were paid one million rupiah ($111) for each dead orangutan and 200,000 rupiah for every monkey killed.
(AFP, 11/23/11)
2011 Nov 23, Zimbabwe wildlife authorities said at least 77 elephants have died in a three-month heat wave in western Hwange National Park that has dried up watering holes.
(AP, 11/23/11)
2011 Nov, Maria Assunta (94) left a $13 million fortune to her beloved kitty Tommaso when she died two weeks ago. The feline's newfound riches include cash, as well as properties in Rome, Milan and land in Calabria.
(ABCNews, 12/12/11)
2011 Dec 6, Animal Asia, an animal protection group, said 14 Asiatic black bears have been rescued from a bear bile farm in Vietnam after their owner decided to renounce the illegal trade.
(AFP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, The South African national Parks authority said rhino poaching has climbed to a record for a 2nd year. As many as 405 rhinos have been killed so far this year, 22% more than in 2010.
(SFC, 12/7/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 7, In Argentina Czech national Karel Abelovsky (51) was nabbed for trying to board a transatlantic flight with 247 live animals including poisonous snakes and endangered reptiles packed in a bulging suitcase.
(AFP, 12/26/11)
2011 Dec 8, Researchers at the Univ. of Chicago reported experiments demonstrating that a rat would free a fellow rat trapped in a restrictive cage even without a payoff, indicating empathy and selfless behavior.
(SFC, 12/9/11, p.A16)
2011 Dec 12, In Utah some 4000-5000 migratory birds, eared grebes, were killed or injured after apparently mistaking a Wal-Mart parking lot, football fields and other snow-covered areas of southern Utah for bodies of water and plummeting to the ground in what one state wildlife expert called the worst mass bird crash she'd ever seen. A high-profile crash in Arkansas in January killed about 4,500 birds, mainly red-winged blackbirds.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 22, Kenyan authorities said they have seized 727 pieces of ivory in a container at the main port of Mombasa in one of the largest hauls of tusks in recent years. The items were wrapped in plastic bags in a container which documents said was destined for Dubai.
(AFP, 12/22/11)
2011 Dec 24, In Indonesia a rampaging wild elephant trampled a farmer to death on Sumatra island. Only 3,000 Sumatran elephants are believed to remain in the wild.
(AP, 12/25/11)
2011 Dec 25, Anti-whaling activists intercepted Japan's harpoon fleet far north of Antarctic waters, with the help of a military-style drone.
(AFP, 12/25/11)
2011 Dec 31, Police in Beebe, Arkansas, said dozens of blackbirds had fallen dead, prompting officers to ban residents from shooting fireworks. Thousands of dead blackbirds rained down on the town in central Arkansas last New Year's Eve after revelers set off fireworks.
(AP, 1/1/12)
2011 West Virginia began field trails on a vaccine to stop the spread of rabies. Marshmallow-flavored packets of ONRAB, designed to be eaten by raccoons, skunks and other furry creatures, were dropped from aircraft.
(Econ, 9/14/13, p.32)
2011 The group Stop Rhino Poaching estimated that 446 rhinos were killed in South Africa this year, a sharp jump from the 13 lost in 2007, 83 in 2008, 122 in 2009 and 333 in 2010.
(AFP, 1/3/12)
2011-2016 Nearly all of 150,000 Adelie penguins on the shores of Antarctica’s Commonwealth Bay have starved or disappeared over this five-year period after a giant iceberg blocked access to their main food source.
(SSFC, 1/1/17, p.C14)
2012 Jan 4, Anti-whaling activists claimed a small victory in their Antarctic campaign with the discovery of a Japanese harpoon ship.
(AFP, 1/4/12)
2012 Jan 5, In Japan a deep-pocketed restaurateur shelled out nearly $750,000 for a tuna at the Tsukiji fish market, smashing the record price for a single bluefin.
(AFP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, Thai wildlife officials said body parts from a dead wild elephant, found on Jan 2 without its tusks, tail and penis, were likely destined for restaurants in tourist areas. The creature, which was discovered in Kaeng Krachan National Park near the Myanmar border.
(AFP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 6, In New Zealand 7 long-finned pilot whales died after being beached. Rescuers the next day were confident they had saved 18 others.
(AP, 1/7/12)
2012 Jan 7, Sri Lanka media said a moratorium on killing stray dogs has been lifted as the government attempts to cut down on the 2,000 people that are hospitalized every day after being bitten.
(AFP, 1/7/12)
2012 Jan 8, In California animal rights arsonists destroyed 14 cattle trucks at the Harris Ranch of I-5.
(SFC, 1/11/12, p.C3)
2012 Jan 8, Wildlife officials said white-tailed deer populations in parts of eastern Montana and elsewhere in the Northern Plains could take years to recover from a devastating disease that killed thousands of the animals in recent months. The deaths were attributed to an outbreak of epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD), transmitted by biting midges.
(AP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 10, South African rangers found eight dead rhinos that had been stripped of their horns, an unprecedented one-day toll, in Kruger National Park.
(AP, 1/11/12)
2012 Jan 11, In South Africa 2 suspected rhino poachers were shot dead by rangers in Kruger National Park, a day after eight dehorned carcasses were found there.
(AFP, 1/11/12)
2012 Jan 11, In Zimbabwe 3 suspects appeared in court in Harare accused of murder and of possessing rhino horn worth $120,000 found in a vehicle still registered to Sessel Zvidzai, deputy local government minister in the former opposition party. The next day Zvidzai expressed surprise and said that he sold the truck two years ago.
(AP, 1/12/12)
2012 Jan 12, A Thai navy patrol caught a gang of dog smugglers on the shore of the Mekong River in Nakhon Phanom province. At least 750 dogs were to be transported through Laos to Vietnam, where dog meat is a delicacy.
(AP, 1/12/12)
2012 Jan 19, In eastern Indonesia a crocodile swallowed a 10-year-old girl while she played in the Wailolong river with her father, the second death in the same place in two months.
(AFP, 1/19/12)
2012 Jan 20, US federal regulators designated nearly 42,000 square miles of ocean along the West Coast as critical habitat for the endangered Pacific leatherback turtle.
(SFC, 1/21/12, p.A1)
2012 Jan 21, In New Jersey a fire destroyed a barn in Lafayette killing 22 valuable show horses.
(SSFC, 1/22/12, p.A7)
2012 Jan 21, In eastern Spain a flaming-horned bull trampled and fatally gored a man during a festival in Navajas. Catalonia had legislation protecting flaming bulls, despite a ban that took effect on Jan 1.
(AP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 24, In New Zealand a mass-stranding of whales left 36 of the creatures dead and threatened 40 more. 99 pilot whales had stranded themselves a day earlier on Farewell Spit on the South Island.
(AP, 1/24/12)
2012 Jan 26, A Thailand wildlife official said a worrisome new practice of Thais consuming elephant meat could threaten the national animal with extinction. Thailand's elephant population was under 3,000 wild elephants, plus some 4,000 domesticated.
(AP, 1/26/12)
2012 Jan 27, In India a leopard badly mauled two people including a pregnant woman after straying into Guwahati, the largest city in northeast Assam state. It was the third such attack there in as many weeks.
(AFP, 1/27/12)
2012 Jan 27, The Rwandan government said it will increase the cost of a permit to track the endangered mountain gorillas, the country's main tourist attraction, to $750 from $500 starting June 1. The permit allows visitors to spend around one hour observing the primates, estimated to total just 790 worldwide.
(AP, 1/27/12)
2012 Jan 28, Bird enthusiasts were reporting rising numbers of snowy owls from the Arctic winging into the lower 48 states this winter in a mass southern migration.
(Reuters, 1/28/12)
2012 Jan 30, A new study said a burgeoning population of huge pythons, many of them pets that were turned loose by their owners when they got too big, appears to be wiping out large numbers of raccoons, opossums, bobcats and other mammals in the Florida Everglades.
(AP, 1/31/12)
2012 Jan, In Peru dolphins began dying after they were stranded on an 84-mile stretch of coastline. By April as many as 2,800 dolphins were reported dead. Scientists remained puzzled.
(SFC, 4/7/12, p.A3)
2012 Feb 1, South Africa’s national parks agency said 3 young Mozambican poachers will spend 25 years behind bars after they were found with two fresh rhino horns in Kruger Park.
(AFP, 2/2/12)
2012 Feb 3, Puerto Rico's government announced plans to kill as many iguanas as possible and export their meat in hopes of eradicating an imported species that has long vexed residents and entertained tourists. The reptiles were first seen in the wild in Puerto Rico in the 1970s when owners began to release them, and their numbers have since exploded. The US territory estimated it has 4 million iguanas, which is a little more than the island's human population.
(AP, 2/4/12)
2012 Feb 4, In eastern China a group of tourists visiting the Jinan Wildlife World had a narrow escape after up to 8 Bengal tigers attacked their bus, puncturing its tires and destroying the windscreen in Shandong province.
(AFP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 11, Canada set the seal on improving ties with China by agreeing to a 10-year loan for two giant pandas, traditionally an indication of official approval from Beijing.
(Reuters, 2/11/12)
2012 Feb 12, DogTV went live on Time Warner Cable and Cox Media. It was produced by Jasmine Group, an Israeli company, which hoped to charge a premium of $4.99 per month for the channel designed to keep dogs company.
(SFC, 3/5/12, p.D3)
2012 Feb 14, In Massachusetts 11 more dolphins beached themselves at Cape Cod. Ten were rescued. Over the last month some 178 have stranded in the area and 125 died.
(SFC, 2/17/12, p.A7)
2012 Feb 14, Uganda officials said they have seized nearly 360 pounds (162 kg) of ivory and other animal parts and products that were being smuggled in and out of the country. Officials said Chinese demand is behind the illegal trade in endangered species and animal products.
(AP, 2/14/12)
2012 Feb 16, Wildlife activists said poachers in Cameroon have slaughtered at least 200 elephants in the past five weeks, where they are more dangerously endangered than anywhere else on Earth.
(AP, 2/16/12)
2012 Feb 16, An animal protection group said 4 Chinese nationals have been arrested in Zimbabwe on cruelty charges after they cut up and ate rare tortoises. The 4 men were found to have entered Zimbabwe illegally and worked without permits in the small scale mining district of Bikita. They awaited deportation.
(AP, 2/16/12)
2012 Feb 22, Anti-whaling campaigners Sea Shepherd attacked a Japanese whaling ship in the Antarctic Ocean by firing paint bombs at it and trying to jam its propeller with ropes.
(AP, 2/23/12)
2012 Feb 22, Researchers in northeast India released a report on the discovery of a new family of legless amphibians, named Chikilidae, in a rare scientific breakthrough.
(AFP, 2/22/12)
2012 Feb 23, California officials said about a third of an estimated 50,000 hens at A&L Poultry, west of Turlock, died after about two weeks without feed, and most of the rest are being euthanized because of their weak condition.
(www.modbee.com/2012/02/23/2083371/turlock-poultry-farm-owner-likely.html)
2012 Feb 23, A Cameroon park official said nearly 500 elephants have been killed in Bouba Ndjida National Park in less than two months by poachers from Sudan and Chad.
(AFP, 2/24/12)
2012 Mar 5, In Brazil 30 beached dolphins were rescued by beachgoers. The rescue was captured on video and became an internet sensation.
(http://news.yahoo.com/mass-dolphin-rescue-witnessed-off-rio-coast-035714671.html)
2012 Mar 9, Japan said its Antarctic whaling fleet has killed less than a third of the animals it planned to because of sabotage by activists, as it announced the end of the season's hunt. Whalers killed 266 minke whales and one fin whale, well below the approximately 900 they had been aiming for when they left Japan in December.
(AFP, 3/9/12)
2012 Mar 13, It was reported that the chytrid fungus has spread to nearly 600 species of frog and has probably driven over 200 species to extinction. SF State Univ. biologist Vance T. Vredenburg called it the “worst population crash of animals in history."
(SFC, 3/13/12, p.A10)
2012 Mar 13, Russian and South Korean scientists signed a deal on joint research intended to recreate a woolly mammoth, an animal which last walked the earth some 10,000 years ago.
(AFP, 3/13/12)
2012 Mar 13, South African wildlife dealer Jacques Els (39) was sentenced to eight years in jail over 38 horns cut off sedated rhinos. Els was arrested in 2010 after buying the horns for 760,000 rands ($100,000, 77,000 euros) from game farm manager Tommie Fourie who drugged the animals and cut off their trademark spikes. Els claimed the horns were removed from the animals "to protect them from poaching."
(AFP, 3/14/12)
2012 Mar 14, British scientists warned that research into debilitating diseases is under threat from a refusal by ferry operators and airlines to transport laboratory animals into the country.
(AFP, 3/14/12)
2012 Mar 15, Kashmir scientists at Sher-i-Kashmir University said they have cloned a rare Himalayan goat, hoping to help increase the number of animals famed for their silky soft undercoats used to make pashmina wool, or cashmere.
(AP, 3/15/12)
2012 Mar 19, EU nations backed a complete ban on removing shark’s fins before throwing them into the sea to die. 75 million sharks were said to be killed annually for their fins, with the EU being the biggest exporter.
(SFC, 3/20/12, p.A3)
2012 Mar 19, South African officials said 135 endangered rhinoceros have been killed by poachers so far this year, about a third of the number killed during all of 2011.
(AP, 3/19/12)
2012 Mar 20, Kenya wildlife officials said fires raging across Mount Kenya may have been set by poachers trying to create a diversion from their illegal attacks on animals.
(SFC, 3/21/12, p.A2)
2012 Mar 21, Australian zoo officials said 4 rare white rhinoceroses have died in recent weeks at the Taronga Western Plains Zoo in New South Wales after displaying mysterious neurological problems such as stumbling.
(AP, 3/21/12)
2012 Mar 21, Vietnamese police seized five tons of frozen pangolins and iguanas that were destined for the cooking pot in China.
(AFP, 3/23/12)
2012 Mar 28, A coalition of environmental groups warned that some 200 critically-endangered orangutans in a protected area of Indonesia’s Aceh province will be wiped out by the end of the year if land clearing in Tripa Swamp is not stopped.
(AFP, 3/28/12)
2012 Mar 30, Philippine police rescued 300 badly injured pitbulls and arrested seven South Koreans after busting a massive online dog fighting syndicate at a two-hectare farm in the city of San Pablo. 20 of the dogs needed to be euthanized.
(AFP, 4/1/12)
2012 Mar 31, In southwestern Australia a shark attack killed Peter Kurmann (33) as he was diving from a boat off Stratham Beach.
(SSFC, 4/1/12, p.A4)
2012 Apr 13, Spain's King Juan Carlos (74) was injured while on an expensive elephant hunting trip in Botswana amid the nation's deep financial woes. The accident required a hip replacement and led to scathing criticism amid the nation's deep financial woes.
(AP, 4/15/12)
2012 Apr 17, Bangladesh customs agents seized more than 400 tortoises being smuggled in three suitcases through the country's main airport on their way to Bangkok. Two Indian citizens were arrested in connection with the seizure.
(AFP, 4/17/12)
2012 Apr 18, Mozambique state-run newspaper Noticias reported that rampaging elephants are terrorizing villages near the Zimbabwe border, attacking people, trampling crops and scaring children.
(AFP, 4/18/12)
2012 Apr 19, In South Africa a man was killed by a shark while body boarding at a bay in Cape Town in the country’s second deadly mauling this year.
(AFP, 4/19/12)
2012 Apr 21, Kenyan rangers shot dead five suspected elephant poachers overnight in a firefight at Chepareria in West Pokot County.
(AFP, 4/21/12)
2012 Apr 23, Philippine coast guard and fisheries bureau operatives arrested 12 Vietnamese fishermen for poaching endangered marine turtles, black corals and reef fishes in southern Philippines waters. Other foreign fishing boats spotted in the same area managed to flee toward Malaysia.
(AP, 4/25/12)
2012 Apr 25, In New Zealand an African elephant killed a zookeeper caring for her at the Franklin Zoo near Auckland where the animal was retired after performing in circuses for decades.
(AP, 4/25/12)
2012 Apr 30, A rare white buffalo, a male calf named Lightning Medicine Cloud, was found slaughtered and skinned on Lakota Ranch near Greenville, Texas, just shy of its first birthday. Its mother died the next day of suspected poisoning. The ranch and its supporters soon offered $45,000 for information leading to the killer.
(AFP, 5/9/12)
2012 May 9, In Australia 27 protected Little Penguins were found mauled in the Phillip Island Nature Park in Victoria state, a popular tourist attraction. The penguins were believed killed by a dog or a pack of dogs, ironically at Cat Bay.
(AFP, 5/10/12)
2012 May 9, South African authorities seized assets worth almost $7 million from game farm owner Dawie Groenewald and veterinary surgeons, Karel Toet and Manie Du Plessis, accused of rhino poaching. They were charged with 1,872 counts of racketeering.
(AFP, 5/9/12)
2012 May 15, Australian researchers said a mystery liver disease, thought to be caused by introduced weeds, is causing hairy-nosed wombats in southern Australia to go bald and die.
(AFP, 5/15/12)
2012 May 15, In Indonesia a critically-endangered Sumatran elephant was found dead in Aceh province, the second death from suspected poisoning within a month.
(AFP, 5/16/12)
2012 May 15, South African police officers, tipped off by an anonymous informer, forced their way into a Johannesburg apartment where they found 10 rhinoceros horns and an elephant tusk and arrested a Vietnamese man.
(AP, 5/16/12)
2012 May 21, Guinea police seized over 800 pieces of ivory, including sculptures and elephant tusks, in the capital Conakry during raids beginning May 19 that led to six arrests.
(AFP, 5/25/12)
2012 May 22, In India the government of Maharashtra state says injuring or killing suspected poachers will no longer be considered a crime. Maharashtra Forest Minister Patangrao Kadam said the state will send more rangers and jeeps into the forest, and will offer secret payments to informers who give tips about poachers and animal smugglers.
(AP, 5/23/12)
2012 May 22, Sri Lankan authorities seized 1.5 tons of African ivory marked as plastic waste and addressed to a buyer in Dubai. They informed the authorities in the United Arab Emirates and Kenya to take action against the shipper and the consignee.
(AFP, 5/23/12)
2012 May 23, In the first case brought under the Philippines 2001 wildlife act, farmer Bryan Balaon (26) was fined 100,000 pesos ($2,300), for shooting and eating one of the world's rarest eagles. The Philippine eagle, or Pithecophaga jefferyi, found only in the country's vanishing forests, is the world's largest eagle and is "critically endangered" with just 90-250 pairs left in the wild.
(AFP, 5/24/12)
2012 May 30, Mozambican police arrested a Vietnamese man at the main airport in Maputo as he tried to smuggle rhino horns out of the country. Doan Minh (41) had already made it past airport security screening when he was caught.
(AFP, 5/31/12)
2012 May 31, In southern Australia a truck carrying around 400 sheep overturned on a highway overpass outside Melbourne, causing the animals to rain onto the freeway below resulting in "a large number" of dead and injured sheep.
(AP, 6/1/12)
2012 May 31, In western Indonesia 3 critically-endangered Sumatran elephants were found dead in an oil palm plantation. They were believed to have been poisoned.
(AFP, 6/3/12)
2012 Jun 12, South African authorities said the slaughter of rhinos driven by the soaring illegal trade in their horns continues at a record pace with 245 killed since January. Police have arrested 161 suspects, including 138 poachers, since the start of the year.
(AFP, 6/12/12)
2012 Jun 20, In Kenya 6 lions were speared to death overnight on the outskirts of Nairobi after they strayed from the city's national park and killed four goats. Kenya has been losing 100 lions a year for the best part of the past decade, leaving the country with just 2,000 of its famous big cats. On June 22 an official said Maasai warriors who speared to death the six lions will be arrested for killing wildlife.
(AFP, 6/20/12)(AP, 6/22/12)
2012 Jun 24, In Ecuador’s Galapagos National Park the only remaining Pinta Island tortoise and celebrated conservation icon, passed away. Lonesome George, estimated to be more than 100 years old, was discovered in 1972 at a time when tortoises of his type were already believed to be extinct.
(AFP, 6/25/12)
2012 Jun 27, Gabonese President Ali Bongo set fire to five tons of ivory worth around 10 million euros ($14 million) to mark his government's commitment to battling poachers and saving elephants. The stockpile and would have required the killing of some 850 elephants.
(AFP, 6/27/12)
2012 Jun 27, Spanish scientists reported evidence that dinosaurs were warm-blooded, despite being reptiles.
(SFC, 6/28/12, p.A1)
2012 Jun 28, In South Africa chimpanzees at the Jane Goodall Institute Chimpanzee Eden near Nelspruit pulled an American working there into their enclosure, bit him and dragged him nearly a half mile.
(AP, 6/29/12)
2012 Jul 1, Nigerian hunters killed a hippopotamus in the town of Shelleng on the bank of the Benue river. The hippo had killed two fishermen a day earlier.
(AP, 7/3/12)
2012 Jul 5, In Panama the International Whaling Commission rejected a request from Denmark for a whaling quota for indigenous groups in Greenland. Two days earlier it approved the renewal of bowhead whale quotas for indigenous subsistence whaling in Alaska and Russia and for St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean. The United States says it doesn't support a South Korean plan to restart whale hunting for purportedly scientific purposes.
(AP, 7/6/12)
2012 Jul 6, Japan, Norway and their allies blocked a bid to give the UN a greater role in protecting whales, as sought by conservationists frustrated by deep polarization over whaling as the International Whaling Commission closed its latest annual meeting in Panama marred by intense divisions.
(AFP, 7/6/12)
2012 Jul 9, Indian officials said devastating floods in the northeast have killed around 600 animals in Kaziranga National Park, Assam state, including 14 threatened one-horned rhinos.
(AFP, 7/9/12)
2012 Jul 10, A Trinidad and Tobago conservation group called for a prompt investigation into how government work crews crushed leatherback turtle eggs and hatchlings on a remote beach that experts say is the globe's densest nesting site for the endangered marine species. Thousands of leatherback eggs were crushed by heavy machinery over the weekend as workers redirected a shifting river that was eroding the nesting sites and threatening a hotel.
(AP, 7/11/12)
2012 Jul 12, In Canada 3 horses were killed and a 4th seriously injured during a chuckwagon race at the Calgary Stampede.
(Reuters, 7/14/12)
2012 Jul 13, Thailand customs officials discovered a half ton of ivory hidden in crates aboard a flight from Kenya. One official estimated that the 158 pieces of ivory were from the tusks of around 50 elephants.
(AP, 7/17/12)
2012 Jul 14, In western Australia a surfer was bitten in half in a savage shark attack near Wedge Island, north of Perth, the fifth such fatality in the region in less than a year.
(AFP, 7/14/12)
2012 Jul 15, Namibia's annual seal hunt, which will see some 86,000 Cape fur seals slaughtered by end November, began amid outcry from conservation groups that brand it a massacre for trade purposes. The animals are harvested for their pelts, fat, which is used in beauty products and male sexual organs, believed to have aphrodisiac properties in Asia.
(AFP, 7/14/12)
2012 Jul 23, The WWF conservation group ranked Vietnam the worst country for wildlife crime in its first-ever report on how well 23 Asian and African countries protect rhinos, tigers and elephants.
(AP, 7/23/12)
2012 Jul 24, India's top court banned tourism in tiger reserves across the country in a ruling that aims to protect the endangered big cats but may disrupt travel plans for droves of tourists who booked stays at the hundreds of hotels that have sprung up deep inside the forests.
(AP, 7/24/12)
2012 Jul 27, In South Africa Germany-born conservationist Rita Miljo (81) died in a fire that destroyed much of her Center for Animal Rehabilitation and Education in the bush of Limpopo province. Sha had cared for and reintroduced packs of baboons into the wilds of South Africa.
(SSFC, 7/29/12, p.A2)
2012 Aug 1, Vietnam’s state media said a soldier has been thrown out of the army after posting graphic photographs on Facebook of the torture and killing of 2 rare wild monkeys.
(AFP, 8/1/12)
2012 Aug 2, It was reported that France planned to offer financial incentives to French fishermen for hunting bull sharks, a threatened shark species, following recent attacks on people off the coast of Reunion.
(SFC, 8/2/12, p.A4)
2012 Aug 3, In Australia Tasmania Zoo owner Dick Warren said 9 birds, including an endangered swift parrot, had their heads smashed in or ripped off and more than 60 animals were missing after vandals went on the rampage.
(AFP, 8/4/12)
2012 Aug 6, Thousands of fish were reported dying in the Midwest as the hot, dry summer dries up rivers and causes water temperatures to climb in some spots to nearly 100 degrees. About 40,000 shovelnose sturgeon were killed in Iowa last week as water temperatures reached 97 degrees. Nebraska fishery officials said they've seen thousands of dead sturgeon, catfish, carp, and other species in the Lower Platte River. Illinois biologists said the hot weather has killed tens of thousands of large- and smallmouth bass and channel catfish. Kansas has seen declining water levels that pulled younger, smaller game fish away from the vegetation-rich shore lines and forced them to cluster, making them easier targets for predators. In South Dakota there have been reports of isolated fish kills in its manmade lakes on the Missouri River.
(AP, 8/6/12)
2012 Aug 16, In Italy 6 of 10 horses crashed during the latest Palio bareback horse race in Siena. One horse broke a front leg. Some 50 horses have died during the race since 1970.
(SFC, 8/18/12, p.A2)
2012 Aug 16, It was reported that lion bones have become a hot commodity for their use in Asian traditional medicine, driving up exports from South Africa to the East and creating new fears of the survival of the species.
(AFP, 8/16/12)
2012 Aug 24, In Alaska a hiker in Denali National Park photographed a grizzly bear for at least eight minutes before the bear mauled and killed him in the first fatal attack in the park's history.
(AP, 8/25/12)
2012 Aug 25, In Germany a tiger escaped its enclosure at the Cologne Zoo and killed a female keeper (43) before being shot dead.
(SSFC, 8/26/12, p.A5)
2012 Aug 26, In Zimbabwe a consortium of wildlife ranchers said tens of thousands of animals face annihilation in a wave of land takeovers in the southeast after hunting permits and land were granted to 25 leaders of the ZANU-PF party in a black empowerment program.
(AP, 8/26/12)
2012 Aug 29, It was reported that Argentine authorities are planning to shoot seagulls in hopes of reducing their population following seagull attacks on southern right whales. Seagulls around the city of Puerto Madryn discovered about a decade ago that by pecking at the whales as they come up for air, they can create open wounds and feed on them.
(AP, 8/29/12)
2012 Sep 2, A wildlife rescue organization said 13 whales have died following a mass stranding off the Scottish coast. British Divers and Marine Life Rescue said that the mammals were among a group of 26 pilot whales stranded at Pittenweem in eastern Scotland.
(AP, 9/2/12)
2012 Sep 4, Spain’s government lifted a 6-year ban on televising live bullfights.
(SFC, 9/5/12, p.A2)
2012 Sep 4, Vietnamese police seized four tiger cubs and 118 endangered pangolins from suspected wildlife smugglers.
(AFP, 9/4/12)
2012 Sep 5, In Zimbabwe an independent animal welfare group said it is filing cruelty charges against the veterinary teaching department at the Univ. of Zimbabwe after three emaciated, ailing and distressed horses were killed using an ax and a knife.
(AP, 9/5/12)
2012 Sep 11, Scientists reported the discovery of well-preserved wooly mammoth fragments some 328 feet underground in Yakutia, Siberia.
(SFC, 9/12/12, p.A2)
2012 Sep 16, It was reported that a $300,000 project by the Nature Conservancy has created an artificial bat cave deep in the Tennessee woods. Conservationists hoped to help save bats dying from a fungus that causes white-nose syndrome.
(SSFC, 9/16/12, p.A22)
2012 Sep 19, An int’l. team of researchers published the full genome of the Pacific oyster, Crassostrea gigas, making it the first mollusk fully sequenced.
(SFC, 9/20/12, p.A7)
2012 Sep 26, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill banning the use of dogs for hunting bears and bobcats.
(SFC, 9/27/12, p.C1)
2012 Sep 26, In Oregon hog farmer Terry Vance Garner (69) never returned after he set out to feed his animals on his farm in Coos County. A family member found Garner's dentures and pieces of his body in the hog enclosure several hours later, but most of his remains had been consumed.
(AP, 10/1/12)
2012 Oct 12, UC Berkeley law students Justin Teixeira and Eric Cuellar were seen laughing and throwing around the body of a dead helmeted guinea fowl at the Flamingo casino in Las Vegas. On Dec 28 prosecutors filed animal cruelty charges against both men. In 2013 Cuellar pleaded guilty and was fined $200 and sentenced to 48 hours of community service. A 3rd defendant Hazhir Kargaran (26) pleaded no contest to 3 misdemeanors and was sentenced to 2 days in jail and 48 hours of community service. Teixeira pleaded guilty to a felony animal killing was sentenced to 6 months in boot camp and then probation.
(SFC, 12/28/12, p.A5)(SFC, 6/14/13, p.C8)
2012 Oct 12, It was reported that Britain planned to shoot badgers for six consecutive weeks in each of the next four years in parts of Gloucestershire and the neighboring county of Somerset. The aim was to reduce the badger population by 70 percent. At issue was how to stem the spread of bovine tuberculosis, which many farmers blamed on roaming badgers.
(Reuters, 10/12/12)
2012 Oct 20, Hong Kong officials said customs officers have confiscated 4 tons of ivory valued at $3.4 million in containers shipped from Tanzania and Kenya.
(SSFC, 10/21/12, p.A4)
2012 Oct 23, In California surfer Francisco Javier Solorio Jr. was killed in a shark attack off the coast of Surf Beach in Lompoc.
(SFC, 10/24/12, p.A6)
2012 Oct 23, Britain’s Environment Secretary Owen Paterson said a plan to shoot thousands of badgers to stop the spread of tuberculosis in cattle has been delayed in the face of overwhelming public opposition to the cull.
(AP, 10/24/12)
2012 Oct 27, An Indonesia conservationist said that and orangutan, recently shot with an air rifle, has been rescued in the Indonesian part of Borneo. Rescuers worked to remove 104 pellets from her body. In 2011 conservationists found that villagers living on the Indonesian side of Borneo killed at least 750 endangered orangutans in a year, some to protect crops from being raided and others for their meat.
(AP, 10/27/12)
2012 Oct 29, Berlin authorities shot and killed a 120 kg (265-pound) wild boar after it attacked and injured 4 people including a police officer in a residential neighborhood.
(AP, 10/30/12)
2012 Nov 2, In South Korea an international team of scientists confirmed that a 5.5-ton elephant named Koshik at the Everland Zoo can reproduce five Korean words by tucking his trunk inside his mouth to modulate sound. Koshik emerged as a star among animal enthusiasts and children in South Korea after Everland Zoo claimed in 2006 that he could imitate words, two years after his trainers noticed the phenomenon.
(AP, 11/2/12)
2012 Nov 4, South African police said 14 rhinos in provinces have been found illegally dehorned in the past week. Three of them died. At least 458 of the country's endangered rhinos have been illegally hunted and killed this year.
(AP, 11/5/12)
2012 Nov 9, A South Africa court sentenced a Thai national to 40 years in prison for selling rhino horns. Chumlong Lemtongthai had pleaded guilty to 59 charges on Nov 5. At least 458 of South Africa's endangered rhinos have been illegally killed this year.
(AP, 11/9/12)
2012 Nov 15, An Ecuadoran helicopter began dropping nearly 22 tons of specially designed poison bait on the Galapagos island of Pinzon, launching the second phase of a campaign to clear out some 180 million non-native rodents.
(AP, 11/15/12)
2012 Nov 16, The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a "heads up" directive putting officials on alert for an increase in human interaction with dolphins in the waters across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Authorities were investigating several attacks on dolphins in the northern Gulf of Mexico after some were found with gunshot wounds, cuts and missing jaws.
(AP, 11/17/12)
2012 Nov 17, In Idaho a break-in at Zoo Boise left a Patas monkey dead from blunt force trauma to the head and neck and police were analyzing blood found at the scene to determine if it came from the monkey or one of two human intruders. Michael J. Watkins (22) was soon arrested.
(AP, 11/17/12)(SFC, 11/21/12, p.A6)
2012 Nov 19, In Morocco the 48-member int’l. organization of fishing countries voted to keep strict limits on catching Atlantic blue fin tuna.
(SFC, 11/20/12, p.A7)
2012 Nov 20, Police in South Africa arrested three men, including a game ranger, they suspect shot 7 rhinoceros to death and dehorned them. South Africa's Department of Environmental Affairs said 570 rhinos had been hunted illegally and killed this year alone.
(AP, 11/20/12)
2012 Nov 29, Botswana said it will ban hunting by 2014 because of fears that the nation is losing its wildlife. Hunts by local communities and with special hunting licenses would still be allowed.
(AP, 11/29/12)
2012 Dec 4, Researchers at Duke University reported that the lions of Africa's savannahs have lost as much as 75% of their habitat in the last 50 years as humans overtake their land and the lion population dwindles.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, A top official of the World Wide Fund for Nature said that despite armed guards, Cameroon's dwindling elephant population is being decimated by heavily armed gangs of international poachers.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 5, Kenya’s Lewa Wildlife Conservancy said that two male black rhinos and two female black rhinos were killed over the weekend. The four deaths brought Lewa's rhino population to 71. Kenya had about 600 rhinos in total.
(AP, 12/5/12)
2012 Dec 6, A US District Judge ruled that snakes, frogs and fairways can coexist at the San Francisco-owned Sharp Park Golf Course in Pacifica.
(SFC, 12/8/12, p.C6)
2012 Dec 6, French Polynesia created a 1.5 million square mile shark sanctuary.
(SFC, 12/19/12, p.A5)
2012 Dec 10, South Africa said its diplomats have signed an agreement with Vietnam to try and halt the trade of horns taken from poached rhinoceros.
(AP, 12/11/12)
2012 Dec 19, The Cook Islands designated a 756,000 square mile shark sanctuary.
(SFC, 12/19/12, p.A5)
2012 Dec 19, South Africa said at least 633 rhinoceros have been killed this year alone as a poaching epidemic continues to threaten the animals.
(AP, 12/19/12)
2012 Dec 21, The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that ringed seals and bearded seals will be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Loss of sea ice due to climate warning was blamed.
(SFC, 12/22/12, p.A6)
2012 Dec 28, Mexico City lawmakers approved prison terms for animal cruelty, previously considered a civil offense sanctioned with fines and detentions.
(AP, 12/29/12)
2012 Dec 30, In eastern India a passenger train struck and killed 5 elephants in a herd crossing railroad tracks in the Rambha forest area.
(SFC, 12/31/12, p.A2)
2012 Alan Root authored “Ivory, Apes & Peacocks: Animals, Adventure and Discovery in the Wild Places of Africa.
(Econ, 8/18/12, p.76)
2012 The value of American eels grew to more than $40 million this year as Asian and European eel stocks dried up and because of demand in China, South Korea and other Asian countries. By 2017 the big demand and big prices spawned a black market that wildlife officials said is jeopardizing the species.
(AP, 8/7/17)
2012 An estimated 22,000 elephants were killed by illegal poachers across Africa this year.
(SFC, 12/3/13, p.A2)
2012 In Australia 28 Tasmanian devils were relocated to Maria Island off Tasmania in an effort to save the carnivorous marsupial from extinction due to a deadly mouth cancer. By 2021 the population had grown to 100 and wiped out native penguins and other seabirds on the island.
(SSFC, 6/26/21, p.B8)
2012 Panama banned bullfighting.
(Econ., 4/4/15, p.33)
2012 In Thailand Blake Dinkin (42), a Canadian, began producing coffee made from beans plucked out of elephant dung. The coffee sold for $1,100 per kg ($500 per pound), making it among the world's priciest.
(AP, 12/7/12)
2013 Jan 3, Officials said a smuggling ring brought narwhal tusks from the Canadian Arctic into Maine in a trailer with a secret compartment and then illegally sold them to American buyers. In 2015 Andrew Zarauskas (61) was sentenced to nearly three years for buying more than 30 tusks over six years from two Canadians.
(SFC, 1/4/13, p.A6)(SFC, 1/13/15, p.A6)
2013 Jan 3, It was reported that Paraguayan police have rescued 211 blue-fronted Amazon parrots, which were taken from remote forests. More than 400,000 of the birds have been caught and sold.
(SFC, 1/3/13, p.A2)
2013 Jan 4, Hong Kong customs officials said they have intercepted a container with 779 elephant tusks weighing 2,900 pounds from Kenya.
(SFC, 1/5/13, p.A2)
2013 Jan 5, In Kenya a poaching gang used gunfire to kill an entire family of 11 elephants in Tsavo National Park for their ivory tusks.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 7, Mexican authorities said wild dogs mauled and killed four people whose bodies were found over the past two weeks in a park on the edge of Mexico City.
(AP, 1/7/13)
2013 Jan 12, In Florida nearely 800 people began month-long "Python Challenge" to deal with an infestation of Burmese pythons that were eating their way through a fragile ecosystem. Roughly 2,050 pythons have been harvested in Florida since 2000.
(AP, 1/12/13)
2013 Jan 15, Kenyan custom officials in Mombasa seized 638 pieces of illegal elephant ivory estimated to be worth $1.2 million. The ivory was in a container destined for Indonesia. The tusks were said to be from Tanzania.
(AP, 1/16/13)
2013 Jan 16, British PM David Cameron condemned horse meat found in beef burgers sold by Tesco and said this was likely to prove both embarrassing and costly for the firm.
(AP, 1/16/13)
2013 Jan 21, In Nigeria 18 people were killed in an attack on a local market in Dambao, Borno state. The violence started after the local market banned a group of hunters from selling "bush meat" from slaughtered monkeys and other creatures.
(AP, 1/22/13)
2013 Jan 24, Guyana signed an agreement with NY conservation group Panthera, which is trying to establish a jaguar corridor from northern Argentina to Mexico.
(SFC, 1/25/13, p.A2)
2013 Jan 24, South Africa reported that some 15 thousand crocodiles escaped the Rakwena Crocodile Farm on the Limpopo River border with Botswana when the farm gates were opened earlier this week to alleviate pressure from rising flood waters.
(SFC, 1/26/13, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/adlfxrl)
2013 Jan 25, Brazil’s government announced that it is undertaking a 4-year, $33 million study of its Amazon rain forest to compile a detailed inventory of the plants, animals and people that live there.
(SFC, 1/26/13, p.A2)
2013 Jan 28, In eastern Indonesia a mob of wild monkeys has gone on a rampage in a village in South Sulawesi province, entering houses and attacking residents. Seven people were injured.
(AP, 1/30/13)
2013 Jan 29, Malaysian wildlife officials said 10 endangered Borneo pygmy elephants have been found dead at the Gunung Rara Forest Reserve under mysterious circumstances. Officials said that they probably were poisoned over the past 3 weeks. The remains of 3 more were found the next day bringing the total to 13.
(AP, 1/29/13)(AP, 1/30/13)
2013 Jan 31, South African officials said that 57 rhinos have been killed by poachers across the country so far this year. A record 668 rhinos were killed in South Africa in 2012, an increase of nearly 50 percent over the previous year.
(AP, 1/31/13)
2013 Jan, California researchers published findings of a brain tumor in raccoons associated with a newly discovered virus called RacPyV, or raccoon polyomavirus.
(SFC, 1/15/13, p.C2)
2013 Feb 6, US wildlife conservation group Int’l. Fund for Animal Welfare said Japan has been propping up its whaling industry with nearly $400 million in tax money in recent years.
(SFC, 2/7/13, p.A2)
2013 Feb 6, Researchers in Iceland blamed low oxygen levels in a shallow fjord for the deaths of tens of thousands of tons of herring.
(AP, 2/6/13)
2013 Feb 9, In the SF Bay Area dead fish began surfacing after thousands of gallons of chlorinated water flowed into the San Mateo Creek a half-mile below Crystal Springs Reservoir.
(SFC, 2/12/13, p.C1)
2013 Feb 12, Scientists in Zimbabwe said a fresh water crayfish brought from Australia is breeding out of control in the northern Lake Kariba, devouring the food sources of other fish and putting the nation's entire aquatic ecosystem at risk. The red claw crayfish was introduced a decade ago for a fish farming project.
(AP, 2/12/13)
2013 Feb 13, South African authorities said at least 96 rhinoceros have been killed so far this year, as rampant poaching for their horns to sell to buyers in Asia continues. From the 1990s to 2007, rhino killings in South Africa by poachers averaged about 15 a year.
(AP, 2/13/13)
2013 Feb 22, American scientists prepared to drop dead mice laced with painkillers on Guam's jungle canopy as a prescription for the brown tree snake, a headache that has caused Guam misery for more than 60 years.
(AP, 2/22/13)
2013 Mar 5, In Zimbabwe a man escaped from a lion attack on the shores of Lake Kariba, but the woman with him was savaged to death. An arm and remains of a second corpse were found by rangers hunting for the lions.
(AP, 3/6/13)
2013 Mar 6, In California a lion attacked and killed Dianna Hanson (24), a sanctuary worker at Project Survival’s Cat Haven in Dunlap.
(SFC, 3/7/13, p.A1)(SFC, 3/8/13, p.A1)
2013 Mar 7, Zimbabwe wildlife rangers caught put down three lions that killed two people near a suburb in the northern resort town of Kariba. A lioness and two "sub-adult" cubs between two and three years old were baited into traps and given lethal injections using darts.
(AP, 3/8/13)
2013 Mar 11, CITES conservationists in Bangkok voted to regulate the trade of shark species threatened because their fins are used for expensive delicacies in Asia.
(SFC, 3/12/13, p.A2)
2013 Mar 11, In China Shanghai officials said the number of dumped adult and piglet carcasses retrieved in tributaries of the Huangpu river had reached 2,813. The city government, citing monitoring authorities, said the drinking water quality has not been affected. Authorities have been pulling out swollen and rotting pigs since March 8. By March 21 the dead pig count reached over 16,000.
(AP, 3/11/13)(SFC, 3/23/13, p.A2)(Econ, 12/20/14, p.70)
2013 Mar 15, In southwestern Chad over the last 24 hours at least 86 elephants, including 33 pregnant females, were killed by poachers for the ivory of their tusks.
(Econ, 4/20/13, p.47)
2013 Mar 14, In Thailand the Convention on Int’l. Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) ended its meeting in Bangkok with final decisions to expand protection to for dozens of animal and plant species including 5 types of sharks.
(SFC, 3/15/13, p.A4)
2013 Mar 24, In South Africa 6 of 19 stranded pilot whales on a beach in Cape Town died and authorities said they planned to euthanize some of the surviving whales.
(AP, 3/24/13)
2013 Mar 26, The US Supreme Court ruled that police cannot bring drug-sniffing police dogs onto a suspect's property to look for evidence without first getting a warrant for a search.
(AP, 3/26/13)
2013 Mar 30, In Mississippi nearly 50 people were arrested at a dogfight in Benton County following a months-long investigation.
(SFC, 4/2/13, p.A4)
2013 Mar, Chinese-led criminal gangs conspired with corrupt Tanzanian officials to traffic huge amounts of ivory, some of which was loaded in diplomatic bags on Pres. Xi's plane during a presidential visit.
(AP, 11/6/14)
2013 Apr 6, Florida state oficials said an annual toxic red algae bloom has killed 241 of the state’s roughly 5,000 endangered manatees.
(SSFC, 4/7/13, p.A13)
2013 Apr 8, India’s wildlife authorities began using aerial drones to oversee a sprawling natural game park in the northeast to protect the one-horned rhinoceros from armed poachers.
(AP, 4/8/13)
2013 Apr 8, A Chinese steel-hulled vessel hit an atoll at the Tubbataha National Marine Park, a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site on Palawan island. On April 13 Philippine authorities found inside the ship more than 10,000 kg (22,000 pounds) of meat from a protected species, the pangolin or scaly anteater. On April 19 the ship was extricated and towed to Puerto Princesa.
(AP, 4/15/13)(SSFC, 4/21/13, p.A4)
2013 Apr 10, Researchers reported a new species of tree-dwelling porcupine in Brazil’s Northeastern Atlantic Forest. With just 2% of the original forest habitat still standing, the newly discovered creature was already considered endangered.
(SFC, 4/11/13, p.A2)
2013 Apr 15, In South Africa a handler at the Elephant Sanctuary near Hartbeespoort Dam was trampled to death while taking elephants out for exercise. The handler got caught in the midst of an altercation between two of the animals.
(AP, 4/16/13)
2013 Apr 18, South Africa said 232 rhino had been illegally killed so far this year, 70% of them in Kruger National Park. Poachers killed 668 rhinos in South Africa in 2012, a 50% increase over the previous year.
(AP, 4/24/13)
2013 Apr 25, Central African Republic (CAR) local residents said at least 40 elephants have been slain at Dzanga-Sangha since the rebels took power on March 24.
(AP, 4/26/13)
2013 Apr 28, It was reported that the number of feral pigs in the US has risen to some 6 million with sightings in 47 states, up from 2 million in 1990 in 20 states.
(SSFC, 4/28/13, p.A11)
2013 Apr, Colorado and 14 other US states began reporting cases of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus. Up till now the virus was thought to exist only in Europe and China.
(SFC, 7/11/13, p.A4)
2013 May 2, It was reported that the last rhino in Mozambique has been killed. The warden in charge of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park — the only place where the horned behemoths lived in Mozambique — also said poachers have wiped out the last of the rhinos. Mozambique's conservation director believed a few may remain.
(AP, 5/2/13)
2013 May 6, In New York 30 horses being taken to slaughter in Canada were burned alive when the tractor-trailer transporting them caught fire on an upstate highway.
(Reuters, 5/7/13)
2013 May 8, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed a bill to schedule the state’s first gray wolf hunting season.
(SFC, 5/9/13, p.A6)
2013 May 9, In southern California Pamela Marie Devitt (63) was fatally mauled by a pack of pit bulls while walking near her home near Palmdale. Authorities were still searching for the dogs as darkness fell. On May 30 Alex Jackson (29), the owner of the dogs, was charged with murder. On Oct 4, 2014, Jackson was sentenced to 15 years to life. The dogs had guarded his pot-growing operation.
(Reuters, 5/9/13)(SFC, 5/11/13, p.A5)(SFC, 5/31/13, p.A12)(SFC, 10/5/14, p.A5)
2013 May 19, A Russian capsule carrying mice, lizards and other small animals returned to Earth after spending a month in space for what scientists said was the longest experiment of its kind. Fewer than half of the 53 mice and other rodents who blasted off on April 19 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome survived the flight.
(AP, 5/20/13)
2013 May 24, In England Sarah McClay (24) was mauled by a Sumatran tiger in an enclosure at South Lakes Wild Animal Park in Cumbria. She soon died from her injuries.
(AP, 5/25/13)
2013 May 30, Russian scientists said a perfectly preserved woolly mammoth carcass with liquid blood has been found on a remote Arctic island, fueling hopes of cloning the Ice Age animal.
(AP, 5/30/13)
2013 Jun 1, Protesters dressed as badgers and led by Queen guitarist Brian May marched through central London demanding that the government scrap a plan to cull badgers, aimed at slowing the spread of a cattle disease.
(Reuters, 6/1/13)
2013 Jun 3, The Enough Project, the Satellite Sentinel Project and two other groups said in a new report that members of Joseph Kony’s LRA have turned to elephant poaching in CongoDRC and the CAR and that the militia trades illegal ivory to acquire food and other supplies. The report also said elephants of Garamba National Park also are being targeted by "members of the armed forces of (Congo), South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda," citing the concerns of park rangers there.
(AP, 6/3/13)
2013 Jun 4, In New Mexico a 400-lb black bear attacked a bedridden woman (82) in Cimarron. Wildlife officers caught and killed the bear the next day.
(SFC, 6/6/13, p.A8)
2013 Jun 4, WWF Indonesia said killings of Sumatran elephants are on the rise, with 29 either shot or poisoned last year, including 14 in Aceh province. The report came 3 days after 2 dead Sumatran elephants were found near a paper plantation in Riau, allegedly poisoned by poachers.
(AP, 6/4/13)
2013 Jun 10, Thai police said they found 14 albino lions imported from Africa and hundreds of other protected animals in a warehouse near Bangkok. Pet shop owner Montri Boonprom-on (41) was arrested and faced up to four years in jail and a fine of 40,000 baht ($1,300).
(AP, 6/10/13)
2013 Jun 22, In southern England four-year-old colt Thomas Chippendale collapsed and died shortly after winning the Hardwicke Stakes at Royal Ascot.
(Reuters, 6/22/13)
2013 Jun 26, Scientists from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups announced that a previously unknown bird species has been discovered in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The wren-sized Cambodian tailorbird, Orthotomus chaktomuk, is one of two species unique to Cambodia.
(AP, 6/26/13)
2013 Jun 26, In the Czech Rep. 11 people branded themselves in Prague in support of animal rights. A public branding in Tel Aviv last year launched the movement, called 269Life. The group's name derives from a number branded on a calf that activists encountered at an Israeli dairy farm last year. They chose its number, 269, as a way to individualize the calf.
(AP, 6/27/13)
2013 Jun 28, It was reported that a pneumonia outbreak has killed at least 20 bighorn sheep on Old Dad Mountain in California’s Mohave National Preserve. Nevada numbered some 10,000 adult animals in at least 60 mountain ranges.
(SFC, 6/28/13, p.D5)
2013 Jul 12, The Oregon Fish and Wildlife commission adopted provisions of a lawsuit settlement that will make the state the only one in the West where killing wolves that attack livestock must be a last resort.
(SFC, 7/13/13, p.A4)
2013 Jul 12, In Spain an American and two Spaniards were gored during a danger-filled sixth bull run of the San Fermin festival, with one loose bull causing panic in the packed streets of the city of Pamplona.
(AP, 7/12/13)
2013 Jul 13, In Spain the penultimate bull run of the San Fermin festival left at least 23 people injured. Two of the injuries were gorings.
(AP, 7/13/13)
2013 Jul 14, In Spain a bull gored an Australian woman (23) and left her seriously injured during the final run of this year's annual San Fermin festival. 4 other runners were hospitalized with cuts and bruises.
(AP, 7/14/13)
2013 Jul 27, In Spain a youth (16) was gored in the back while celebrating the Apostle James feast at Isso, 322 km (200 miles) southeast of Madrid.
(AP, 7/28/13)
2013 Jul 29, In Peru the annual Andean Yawar Fiesta (Blood Festival) featured the strapping of a female condor to the back of a black bull. The legs of the condor were bandaged and the after 7 minutes the bull was roped and condor was cut loose.
(SSFC, 8/11/13, p.A7)
2013 Aug 5, In Canada brothers Noah and Connor Barthe, agers 4 and 6, were killed by an African rock python as they slept in their home in Campbellton, New Brunswick. The 100-pound snake had escaped from its enclosure, slithered through a ventilator and fell through the ceiling of their room.
(SSFC, 8/11/13, p.A4)
2013 Aug 7, Togo’s environment minister said Emile N'Bouke, a high-profile ivory trafficker, has been arrested. Activists said his work has fueled the slaughter of more than 10,000 elephants dating back to the 1970s.
(AP, 8/8/13)
2013 Aug 11, In Kenya a white rhino was found shot and killed by poachers who cut off its horn in Nairobi National Park, the first poaching death of a rhino in the urban park in six years. The killing brings to 35 the number of rhinos killed in Kenya so far this year, a sharp rise from the 29 killed in total in 2012.
(AP, 8/13/13)
2013 Aug 27, British farm union officials said a cull of badgers has begun in a bid to halt the spread of cattle tuberculosis. Plans called for about 5,000 badgers to be killed during the six-week program.
(AP, 8/27/13)
2013 Sep 5, South Africa’s department of environmental affairs said poachers have killed more than 600 rhinos in South Africa so far this year, with losses close to the total number of animals slaughtered in 2012.
(AFP, 9/5/13)
2013 Sep 10, Romanian lawmakers voted overwhelmingly for a law allowing stray dogs to be put down after a four-year-old boy was mauled to death by a pack of strays last week.
(AFP, 9/10/13)
2013 Sep 22, In South Africa poachers have killed a record 688 rhinos so far this year, more than the entire number slaughtered in 2012, according to figures issued on today’s World Rhino Day.
(AFP, 9/22/13)
2013 Sep 24, Zimbabwean authorities said at least 81 elephants have been killed for their ivory tusks by poachers using cyanide poison in water holes in Hwange National Park. The elephant toll soon rose to 91.
(AP, 9/24/13)(AP, 10/1/13)
2013 Sep 25, Romania's constitutional court ruled that a bill allowing stray dogs to be euthanized is legal, prompting hundreds of dog lovers to block a main road outside Parliament in protest.
(AP, 9/25/13)
2013 Sep 29, In Sweden wave of jellyfish forced the shut down of Oskarshamn nuclear reactor number 3. By Oct 1 the pipes were cleaned of the jellyfish and engineers prepared to restart the reactor.
(AP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 3, Hong Kong officials said customs agents have seized 189 elephant tusks, valued at about $1.5 million, in the city’s 3rd biggest bust of endangered species products in three months.
(SFC, 10/4/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 7, A record-breaking storm dropped 4 feet of snow in parts of South Dakota and left over 22,000 homes and businesses without electricity. Tens of thousands of cattle died in South Dakota. The storm also buried parts of Wyoming and Colorado and spawned tornadoes in Nebraska and Iowa. At least 4 people died due to the storm.
(SFC, 10/8/13, p.A5)(SFC, 10/14/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 8, Kenyan customs officers seized 2 tons of elephant ivory in a shipments bound for Turkey. This followed a similar seizure on Oct 4.
(AFP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 16, Kenya wildlife officials said they will place microchips in the horn of every rhino in the country in a bid to stamp out a surge in poaching the threatened animals.
(AFP, 10/16/13)
2013 Oct 18, The Netherlands Supreme Court said municipalities are entitled to to tax dog ownership because they have to pick up the bill for keeping public parks and streets clean.
(SFC, 10/18/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 19, In southeastern Brazil animal rights activist clashed with police in front of a laboratory in Sao Roque that used dogs for drug tests.
(AP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 21, The Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force said more than 300 elephants and other animals died in July of cyanide poisoning by poachers in Hwange, Zimbabwe's largest game park. Three elephants attacked a park ranger and trampled him to death during an anti-poaching patrol in the Hwange nature reserve.
(AFP, 10/21/13)(AP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 24, Indonesian police probing the murder of a young woman at a luxury villa stumbled upon a secret collection of exotic animals, including a cross-breed of a lion and tiger. The woman (23) had allegedly had her throat slit by a maintenance worker at the property south of the capital Jakarta after she refused his sexual advances.
(AFP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 25, South African official figures showed poachers have killed more than 100 rhinos over the past four weeks, pushing the death toll so far this year towards 800.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Nov 1, Tanzania’s parliament suspended an anti-poaching campaign, amid a surge of killings of elephant and rhino, to allow investigation of reported seizure of property, torture and killing of suspects.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, It was reported that scientists are struggling to find the trigger for a disease that appears to be ravaging starfish in record numbers along the US West Coast. The deadly syndrome, known as "star wasting disease," caused the sea creatures to lose their limbs and turn to slime in a matter of days. The disease was first detected in tide pools this summer along the coast of Monterey, Ca.
(Reuters, 11/4/13)(SFC, 12/9/13, p.A13)
2013 Nov 6, It was reported that a total of 20 dead whales have been discovered along Ghana's coastline in the last four years, including at least eight since September. Environmental groups said they are concerned, given the proximity of the discoveries to the country's new offshore petroleum industry.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 14, US officials in Colorado destroyed over six tons of confiscated ivory tusks, carvings and jewelry, accumulated over the last 25 years at the National Wildlife Property Repository.
(SFC, 11/15/13, p.A7)
2013 Nov 15, In Ohio six horses were killed on rural roads after over three dozen escaped from a farm near Covington. Three people injured in the road accidents.
(SFC, 11/16/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 17, In Kenya poachers infiltrated the privately owned Lewa Wildlife Conservancy during the full moon and killed Meluaya," a 17-year-old black rhino suspected to have been heavily pregnant and with a two-year-old calf.
(AFP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 20, Animal rights group PETA urged shoppers to boycott products made from angora rabbit fur, after it released footage of fur being plucked from the skins of live rabbits on Chinese farms.
(AFP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Australia a shark attack killed Zach Young (19) as he body boarded near the northern New South Wales city of Coffs Harbor in the nation's second deadly attack this month.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov, Chinese officials signed two agreements to import 500,000 cattle and three million pigs from Romania over the next few years.
(AP, 11/31/13)
2013 Dec 2, In Hawaii a shark attack killed a kayak fisherman off Maui.
(SFC, 12/3/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 3, In Florida a number of pilot whales were spotted in extremely shallow water in the Everglades park south of Naples. 22 whales died after a pod of 51 was first spotted.
(SFC, 12/6/13, p.A12)(SFC, 12/9/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 4, In Botswana the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said key states, where the illegal ivory trade flourishes, have pledged to take urgent measures to try to halt the illicit trade and secure elephant populations across Africa.
(AFP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 7, Two Japanese whaling ships and a surveillance vessel left for the annual hunt in the Antarctic Sea. The three ships departed from the western port of Shimonoseki to join other ships to hunt up to 935 Antarctic minke whales and up to 50 fin whales through March.
(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 11, The US FDA said it will begin curbing the use of some medically important antibiotics commonly fed to animals to fatten them up for market. A 3-year plan to implement this was called the Veterinary Feed Directive.
(SFC, 12/12/13, p.A1)
2013 Dec 16, Environmentalists filed a lawsuit against the US National Marines Fisheries Service to demand that it force the Navy to consider alternatives to its 5-year plan that will intensify sonar use off southern California and Hawaii. The Navy had already estimated that its activitescould kill hundreds of whales and dolphins.
(SFC, 12/17/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 19, In New Jersey a Chinese citizen, the admitted ringleader of an international smuggling operation that trafficked in $4.5 million worth of rhinoceros horns, ivory cups and trinkets, pleaded guilty in federal court.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 19, South Africa’s environmental ministry said the country has lost nearly 1,000 rhinos this year in a poaching surge to feed the black-market demand for their horns.
(AFP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 20, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete sacked four ministers following accusations of abuses committed by security forces during a huge operation against wildlife poaching.
(Reuters, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute said annual manatee deaths topped 800 for the first time since record-keeping began in the 1970s.
(SSFC, 12/22/13, p.A9)
2013 Dec 24, The Zambia Wildlife Authority said it has arrested two people in possession of more than 115 kg (250 pounds) of ivory.
(AP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Indonesia Ambar Arianto Mulyo (59), a Bali Hyatt hotel security employee, was strangled to death after he tried to capture a 15-foot python.
(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 29, A Tanzanian official said the country has been hit by a sharp upsurge in poaching, with at least 60 elephants killed in the two months since the government was forced to halt a controversial crackdown.
(AFP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 31, Utah officials said an unprecedented wintertime outbreak of West Nile virus has killed more than two dozen bald eagles in the state and thousands of water birds around the Great Salt Lake.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 The American government offered $1 million for information that would help dismantle a wildlife trafficking network, which it believed was headed by Vixay Keosavang, a former soldier in the Lao People’s Army. Keosavang operated from a walled compound in the Laos province of Bolikhamxay.
(Econ, 4/16/15, p.49)
2013 Mexico’s state of Sonora banned bullfighting.
(Econ., 4/4/15, p.33)
2013 In South Africa 1,004 rhinos were poached in the country this year, a 50 percent increase from 2012.
(AFP, 1/17/14)
2014 Jan 6, China destroyed about 6 tons of illegal ivory from its stockpile in an unprecedented move wildlife groups say shows growing concern about the black market trade by authorities in the world's biggest market for elephant tusks.
(AP, 1/6/14)
2014 Jan 10, Namibia wildlife authorities defended the auction of permits to hunt black rhino, saying the kill was aimed at conserving the endangered species.
(AFP, 1/10/14)
2014 Jan 11, A permit to hunt a black rhino in Namibia sold for $350,000 at an auction in Dallas with proceeds going to protect the endangered animals despite protests from animal rights groups that saw the sale as immoral conservation.
(Reuters, 1/11/14)
2014 Jan 11, Tanzania said its elephant population, beset by poaching for ivory, has plummeted by two-thirds in the past three-and-a-half decades.
(AFP, 1/11/14)
2014 Jan 13, In Thailand an American woman went missing in Kaeng Krachan National Park. Her body was found five days later, apparently trampled by elephants.
(SFC, 1/24/14, p.A2)
2014 Jan 14, It was reported that canine distemper virus has killed four tigers and several other animals across northern and eastern India.
(SFC, 1/14/14, p.A5)
2014 Jan 14, In India the body of a woman, killed by a tiger prowling for food, was found Uttar Pradesh state. She was the animal’s 7th victim.
(SFC, 1/16/14, p.A2)
2014 Jan 14, In New Zealand at least 13 pilot whales were beached on a remote coastline and conservation officials desperately battled to prevent another 50 from reaching the shore.
(AFP, 1/14/14)
2014 Jan 17, South Africa said 1,004 rhinos were poached in the country last year, a 50 percent increase from 2012. This January saw at least 40 rhinos killed by poachers in Krueger National Park. Rangers and defense forces killed at least 11 poachers this month.
(AFP, 1/17/14)(SSFC, 1/26/14, p.A4)
2014 Jan 21, Australia’s federal government granted an exemption from environmental laws to approve a Western Australian shark mitigation plan, which is aimed at reducing the risks to water users after six fatal attacks in the past two years.
(AFP, 1/21/14)
2014 Jan 21, Fishermen in Japan began slaughtering dozens of bottlenose dolphins in Taiji, ignoring protesters’ calls to spare the animals and a rare public show of concern by the US government.
(AP, 1/21/14)
2014 Jan 22, In southern India forest officials in Tamil Nadu state shot dead a tiger suspected of killing three people, ending its three-week reign of terror which forced dozens of schools to close.
(AFP, 1/23/14)
2014 Jan 23, A group of dead pilot whales, 16 females and 9 males, were spotted by boaters near Kice Island, Florida. Earlier this week, eight other whales were found dead after they swam into shallow waters near Fort Myers. Necropsies began the next day.
(Reuters, 1/25/14)(SFC, 1/25/14, p.A5)
2014 Jan 23, Japanese fishermen in Taiji killed more than two dozen striped dolphins, as global outrage over the slaughter grew.
(AFP, 1/23/14)
2014 Jan 26, In northern Australia a crocodile was suspected to have taken a boy (12) after attacking his friend as they swam in a water hole in at Mudginberri Billabong in World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park.
(AP, 1/26/14)
2014 Jan 26, A shark was shot and killed in Western Australian under a new strategy to protect swimmers.
(Econ, 2/1/14, p.35)
2014 Jan 26, Kenya officials said poachers have slaughtered a rhino in the capital's Nairobi National Park, a brazen attack flouting tough new laws designed to stem a surge of such killings.
(AFP, 1/26/14)
2014 Jan 27, In Las Vegas the Prince and Princess pet store was torched. Firefighters rescued 27 puppies alive. Videos showed Gloria Eun Hye Lee, a US citizen originally from South Korea, and a man torching the store. Lee was arrested on Feb 7 and accomplice Kirk Bills was arrested in Indiana.
(AP, 2/8/14)
2014 Jan 28, A Kenyan court ordered a Chinese man to pay $230,000 in fines or be jailed seven years for ivory smuggling in the first of what will likely be many cases as authorities implement a stringent new law to deter illegal trading in wildlife products.
(AP, 1/28/14)
2014 Jan 28, Togo police said they have arrested 3 men after discovering nearly two tons of ivory in a container marked for shipping to Vietnam.
(AP, 1/28/14)
2014 Jan 29, In San Francisco Michael Kwong (42) was cited for being in violation of a 2011 state ban on shark fins. Authorities seized 2,138 pounds of shark for sale at his Kwong Yip Inc. business.
(SFC, 2/15/14, p.C2)
2014 Feb 3, Peruvian officials said more than 400 dead dolphins were found last month on its northern Pacific coast.
(SFC, 2/4/14, p.A2)
2014 Feb 3, A pest control company which has been killing stray dogs in Sochi for years said that it has a contract to exterminate more of the animals throughout the Olympics.
(AP, 2/3/14)
2014 Feb 6, In France more than 3 tons of illegal ivory seized by customs agents was pulverized into dust in Europe's first destruction of a stockpile of the banned elephant tusks.
(AP, 2/6/14)
2014 Feb 8, A Russian animal rights activist was detained in Moscow after he and two others protested the country's policy of killing stray dogs in Sochi.
(AP, 2/8/14)
2014 Feb 9, Denmark’s Copenhagen Zoo killed a 2-year-old giraffe and fed its remains to lions as visitors watched, ignoring a petition signed by thousands and offers from other zoos and a private individual to save the animal.
(AP, 2/9/14)
2014 Feb 9, In northern India a tiger prowling near villages killed its 10th person in six weeks, a day after eluding a trap set by hunters with a live calf as bait.
(AP, 2/10/14)
2014 Feb 11, Brazil’s Environment Minsitry said it will begin a program to save the endangered three-banded armadillo, the mascot for this year’s World Cup.
(SFC, 2/12/14, p.A2)
2014 Feb 17, Cambodian police arrested two Vietnamese men who were trying to smuggle almost 80 kg (176 pounds) of illegal ivory from Angola.
(AP, 2/17/14)
2014 Feb, The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System began operating in the Mohave Desert on the California-Nevada border. Birds began to immediately catch fire and burn in flight from the intense radiation of the heliostat mirrors. Trials in September, 2013, counted 34 bird deaths.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility)(SSFC, 8/24/14, p.C10)
2014 Feb, A declaration against the trade in illegal wildlife products was signed by 41 countries including, China, the EU and Japan.
(Econ, 7/19/14, p.54)
2014 Mar 3, The UN Environmental Program marked its first ever World Wildlife Day to raise awareness about an illicit global trade in illegal timber, elephant ivory and rhino horns worth an estimated $19 billion.
(AP, 3/3/14)
2014 Mar 14, Howard Buffett, son of investor Warren Buffett, pledged nearly $24 million for protecting rhinos in South Africa, earmarking the money for ranger teams, sniffer dogs and other security measures in what he hopes can be a robust model for fighting what he calls the "overwhelming" problem of poaching in parts of Africa.
(AP, 3/15/14)
2014 Mar 19, In Kenya scientist Richard Leakey and Paula Kahumbu, the founding former chairman of the Kenya Wildlife Service, urged Kenya's Pres. Uhuru Kenyatta to invoke emergency measures to protect the country's elephants and rhinos from a poaching crisis sweeping Africa.
(AP, 3/19/14)
2014 Mar 25, Kenya’s wildlife authority said it needs help to curb the killings of elephants and rhinos for their tusks and horns. Poachers this year have killed 18 rhinos and 51 elephants.
(SFC, 3/26/14, p.A2)
2014 Mar 25, Singapore authorities intercepted about one ton of ivory worth $1.6 million in a shipping container from Africa marked as carrying coffee berries.
(AFP, 4/3/14)
2014 Mar 31, The International Court of Justice ordered a temporary halt to Japan's Antarctic whaling program, ruling that it is not for scientific purposes as the Japanese government had claimed.
(AP, 3/31/14)
2014 Apr 1, In northern Myanmar illegal Chinese logging and demand for monkey bones threatened the rare snub-nosed monkey according to British-based Fauna & Flora International. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimated that only 260 to 330 survive in the wild.
(AP, 4/1/14)
2014 Apr 3, In Australia a large shark killed Christine Armstrong (63) near her terrified husband and friends as they took their daily morning swim off a popular east coast beach near the village of Tathra.
(AP, 4/3/14)
2014 Apr 9, It was reported that a virus, never before seen in the US, has killed millions of baby pigs since porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) first showed up in May, 2013.
(SFC, 4/9/14, p.A5)
2014 Apr 9, Belgian authorities destroyed over 1,500 kilos (3,300 pounds) of ivory that had been seized by customs over the past three decades to serve as a warning to international smugglers who kill elephants daily for their tusks.
(AP, 4/9/14)
2014 Apr 10, US wildlife agencies in Michigan and Wisconsin said they have confirmed diagnoses of white-nose syndrome in tested bats. The fungal disease has killed millions on North American bats since 2006 and has now been detected in half of the US.
(SFC, 4/11/14, p.A6)
2014 Apr 10, In Utah Iron County workers accompanied by a US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) staffer set up the first in a series of metal corrals designed to trap and hold the horses on private land abutting the federal range until they can be moved to BLM facilities for adoption. Cattle ranchers blamed the protected wild horses for destroying vegetation crucial to ranchers who pay to graze their cattle on the land.
(Reuters, 4/12/14)
2014 Apr 11, Kenya's Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources said the central government will oversee the running of the country's wildlife authority for the next three months in a bid to stop poaching of the country's elephants and rhinos.
(AP, 4/11/14)
2014 Apr 12, US officials ended a stand-off with hundreds of armed protesters in the Nevada desert, calling off the government's roundup of cattle it said were illegally grazing on federal land and giving about 300 animals back to the rancher who owned them.
(Reuters, 4/13/14)
2014 Apr 12, In Florida a bear attacked Terri Frana (45) in the driveway of her home in Lake Mary. Wildlife officials soon killed 5 bears, but were unsure if they included the bear that attacked Frana.
(SFC, 4/15/14, p.A6)
2014 Apr 15, In China a government owned company that bred bears for traditional medicines agreed to convert itself in to a sanctuary. Some 70 bear farms, with bears caged for their bile, were believed to be still operating in the country.
(SFC, 4/16/14, p.A4)
2014 Apr 15, Hundreds of pro-whaling Japanese officials, lawmakers and lobby group members vowed to continue whale hunts despite a world court ruling that ordered the country to halt its Antarctic whaling program.
(AP, 4/15/14)
2014 Apr 17, Debbie Vincent (52), a former soldier who underwent a sex change, was jailed for six years for her part in a Europe-wide campaign of intimidation targeting a leading animal testing company. The British animal rights activist was found guilty last month for her part in a conspiracy to blackmail British-based Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS).
(AP, 4/17/14)
2014 Apr 18, In South Africa a rhino was found killed in the Dinokeng Game Reserve with a single bullet from a high-powered rifle. Poachers cut off its horns in the first such incident since the reserve officially opened in 2011. About 300 have been killed so far this year in South Africa.
(AP, 5/2/14)
2014 Apr 19, In South Africa robbers broke into a provincial parks office in Nelspruit and used a machine tool called a grinder to break into a safe holding several dozen rhino horns worth a fortune on the illegal market in parts of Asia. On June 9 police said two men have been arrested in connection with the theft, worth about $5.2 million.
(AP, 4/22/14)(Reuters, 6/9/14)
2014 Apr 26, A Japanese whaling fleet of four ships left port under tight security in the first hunt since the UN's top court last month ordered Tokyo to stop killing whales in the Antarctic.
(AFP, 4/26/14)
2014 May 1, The Navajo Nation and a group led by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and actor Robert Redford said they have agreed on a plan to manage thousands of wild horses on the navajo reservation and keep the animals from being slaughtered.
(SFC, 5/2/14, p.A7)
2014 May 2, Kenya wildlife authorities caught two police officers with six pieces of ivory at a road block while travelling from the central town of Meru to Nairobi.
(AP, 5/3/14)
2014 May 6, The Philippines seized a Chinese fishing boat and its 11 crewmen on charges of catching endangered sea turtles in disputed South China Sea waters, prompting China to demand their release and accuse Manila of being provocative.
(AP, 5/7/14)
2014 May 8, Indian scientists reported the discovery of 14 new species of so-called dancing frogs in the jungle mountains of southern India — just in time, they fear, to watch them fade away.
(AP, 5/8/14)
2014 May 9, Cambodian authorities intercepted 3 tons of illegal ivory that was stashed in shipping containers, its largest such seizure.
(AP, 5/9/14)
2014 May 15, Hong Kong started incinerating its nearly 30-ton stockpile of confiscated ivory to show it's serious about cracking down on an illegal wildlife trade that is devastating Africa's elephant population.
(AP, 5/15/14)
2014 May 16, German authorities said they have arrested a Mexican man (44) at the Frankfurt Airport after finding his suitcase full of snakes, turtles and lizards, including endangered species.
(AP, 5/16/14)
2014 May 16, South Africa said it has suffered its first elephant poaching incident in 10 years this week at the country's largest game reserve.
(Reuters, 5/16/14)
2014 Jun 1, The crown prince of Abu Dhabi and other international donors said they are committing a combined $80 million to fund the conservation of lions, tigers and other wild cats.
(AP, 6/1/14)
2014 Jun 5, Utah’s Wildlife Board voted 3-2 to hold its first ever crow hunt this fall as authorities try to contain the noise and mess from a population of the big, black birds that officials say has tripled over the last 12 years. Crows are protected by the US Fish and Wildlife Service under the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty, but about 45 states allow them to be hunted.
(Reuters, 6/6/14)
2014 Jun 5, Kenyan authorities said they have seized 228 whole elephant tusks and 74 others in pieces as they were being packed for export in the port city of Mombasa.
(Reuters, 6/5/14)
2014 Jun 8, Australian police found human remains inside a large crocodile that is believed to have snatched a man from a boat in a popular national park. Police found the remains inside a 4.7-meter (15-foot, 5-inch) saltwater crocodile that park rangers shot while searching for a 62-year-old man who was attacked a day earlier in Kakadu National Park.
(AP, 6/8/14)
2014 Jun 13, In South Africa’s Johannesburg-based African Parks group said that since mid-May at least 68 elephants have been slaughtered by poachers over the last two months using chain saws and helicopters in the 5,000 square km (1,900 square mile) Garamba National Park in Congo.
(AP, 6/13/14)
2014 Jun 26, In India a Bengal tiger snatched Sushil Manzhi as he was crab fishing with his son and daughter off a boat in a mangrove swamp in Sunderbans National Park, West Bengal state.
(SFC, 6/28/14, p.A2)
2014 Jul 2, The wildlife group TRAFFIC said the number of ivory products on sale in Bangkok nearly trebled from 5,865 in January last year to 14,512 in May 2014.
(AFP, 7/2/14)
2014 Jul 11, In Thailand the manager of the conservation center said poachers have killed and sawed the tusks off Klao, a 50-year-old elephant that performed in Thai royal processions and was featured in Oliver Stone's 2004 movie "Alexander."
(AP, 7/11/14)
2014 Jul 18, The Obama administration approved the use of sonic cannons to discover oil deposits under the ocean floor of the Eastern seaboard. The sounds posed real dangers for whales, fish and sea turtles.
(SFC, 7/19/14, p.A4)
2014 Jul 23, A South African court jailed a rhino poacher for 77 years, one of the heaviest sentences handed out for the crime as poaching continues to escalate. Mandla Chauke was arrested in the iconic Kruger National Park in 2011 after he killed three rhino calves. This month two Mozambicans were each jailed 16 years for killing and dehorning rhino.
(AFP, 7/23/14)
2014 Jul 29, Japan announced that it had wrapped up a whale hunt in the Pacific, the second campaign since the UN's top court ordered Tokyo to halt a separate slaughter in the Antarctic. The country's fisheries agency said 115 whales were killed during the two-and-a-half month campaign.
(AFP, 7/29/14)
2014 Aug 1, In Kenya journalist Godwin Chepkurgor was attacked and killed while on assignment for a magazine by a bull elephant that scooped him up with its trunk and threw him in the air. In 2005 Chepkurgor made headlines after revealing that he had written Clinton to ask for daughter Chelsea's hand in 2000 during the then-president's visit to Kenya.
(AP, 8/6/14)
2014 Aug 1, It was reported that the New Zealand government has approved a massive airdrop of biodegradable poison 1080 over 4,000 square miles to kill some 30 million rats and 25,000 weasels, that threaten the native wildlife population.
(www.earthweek.com/2014/ew140801/ew140801b.html)
2014 Aug 12, Kenya Wildlife Direct chief executive Paula Kahumbu delivered a petition on this World Elephant Day calling for the arrest of Feizal Ali Mohamed, whom Wildlife Direct alleges is a Mombasa-based businessman evading an arrest warrant in relation to a massive ivory seizure in June.
(AP, 8/12/14)
2014 Aug 20, New Zealand said it will ban the practice of shark finning.
(SFC, 8/21/14, p.A2)
2014 Aug 27, Muslims for Human Rights alleged that corrupt Kenyan wildlife rangers have been killing poachers to cover up the officers' collusion with the criminals slaughtering the country's elephants. The group has documented the disappearances of 18 suspected poachers over the last three years.
(AP, 8/27/14)
2014 Sep 7, China’s Xinhua News Agency reported that authorities have killed some 4,900 dogs in Baoshan, Yunnan province, after blaming five human deaths on rabies. The city of vaccinated another 100,000 in its anti-rabies campaign and issued an urgent order calling for authorities to tightly regulate dogs and kill stray ones.
(AP, 9/7/14)
2014 Sep 7, Four Japanese ships left the northern island of Hokkaido to start the seasonal "research" whaling hunt in Pacific coastal waters.
(AFP, 9/7/14)
2014 Sep 7, In Mozambique six suspected poachers were arrested in the Niassa National Reserve wildlife reserve, home to about two-thirds of the country’s elephants.
(AP, 9/14/14)
2014 Sep 16, In Japan the first dolphins of the season were slaughtered in the small town of Taiji.
(AFP, 9/16/14)
2014 Sep 17, Japan agreed to cut purchases of eel fry from neighboring countries by 20 percent as part of moves to protect the endangered species. The agreement with China, South Korea and Taiwan called for reducing eel hauls by 20 percent for one year, beginning in November.
(AP, 9/18/14)
2014 Sep 18, In Slovenia an international whaling conference voted against Japan's highly criticized plans to resume whaling in the Antarctic next year, but Japan vowed to go ahead anyway.
(AP, 9/18/14)
2014 Sep 21, In South Africa a ranger and two other employees of the country’s parks service were arrested on suspicion of rhino poaching in Kruger National Park, the country's flagship wildlife reserve.
(AP, 9/22/14)
2014 Sep 30, The Swiss-based WWF issued a report saying about 3,000 species of wildlife around the world have seen their numbers plummet far worse than previously thought.
(AP, 9/30/14)
2014 Oct 4, Thousands marched in Africa and around the world to pressure governments to do more to stop the poaching industry that many fear is driving rhinos and elephants to the brink of extinction. The Global March for Elephants and Rhinos, took place in 136 cities and towns across six continents.
(AFP, 10/5/14)
2014 Oct 29, Australian scientists said they have successfully tested a vaccine against chlamydia in wild koalas, in what they believe is a breakthrough in combating the sexually-transmitted disease ravaging the native marsupial.
(AFP, 10/29/14)
2014 Nov 2, Indian authorities set fire to a stockpile of tiger skins, elephant tusks, rhino horns and other illegal animal parts in an effort to discourage wildlife smuggling in South Asia.
(AP, 11/2/14)
2014 Nov 17, US researchers said they have identified a virus that has been wiping out starfish along the US Pacific coast. It was identified as a densovirus, a type of parvovirus, and was said to have also been found in museum specimans dating back to 1942.
(SFC, 11/18/14, p.A1)
2014 Nov 17, A Ugandan official said local police are investigating the disappearance more than a ton of ivory, valued at $1.1 million, from a government vault.
(AP, 11/17/14)
2014 Nov 18, A South Dakota a girl (8) was attacked and killed by a pack of dogs on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Oglala Sioux officials rounded up a horse trailer full of dogs and killed them on Nov 20.
(SFC, 11/22/14, p.A5)
2014 Nov 18, Japan slashed its whale catch target in the Antarctic by two-thirds in a bid to resume its annual whale hunt, which an international court ruled must stop.
(AP, 11/18/14)
2014 Nov 19, Indonesian authorities said two endangered Sumatran elephants were found dead this week near a palm oil plantation in the Tebo district of Jambi province on Sumatra island. Authorities believed they were killed by poachers.
(AP, 11/20/14)
2014 Nov 26, China's official Xinhua News Agency said that a tiger, named Ustin, bit and killed 15 goats and left another three missing On Nov 23-24. Russian experts rescued five tiger cubs two years ago. Ustin was one of three released by Pres. Putin in May in a remote part of the Amur region.
(AP, 11/26/14)
2014 Nov 28, In southern Nepal a two-day festival, believed to be the largest animal sacrifice ritual in the world, began. More than 5,000 buffaloes were ritually killed during the day. Devotees of the festival, held every five years, believe the sacrifices bring good luck and a Hindu goddess will grant their wishes.
(AP, 11/28/14)
2014 Dec 3, The California Fish and Game Commission voted 4-1 to ban predator killing contests.
(SFC, 12/6/14, p.C1)
2014 Dec 3, In South Africa golfer Jacques van der Sandt (29) was grabbed and killed by a crocodile while retrieving gold balls from Lake Panic dam in Kruger National Park. Rangers killed the crocodile after a two-hour search.
(SFC, 12/5/14, p.A2)
2014 Dec 8, US federal authorities said a dolphin was lethally shot by a hunting arrow in the northern Gulf of Mexico, the second violent killing of the protected animal in recent weeks. Harming, harassing or feeding a wild dolphin is prohibited under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.
(Reuters, 12/10/14)
2014 Dec 9, The Save the Elephants group reported that street prices for illegal ivory are soaring in China, where newly wealthy middle and upper class citizens are buying carved ivory and whole tusks as a status symbol of their riches.
(AP, 12/9/14)
2014 Dec 10, Poland's constitutional court overturned a ban on the ritual slaughter of animals which had affected the Jewish and Muslim communities.
(AP, 12/10/14)
2014 Dec 13, South African authgorities said rangers killed 3 rhino poachers in the past week in a flurry of shootouts in Kruger National Park.
(AP, 12/13/14)
2014 Dec 19, A federal judge restored US Endangered Species Act protections to gray wolves in the western Great Lakes. Federal wildlife biologists counted nearly 4,400 wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin when the animals were removed from the federal endangered and threatened species list in 2012. Estimates this year suggest the region is home to 3,748 wolves, a decline mostly due to hunting and trapping.
(AP, 12/20/14)
2014 Dec 22, A grand jury in Baltimore returned indictments against 22 people involved in a multi-state dog-fighting ring. 225 dogs and at least 20 weapons were recovered following raids in Baltimore and West Virginia.
(SFC, 12/23/14, p.A5)
2014 Dec 22, Kenyan police arrested Feisal Mohammed Ali, an alleged ivory trafficker, at a rental house in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. On Dec 24 a Kenyan court charged him with smuggling tusks.
(AP, 12/23/14)(AFP, 12/24/14)
2014 Dec 24, Zimbabwe wildlife authorities announced plans to export at least 62 elephants to top up scant state funding and curb a ballooning pachyderm population.
(AFP, 12/24/14)
2014 Dec 30, Chinese state media reported that a man, identified as a rich businessmen surnamed Xu, has been jailed for 13 years for buying and eating endangered tigers and making wine made out of their blood.
(Reuters, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, Hong Kong authorities began destroying 15,000 chickens at a poultry market and suspended imports from mainland China after some birds were found to be infected with bird flu.
(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Noah Strycker, American field biologist, authored “The Thing with feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human."
(Econ, 4/5/14, p.74)
2014 In Australia scientists began using a solution made of salts from cattle bile to kill the crown-of-thorns starfish, which have been chomping their way through the Great Barrier Reef.
(Econ., 4/11/15, p.38)
2014 In Cyprus more than two million migratory songbirds were indiscriminately slaughtered this year to be served as delicacies in local restaurants. Although trapping is illegal, authorities had yet to introduce a comprehensive action plan against bird trapping.
(Reuters, 3/9/15)
2014 In Indonesia the number of Asian elephants on Sumatra Island fell to an estimated 1,700 from an estimated 2,800 in 2007.
(SFC, 1/12/18, p.A6)
2014 In Niger 12 schoolchildren aged between 12 and 13 were killed this year when a hippo attacked their boat on the Niger at Libore, a village near Niamey.
(AFP, 7/13/17)
2014 In Russia a 40-foot-wide, circular structure made from the skulls, skeletons and tusks of more than 60 woolly mammoths was discovered at a site called Kostenki 11, 300 miles south of Moscow. The site was dated back 25,000 years.
(NY Times, 3/18/20)
2014 The slaughter of rhinos in South Africa hit a new record this year with poachers killing 1,215 of the iconic savannah animals as Asian-led demand for their horn showed no sign of abating.
(AFP, 1/22/15)
2015 Jan 1, In Tanzania six lions were killed overnight by angry Maasai herders following an attack on livestock.
(AFP, 1/1/15)
2015 Jan 4, In eastern India 14 langur monkeys died after snatching and then eating biscuits laced with rat poison being sold by a hawker in West Bengal state. The hawker who fled in the aftermath of the deaths.
(AFP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, In South Africa 2 suspected rhino poachers were shot dead after they opened fire on rangers in South Africa's Kruger National Park.
(Reuters, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 10, A male camel in rut trampled two people to death at the Camel Kisses farm in north Texas.
(Reuters, 1/11/15)
2015 Jan 14, In India wildlife rangers shot 3 suspected poachers dead in a gunbattle in remote northeastern Kaziranga National Park, Assam state.
(AP, 1/14/15)
2015 Jan 16, Zimbabwe's government says it must export elephants to raise funds for wildlife management. About 60 elephants will be sold for between $40,000 and $60,000 each to China, France and the United Arab Emirates.
(AP, 1/16/15)
2015 Jan 20, Animal rescuers said some 100 birds have been found dead and more than 300 others coated with an unidentified glue-like compound mostly along the eastern shoreline of SF Bay.
(SFC, 1/21/15, p.A1)(SFC, 1/22/15, p.A8)
2015 Jan 20, Indian officials said a 2014 census found at least 2,226 tigers in forests across the country, up from 1,707 count3ed in 2010.
(SFC, 1/21/15, p.A2)
2015 Jan 23, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said about 10 brown pelicans have died, and another four injured after a culprit apparently used a knife to slit the large gullets beneath their beaks. Officials issued an alert last week about the deaths.
(Reuters, 1/23/15)
2015 Jan 31, Mexican investigators said 150 green sea turtles have been found dead in the Ojo de Liebre lagoon, on the Pacific side of Baja California Sur state. The federal environmental protection agency suspected that that lowered temperatures in the region may have caused the deaths. Earlier this month the bodies of 14 gray whales were found in the lagoon.
(AP, 2/1/15)(SFC, 2/2/15, p.A2)
2015 Feb 1, In Pakistan an advance party arrived in a C-130 transport plane for Saudi Prince Fahd bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz to visit the southwestern desert region to hunt the Houbara bustard, a bird supposedly protected by law. He led a hunting party to Baluchistan last year that officials said killed more than 2,000 bustards.
(AFP, 2/2/15)
2015 Feb 4, A Vietnamese police officer said authorities have buried thousands of cats, many apparently still alive, that were seized last week after being smuggled in a truck from China for restaurants. The truck driver to whom the cargo belonged, was fined 7.5 million dong ($360).
(AP, 2/4/15)
2015 Feb 9, In Australia a Japanese citizen died after a shark tore off his legs while he was surfing off the coast of New South Wales.
(SFC, 2/10/15, p.A2)
2015 Feb 11, The Obama administration introduced an aggressive plan to stem illegal wildlife trafficking.
(SFC, 2/12/15, p.A9)
2015 Feb 11, Mali officials said motorcycle-riding poachers have killed at least 19 elephants over the past month, marking a significant blow to a rare grouping that lives in central Mali. It is believed there are only 350 to 700 elephants left in Mali.
(AP, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 13, In New Zealand 198 pilot whales stranded themselves on South Island. Hordes of rescuers rushed to the remote area in a bid to guide them back to sea. Some 140 died as rescuers refloated about 60.
(AP, 2/13/15)(AP, 2/14/15)
2015 Feb 7, Residents in Montana began finding dead horses. Somebody had shot up to two dozen horses and dumped their bodies in a hay field about a mile west of Lodge Grass on the Crow Indian Reservation.
(http://tinyurl.com/ors58py)(SFC, 2/17/15, p.A5)
2015 Feb 26, China imposed a one-year ban on ivory imports with immediate effect amid criticism that its citizens' huge appetite for ivory has fueled poaching that threatens the existence of African elephants.
(AP, 2/26/15)
2015 Feb 26, Egyptian police arrested three men suspected of torturing and killing a chained dog with knives, after horrific footage of the incident sparked outrage in the country. On March 11 a court convicted four men over the grisly killing and sentenced them to three years in prison.
(AFP, 2/26/15)(AP, 3/11/15)
2015 Mar 2, In India a law banning the possession and sale of beef went into effect in the state of Maharashtra. The ban on the slaughter of cattle put thousands out of work and created problems for struggling farmers. The ban would not apply to buffaloes India was the world’s 2nd largest exporter of beef behind Brazil.
(SFC, 3/6/15, p.A5)(SFC, 3/27/15, p.A2)(Econ., 4/11/15, p.37)
2015 Mar 4, In California a reporter for the Sacramento Bee found a bag of headless chickens along railroad tracks near 19th and W streets. Over the last three months batches of headless animals have been found on 11 occasions around the city in apparent ritualistic killings. By March 17 the number of discoveries rose to 13.
(SFC, 3/5/15, p.D6)(SFC, 3/17/15, p.A4)
2015 Mar 5, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, owned by Florida-based Feld Entertainment, announced that it will remove its traveling cadre of elephants from the Big Top over the next three years.
(SFC, 3/6/15, p.A1)
2015 Mar 20, Ethiopian officials set fire to6.1 tons of illegal elephant tusks, ivory trinkets, carvings and various forms of jewelry on a wooden pyre in Addis Ababa to discourage poaching and the ivory trade.
(AP, 3/20/15)
2015 Mar 30, In southern Nepal a wild rhino charged into the outskirts of Hetauda city, killing a woman (61), injuring several others and chasing panicked people through the main market and a hospital.
(AP, 3/30/15)
2015 Mar 31, In Australia 55 dead greyhounds were found dumped and spent rifle cartridges seen nearby in near Bundaberg, Queensland state. The grisly discovery came on the heels of a live baiting scandal rocking the dog racing industry.
(AFP, 4/1/15)
2015 Apr 1, The US federal government said it is listing the northern long-eared bat as threatened. The species has been nearly wiped out by the spread of a fungal disease called the white nose syndrome, first identified near Albany, NY, in 2006.
(SFC, 4/2/15, p.A5)
2015 Apr 2, It was reported that somebody was systematically poisoning the dogs of Hermosillo, an industrial city in northern Mexico, and not just strays: At least 64 dogs, all with owners, have died of a similar poison since mid-March.
(AP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 10, In Japan frantic rescue efforts saved just 3 dolphins after about 150 mostly melon-headed whales, or blackfish beached themselves and became stranded on a northeastern coast in Hokota.
(AP, 4/10/15)
2015 Apr 11, Malta voted in a referendum to decide whether to overturn a law that allows the hunting of breeding birds in spring, a centuries-old tradition that is not allowed anywhere else in the European Union.
(Reuters, 4/11/15)
2015 Apr 13, The Pacific Fishery Management Council agreed to close the sardine fishery from Mexico to the Canadian border starting July 1. Sardine numbers had declined 91% along the West Coast since 2007.
(SFC, 4/14/15, p.A1)
2015 Apr 13, In Indonesia a Sumatran elephant was found dead in Aceh province with its tusks cut off, raising suspicion it was killed by poachers. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has listed the animals as "critically endangered" after their numbers dropped to between 2,400 and 2,800 from an estimated 5,000 in 1985.
(AP, 4/14/15)
2015 Apr 15, It was reported that a canine flu outbreak has sickened many dogs in the Midwest USA.
(SFC, 4/16/15, p.A8)
2015 Apr 18, Thailand customs officials seized 4 tons of ivory hidden in bean sacks, tracked from Congo and bound for Laos, in what authorities said was the biggest bust in the country's history. 739 elephant tusks, were seized upon arrival in Bangkok.
(AP, 4/20/15)
2015 Apr 19, In Iran some 500 people protested the killings of dogs and called for an investigation. A short film showing several stray dogs dying after apparently being injected with burning acid in Shiraz had gone viral and prompted protests with celebrities joining animal lovers in condemning the cruelty.
(AFP, 4/20/15)
2015 Apr 21, Danish lawmakers in a 91-75 vote approved banning sex with animals.
(AP, 4/22/15)
2015 Apr 21, In Norway five wolf hunters were sentenced to jail in an unprecedented environmental crackdown to protect a tiny stock of about 35 of the predators living in eastern pine forests despite widespread local opposition.
(Reuters, 4/21/15)
2015 Apr 25, The EU's judicial agency Eurojust said police from seven European countries have detained 26 people and seized hundreds of horse passports in a crackdown against a Europe-wide horsemeat trafficking ring.
(AP, 4/25/15)
2015 Apr 25, Thailand officials seized three tons of ivory hidden in tea leaf sacks from Kenya and destine for Laos.
(SFC, 4/28/15, p.A2)
2015 Apr 29, The United Arab Emirates pulverized a mound of confiscated elephant tusks and ivory carvings to send a message against poaching and ivory trafficking.
(SFC, 4/30/15, p.A2)
2015 Apr 30, In southern Greece 23 wild horses were found killed with shotguns on a remote mountainside. 3 injured horses soon died. The motive for the attack remained unclear.
(AP, 5/4/15)
2015 May 4, Indonesian police arrested a suspected wildlife smuggler after discovering nearly 22 rare live birds, mostly yellow-crested cockatoos, jammed inside plastic water bottles in his luggage.
(AFP, 5/6/15)
2015 May 4, A series of raids, codenamed "COBRA III" and organized by Thailand, began across Asia, Africa and Europe. By May 27 they resulted in more than 300 arrests and over 600 seizures of assorted wildlife contraband — from several tons of ivory and rhino horns to whale ribs and sea horses.
(AP, 6/18/15)
2015 May 10, The South African government said that more rhinos had been poached in 2015 than in the previous year with 393 poached by the end of April.
(AFP, 5/10/15)
2015 May 12, Mozambican police seized 340 elephant tusks and 65 rhino horns from a house in the city of Matola. Two Chinese citizens were arrested. Mozambique's elephant population has dropped from just over 20,000 to about 10,300 since 2009.
(AP, 5/28/15)
2015 May 13, Chinese state media said forest police in Yunnan province have arrested 10 people for killing a female wild giant panda, buying and selling its parts.
(AP, 5/13/15)
2015 May 19, The American Bird Conservancy estimated that 140,000 to 328,000 birds were being killed annually by electricity generating wind turbines.
(SFC, 5/20/15, p.A8)
2015 May 20, Japan's association of zoos and aquariums said it will stop buying dolphins taken in the controversial hunt at Taiji, possibly raising pressure to halt the annual event said to be a tradition.
(Reuters, 5/20/15)
2015 May 21, In Japan the mayor of the fishing town of Taiji said dolphin hunts will not stop, even after Japan's aquariums decided to stop buying captured dolphins under international pressure sparked by cruelty concerns.
(AP, 5/21/15)
2015 May 27, In Kazakhstan international experts investigated the sudden deaths of some 134,000 endangered saiga antelope, raising fears that a species that has been around since the Ice Age may be at risk of dying out. Around 40 percent of the nation's population of the endangered saiga antelope have died in the past two weeks. The deaths were later believed to have been caused by two naturally occurring bacteria.
(Reuters, 5/27/15)(SSFC, 6/21/15, p.C14)
2015 May 27, Mozambican police said six police officers officials have been arrested after 50 kg (110 pounds) of rhino horn were stolen from a huge cache seized from poachers only two weeks ago.
(AFP, 5/27/15)(AP, 5/28/15)
2015 May 29, Chinese authorities destroyed 662 kg of ivory that was seized after being smuggled into the country. Zhao Shucong, head of the State Forestry Administration, said China will strictly control ivory processing and trade until the commercial processing and sale of ivory products are eventually halted.
(AP, 5/29/15)(SFC, 6/26/15, p.A3)
2015 May, In eastern Central African Republic two groups of some 200 poachers from Sudan were active, killing elephants and other wild animals, according to a UN report made public in September.
(AP, 9/2/15)
2015 May, A North Korean diplomat was arrested in Mozambique on charges related to rhino horn smuggling.
(AP, 12/23/15)
2015 Jun 1, In South Africa a lion leapt through an open car window and mauled to death an American tourist at a privately-run game park just outside Johannesburg.
(AFP, 6/1/15)
2015 Jun 1, In Tanzania elephant census figures showed a "catastrophic decline" of around 60 percent over the last five years.
(AFP, 6/2/15)
2015 Jun 2, Polish authorities said they will cull about 5,800 pigs to prevent the spread of African swine fever.
(AP, 6/2/15)
2015 Jun 9, US traders said Cuba has suspended imports of US chicken citing a bird flu epidemic ravaging the US poultry industry. More than 44 million chickens, turkeys and other birds have been culled since last December.
(Reuters, 6/9/15)
2015 Jun 11, Mozambique news reported that authorities have arrested five police officers for colluding with a poacher in the illegal sale of a rhino horn.
(AP, 6/11/15)
2015 Jun 14, In Georgia lions, tigers and even a hippopotamus escaped from a zoo in Tbilisi, adding to chaos caused by flooding after the River Vere burst its banks after hours of torrential rain. 20 wolves, 8 lions and an unspecified number of tigers, jackals and jaguars were shot dead by special forces or were missing. By June 19 at least 19 people were dead with some still missing.
(AFP, 6/14/15)(SFC, 6/16/15, p.A2)(SSFC, 6/21/15, p.A4)
2015 Jun 17, In Georgia a rare white tiger that escaped from Tbilisi zoo in a freak flood mauled a man to death before being shot dead by police. Another young tiger and a hyena were still unaccounted for.
(AFP, 6/17/15)
2015 Jun 18, A Tanzanian government minister described elephant poaching on as a national disaster, and urged China to curb its appetite for ivory.
(Reuters, 6/18/15)
2015 Jun 19, Scientists warned the world is embarking on its sixth mass extinction with animals disappearing about 100 times faster than they used to, and that humans could be among the first victims.
(AFP, 6/20/15)
2015 Jun 22, In China restaurateurs in Yulin, in the largely rural and poor Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, held an annual dog meat festival despite international criticism of the event as cruel and unhygienic. At least 10,000 dogs were expected to be slaughtered.
(AP, 6/22/15)(Econ, 6/20/15, p.46)
2015 Jun 27, In Sacramento, Ca., a couple searching for a dog found a headless goat, dead chickens, a headless rat and a decapitated catfish, adding to the number of decapitated animals found in recent months.
(SFC, 6/29/15, p.A9)
2015 Jun, In southern Chile an aerial survey found 337 dead whales in a remote fjord in Patagonia.
(SSFC, 12/6/15, p.C12)
2015 Jul 1, In Zimbabwe Cecil the lion was believed killed in the western Hwange region. His carcass was discovered days later by trackers. On July 29 two men, arrested for illegally hunting the protected lion, were in court. They were reportedly paid $50,000 by American dentist James Palmer to hunt a lion for Palmer to kill with a crossbow.
(AP, 7/29/15)(SFC, 7/29/15, p.A4)
2015 Jul 6, Mozambique authorities burned more than 2.6 tons of ivory and rhino horns confiscated during various anti-poaching busts, demonstrating a tough stance on wildlife trafficking.
(AFP, 7/6/15)
2015 Jul 6, Customs officials at Zurich airport seized 262 kg (578 pounds) of ivory that three Chinese men had dispatched from Tanzania, contraband that may have come from up to 50 elephants. The tusks had been sawed into 172 pieces to fit into luggage.
(AP, 8/4/15)
2015 Jul 12, An Indian government report said 10 endangered Asiatic lions, 1670 blue bulls and 87 spotted deer were amongst hundreds of wild animals killed in the recent floods to hit west India's Gujarat. At least 81 people died in mudslides collapsed homes or high waters in Gujarat state last month.
(AFP, 7/12/15)(SFC, 7/13/15, p.A2)
2015 Jul 13, Indonesian authorities said an orangutan trader has been jailed for two years after he was caught trying to sell a baby ape from a backpack, a rare conviction for wildlife crime in the country. A court in Medan also ordered Vast Haris Nasution to pay a 10 million rupiah ($750) fine after he was found guilty last week under laws that ban the trade in orangutans.
(AFP, 7/13/15)
2015 Jul 24, Animal rights activists Joseph Buddenberg (31) and Nicole Kissane (28) of Oakland, Ca., were arrested for allegedly driving more than 40,000 miles across the country to save hides of 5,000 mink destined to become furs.
(SFC, 7/25/15, p.C1)
2015 Jul 28, Kenyan rangers found the carcasses of 5 elephants killed overnight with their tusks hacked off in Tsavo West National Park.
(SFC, 7/31/15, p.A4)
2015 Jul 31, France’s Constitutional Council confirmed the ban on the creation of new cockfighting rings — called cockpits. The law, dating back to 1964, aims to gradually get rid of all cockpits and therefore, cockfighting.
(AP, 7/31/15)
2015 Aug 3, US airlines Delta and American banned the shipment of big game trophies on flights, in the wake of outrage over the killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe.
(AFP, 8/4/15)
2015 Aug 5, The California Fish and Game Commission voted 3 to 2 in favor of ending the commercial and recreational trapping of bobcats in California, becoming the first state in the nation to do so.
(http://tinyurl.com/phplrmo)
2015 Aug 9, Bangladesh police said 6 suspected wildlife poachers were killed in a clash with law enforcement in the Khulna district Sundarbans forest. Officers seized five guns and three tiger skins. Only about 100 Bengal tigers were left in the Bangladeshi part of the Sundarbans.
(SFC, 8/10/15, p.A2)
2015 Aug 12, Estonia’s Agriculture ministry spokeswoman Karin Volmer said a total of 15,700 pigs have been killed to prevent the spread of African swine fever since the first case was reported there on July 21.
(AP, 8/12/15)
2015 Aug 14, A US court hearing on the fate of 18 beluga whales captured in Russia pitted federal regulators against the Georgia aquarium seeking to bring them to the US.
(Reuters, 8/14/15)
2015 Aug 16, In Spain an animal rights activist was beaten with a duck by a woman defending one of the country's most bizarre and controversial festival traditions in the Catalonian seaside town of Roses. Every year since 1918 about 50 ducks are thrown into the sea in the town north of Barcelona, with swimmers then racing in to catch them and bringing them ashore however they can.
(AFP, 8/20/15)
2015 Aug 21, A court in Kenya granted bail to Feisal Mohammed Ali, the suspected ringleader of an ivory smuggling gang. Government prosecutors said they would appeal. On August 24 his bail was suspended.
(AFP, 8/20/15)(AFP, 8/24/15)
2015 Aug 24, Chinese border patrol officials seized 620 wild turtles and tortoises, 510 of them considered endangered, that were found alive in a shipment of frozen seafood from Vietnam.
(AP, 8/30/15)
2015 Aug 26, Thailand destroyed over two tons of ivory, a victory for animal rights groups fighting against the trade in a country renowned for being a hub for illegal tusks.
(AFP, 8/26/15)
2015 Aug, Uganda wildlife officials were stumped by a mysterious illness among the lions of Kidepo Valley National Park that has left the big cats emaciated and docile.
(SSFC, 8/23/15, p.C12)
2015 Sep 8, European lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to strengthen an EU ban on seal products, narrowing exceptions made for Canada's indigenous Inuits.
(AFP, 9/8/15)
2015 Sep 14, In Hawaii a federal judge signed an agreement between the US Navy and environmental groups that will limit the navy’s use of sonar and other training that inadvertently harms marine mammals.
(SFC, 9/15/15, p.A7)
2015 Sep 15, In Kenya Google launched its Street View service in Samburu park, in a move conservationists said could help protect endangered elephants.
(AFP, 9/15/15)
2015 Sep 15, In Spain a fighting bull was stabbed to death with lances as the town of Tordesillas held its controversial annual festival to a background of clashes between animal rights activists and participants.
(Reuters, 9/15/15)
2015 Sep 16, The WWF conservation group said the amount of fish in the oceans has halved since 1970, in a plunge to the "brink of collapse" caused by over-fishing and other threats.
(Reuters, 9/16/15)
2015 Sep 28, Madagascar’s customs officials found 771 endangered tortoises hidden in socks and baby diapers in unaccompanied freight due to be flown to Malaysia.
(SFC, 10/1/15, p.A2)
2015 Sep, In Britain Tony Jenkins, the co-founder of Snarl, a local animal rescue and rehabilitation shelter, began investigating reports of suspicious deaths and mutilations of cats in the south London area. After two years Snarl identified more than 400 suspected victims: mostly cats, but also some foxes and rabbits.
(AP, 12/16/17)
2015 Oct 3, In South Africa hundreds of people demonstrated in Johannesburg in defense of rhinos, elephants and lions against poaching and to demand authorities take more radical action.
(AFP, 10/3/15)
2015 Oct 5, In Congo DRC poachers killed 3 rangers and one military colonel who were part of a 10-man patrol that tracked the satellite collar of a killed elephant to the poacher’s camp in Garamba National Park. The anti-poaching patrol was outnumbered and forced to disperse.
(SFC, 10/10/15, p.A2)
2015 Oct 7, A Zimbabwean wildlife official said five people are in police custody and being questioned over the killing of 11 elephants poisoned by cyanide at Hwange National Park in the west of the country.
(AP, 10/7/15)
2015 Oct 7, In Tanzania Yang Feng Clan (66), a Chinese woman, was charged in Dar es Salaam alongside two Tanzanians with smuggling 1.9 tons of ivory between Jan. 1, 2000 and May 22, 2014.
(AP, 10/9/15)
2015 Oct 9, A US judge approved a deal between conservationists and Montana officials to restrict road-building and logging in roughly 22,000 acres (8,900 hectares) of state forest lands that make up core habitat for federally protected grizzlies.
(Reuters, 10/9/15)
2015 Oct 12, Chinese authorities announced the arrests of 16 suspected members of a smuggling ring and the seizure of hundreds of kilograms (pounds) of ivory along with rhino horns and bear paws.
(AP, 10/12/15)
2015 Oct 14, In India villagers fled after an attack on a truck loaded with five cows and 10 bulls in Sarahan, a village in Himachal Pradesh state. Five occupants of the truck hid in the forest until police found them and took them to the hospital, where one of them died. The survivors were arrested for alleged animal cruelty.
(AP, 10/16/15)
2015 Oct 14, In Indonesia 2 endangered Sumatran elephants were found dead in Aceh province and were believed to have been poisoned a few days earlier.
(AP, 10/15/15)
2015 Oct 14, Zimbabwe officials said rangers in Hwange National Park have discovered the carcasses of 26 elephants at two locations, dead of cyanide poisoning along with 14 other elephants who were found last week.
(AP, 10/14/15)
2015 Oct 15, China announced a one-year ban on the import of ivory hunting trophies from Africa.
(Econ, 11/21/15, p.44)
2015 Oct 22, South African officials said 19 elephants have been poached this year in Kruger National Park. Record levels of rhinos have also been poached.
(SFC, 10/23/15, p.A2)
2015 Oct 25, Florida called an early end to the state’s black bear hunt saying 298 bears were taken nearing the set limit.
(SFC, 10/27/15, p.A5)
2015 Nov 2, In Zimbabwe Sunday Mail editor Mabasa Sasa, investigations editor Brian Chitemba and reporter Tinashe Farawo were arrested after allegedly implicating an unnamed top police officer and other officials in recent fatal cyanide poisonings of more than 60 elephants by poachers.
(AP, 11/3/15)
2015 Nov 18, The National Institutes of Health quietly ended the federal government’s long history of using chimpanzees for biomedical research.
(SFC, 11/19/15, p.A6)
2015 Nov 20, In California regulations banning the commercial and recreational trapping of bobcat went into effect.
(SFC, 11/21/15, p.A6)
2015 Nov 24, China’s Xinhua news agency reported that the world's largest animal cloning factory is under construction in in the northern port of Tianjin, with plans to churn out dogs, horses and up to a million beef cattle a year.
(AFP, 11/24/15)
2015 Nov 24, Int’l. experts meeting in Singapore said more than half the world's primates, including apes, lemurs and monkeys, are facing extinction.
(AFP, 11/24/15)
2015 Nov 24, A Tanzanian court charged four Chinese nationals for smuggling rhino horns.
(Reuters, 11/25/15)
2015 Nov 26, A South African court opened the way to allowing local trade in rhino horns, alarming some conservationists who warned the ruling leaves rhinos even more vulnerable to poachers who are slaughtering them in record numbers.
(AP, 11/26/15)
2015 Nov 29, Environmental activist group Sea Shepherd warned Japan against resuming "research" whaling in the Antarctic and called on the Australian government to intervene.
(AFP, 11/29/15)
2015 Dec 1, Japan's whaling fleet set out for the Antarctic to resume a hunt for the mammals after a year-long hiatus.
(Reuters, 12/1/15)
2015 Dec 6, In Cambodia 6 people died after eating the barbequed carcass of a dog that had died for unknown reasons. 4 others died on Dec 8 after drinking rice wine.
(AP, 12/11/15)
2015 Dec 10, Gabon, home to half of Africa's endangered forest elephants, said it has impounded more than 200 kg (440 lbs.) of ivory in what may be its largest seizure ever.
(Reuters, 12/10/15)
2015 Dec 11, South Africa expelled a North Korean diplomat. He was arrested in neighboring Mozambique in May on charges related to rhino horn smuggling.
(AP, 12/23/15)
2015 Dec 15, In Romania thousands of angry shepherds engaged in a tense standoff with riot police outside the parliament building in protest at a law that restricts the number of sheepdogs they can use and bans them from grazing sheep during the winter. The law was introduced by supporters of hunting, a popular pastime among Romania's elite.
(AP, 12/15/15)
2015 Dec 17, Tanzania sentenced four Chinese men to 20 years in jail each after they were convicted of smuggling rhino horns.
(Reuters, 12/18/15)
2015 Dec 21, The Obama administration announced a move to make it harder for American big-game hunters to bring a lion head or hide into the country.
(SFC, 12/22/15, p.A7)
2015 Dec 22, Tanzanian authorities said they have seized tusks from about 45 elephants and arrested two suspects at their home in Dar es Salaam.
(Reuters, 12/23/15)
2015 Mark Essig authored “Lesser Beasts: A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig."
(Econ, 5/2/15, p.75)
2015 Henry Holt authored “Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel."
(Econ, 7/18/15, p.72)
2015 Scientists counted 65 Chinese White dolphins (sousa chinensis) around Lantau Island in Hong Kong. This was a drop from 188 surveyed in 2003.
(Econ 5/27/17, p.40)
2015 In South Africa 1,175 rhinos were killed by poachers this year, a slight decrease on 2014, but another year of carnage fueled by Asian-led demand for their horn.
(AFP, 1/21/16)
2015 In Zimbabwe at least 50 rhinos were poached this year, up from 20 a year earlier.
(SFC, 1/13/16, p.A2)
2016 Jan 8, The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said seven employees of an Oregon zoo contracted tuberculosis from three elephants in their care in 2013. Human-to-elephant transmission was first identified in 1996 and there have been a handful of cases in recent years in Tennessee and elsewhere.
(Reuters, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 11, Feld Entertainment, parent company of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, said the elephant acts that have been part of their circus shows for more than a century will end in May, earlier than their previously announcement retirement.
(Reuters, 1/11/16)
2016 Jan 11, In southeastern India short-finned pilot whales began washing up on beaches in the port town of Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu state. Records showed that the last time whales washed up on the beaches of Tuticorin in large numbers was in 1973.
(AP, 1/12/16)
2016 Jan 12, In the Netherlands five sperm whales beached on Texel Island. All 5 died before anyone could attempt a rescue operation. Sperm whales began to wash up on German, Dutch, French and British shores. Over the next two months 29 beached whales surprised scientists after only 82 previous beaching of sperm whales had been documented since the 1990s. In 2017 German scientists said the mass beachings could have been due to solar storms.
(AP, 1/13/16) (Reuters, 9/5/17)
2016 Jan 18, Zimbabwe's wildlife rangers recovered 22 elephant tusks after a shootout with 11 suspected poachers, all of whom escaped.
(AP, 1/20/16)
2016 Jan 20, It was reported that Peruvian authorities are outfitting vultures with GPS tracking devices and GoPro cameras to monitor the city from above.
(Reuters, 1/20/16)
2016 Jan 22, Pakistan's Supreme Court lifted a ban on hunting a rare bird, after the government argued it hurt relations with Gulf states whose wealthy hunters traditionally travel to Pakistan to pursue the endangered species with falcons.
(Reuters, 1/22/16)
2016 Jan 23, Finland began a 2nd government sanctioned trial wolf hunt permitting the cull of 46 wolves until Feb 21. In 2015 17 wolves were killed. Wolf hunting was banned in the country from 2007 to 2015.
(SFC, 1/23/16, p.A2)
2016 Jan 26, Kenya said it will torch its vast stockpile of ivory at a star-studded summit to include Hollywood celebrities, presidents and business leaders against "poaching and illegal trade in ivory." The promised destruction of the remaining stockpile is now slated for April 29 and 30.
(AFP, 1/26/16)
2016 Jan 26, Sri Lankan authorities began destroying a shipment of African ivory seized three years ago, following a ceremony at which Buddhist monks gave the slaughtered elephants blessings for a better rebirth.
(AP, 1/26/16)
2016 Jan, In Alaska thousands of dead common murres, a type of seabird also known as a guillemot, washed ashore near Homer and along the state’s vast coastline. The birds appeared to have starved. Researchers later pinned the die-off on warm ocean temperatures that affected the tiny fish eaten by the birds.
(Econ, 1/30/16, p.24)(SFC, 2/11/17, p.A9)
2016 Jan, The feral cat population of Australia, estimated at 4-20 million, was believed to eat as many as 75 million animals a day.
(Econ, 1/16/16, p.42)
2016 Feb 1, In Australia 16 young kangaroos were found killed after being deliberately run down by a driver. Another had to be euthanized because of its injuries.
(AP, 2/1/16)
2016 Feb 1, In Thailand Scottish tourist Gareth Crowe was gored to death by an elephant that he and his stepdaughter (16) were riding on the resort island of Samui.
(AP, 2/2/16)
2016 Feb 3, Environmentalists sued a branch of the US Department of Agriculture in a bid to block federal agents from carrying out targeted killings of gray wolves in Oregon.
(Reuters, 2/3/16)
2016 Feb 4, Congo DRC authorities dismantled a major ivory network, arresting three traffickers in a blow to poaching operations that threaten the survival of the African forest elephant. Officials also seized 30 kg (66 pounds) of ivory ornaments and other items.
(AP, 2/13/16)
2016 Feb 5, Japan deported Ric O'Barry, the star of an Oscar-winning documentary that shows how dolphins are hunted in a Japanese village, after Tokyo airport officials barred his entry and he was held in detention for more than two weeks.
(AP, 2/5/16)
2016 Mar 1, Four Kenyan policemen were charged with illegal possession of ivory at a Nairobi court.
(AFP, 3/1/16)
2016 Mar 3, On World Wildlife Day the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society said all sides in South Sudan's civil war have slaughtered wildlife including elephant, giraffe and antelope, warning huge efforts must be made to protect the surviving animal population.
(AFP, 3/3/16)
2016 Mar 17, Sea World said that it would stop breeding killer whales in captivity.
(SFC, 3/18/16, p.D1)
2016 Mar 18, The Red Cross said hundreds of thousands of farm animals have perished in a slow-moving natural disaster in Mongolia and the international aid response has been insufficient.
(AFP, 3/18/16)
2016 Mar 20, In eastern India three elephants killed 4 people. One elephant in the group, a male, was tranquilized and later died.
(AP, 3/21/16)
2016 Mar 21, In India one man was after he walked out of his home in a village in Burdwan district of West Bengal state. The man encountered five elephants, and was tossed in the air and trampled by one of them.
(AP, 3/21/16)
2016 Mar 24, Japan's whaling fleet returned with 333 whales it caught in its first Antarctic harvest since an international court ruling stopped its hunt two years ago.
(AP, 3/24/16)
2016 Mar 24, In South Africa an anti-poaching security unit found two white rhino cows killed and a bull seriously injured in a wildlife park. Two orphaned calves, aged three and 11 months and still suckling, were sent to a sanctuary.
(AP, 3/26/16)
2016 Mar 27, Thailand seized 87 ivory tusks, worth an estimated $800,000, found in a dozen barrels sent from Mozambique on a Kenya Airways flight. A routine X-ray at Suvarnabhumi International Airport detected the contraband.
(AP, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 4, In China activists from a coalition of groups said that they will continue press for annual June 20 dog meat festival in Yulin to be banned as well as legislation outlawing the slaughtering of dogs and cats and the consumption of their meat.
(AP, 4/4/16)
2016 Apr 15, In Florida an endangered Malayan tiger attacked and killed zookeeper Stacey Konwiser (38) in its Palm Beach Zoo enclosure as the woman prepared to give a talk to visitors.
(AFP, 4/16/16)
2016 Apr 16, Conservationists said representatives from 13 Asian countries, meeting in New Delhi this week, have agreed to do more to protect tiger habitats.
(SFC, 4/16/16, p.A2)
2016 Apr 23, In South Africa 49 starved and sick monkeys were rescued from filthy living conditions in a private zoo, and were whisked away to a care facility after failed attempts by the owner of Little Falls garden center to improve their living conditions.
(Reuters, 4/24/16)
2016 Apr 23, In Congo DRC elephant poachers killed three rangers in Garamba National Park and wounded two other people including the Swedish park manager. The poachers were believed to have come from South Sudan.
(Reuters, 4/25/16)(SFC, 5/25/16, p.A3)
2016 Apr 25, The New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society said Cambodia's Royal Turtle is nearly extinct, with fewer than 10 left in the wild, because increased sand dredging and illegal clearance of flooded forest have shrunk its habitat.
(AP, 4/25/16)
2016 Apr 29, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta demanded a total ban on trade in ivory to end trafficking and prevent the extinction of elephants in the wild.
(AFP, 4/29/16)
2016 Apr 30, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta set fire to the world's biggest ivory bonfire, after demanding a total ban on trade in tusks and horns to end "murderous" trafficking and prevent the extinction of elephants in the wild. Some 100 tons of elephant ivory and more than 1 ton of rhino horn were destroyed.
(AFP, 4/30/16)(SSFC, 5/1/16, p.A4)
2016 May 1, Ringling Bros. circus elephants preformed their last shows in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania. The 11 elephants will be sent to Ringling’s 200-acre Center for elephant conservation in Florida.
(SFC, 5/2/16, p.A12)
2016 May 3, Zimbabwe put its wild animals up for sale, saying it needed buyers to step in and save the beasts from a devastating drought.
(Reuters, 5/3/16)
2016 May 19, In Spain the Castile and Leon government outlawed the killing of bulls at town festivals in a measure that likely will stop the animals being speared to death at one of the country's goriest summer events.
(AP, 5/19/16)
2016 May 20, South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed a government bid to keep a seven-year ban in place on the domestic trade in rhino horn. The decision had no bearing on a ban on international trade in rhino horn.
(Reuters, 5/23/16)
2016 May 24, South Sudan authorities arrested an army major for allegedly trafficking elephant ivory through the country's Paloich oil fields.
(AP, 5/27/16)
2016 May 25, In South Sudan an airport sniffer dog unit found 10 kg (22 pounds) of frozen pangolin meat in the luggage of a Chinese national upon his arrival in Juba from Paloich where he works as an oil engineer.
(AP, 5/27/16)
2016 May 26, Spanish police said they seized 74 illegally hunted African elephant tusks worth an estimated 200,000 euros ($222,000) and arrested a man who was trying to legalize possession of them so they could be sold. The tusks were found last month in a house in the town of Colmenar de Oreja, outside Madrid.
(AP, 5/26/16)
2016 May 30, In Thailand wildlife officials began removing some of the 137 tigers held at a Buddhist temple following accusations that the monks were involved in illegal breeding and trafficking of the animals.
(AP, 5/30/16)
2016 May 30, Zimbabwean officials say poachers killed 5 elephants by poisoning them with cyanide. Rangers discovered the carcasses of the elephants with their tusks removed in a western forest last week.
(AP, 5/30/16)
2016 Jun 1, Thai authorities found dozens of dead tiger cubs inside a freezer at the Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua temple in western Kanchanaburi province.
(AFP, 6/2/16)
2016 Jun 2, Thai authorities uncovered a trove of animal parts and intercepted a monk trying to leave the controversial “tiger temple" with tiger skins and fangs, the latest discovery to fuel accusations that the zoo is involved in the illegal wildlife trade.
(AFP, 6/2/16)
2016 Jun 8, South Africa's department of environmental affairs said an on-again-off-again moratorium on domestic trade in rhino horn had been reinstated after it appealed to the top court in the land to render judgment on the thorny issue.
(Reuters, 6/8/16)
2016 Jun 10, In China animal rights activists calling for an end to the slaughter and eating of dogs at a Chinese festival delivered a petition with 11 million signatures to authorities in Beijing.
(Reuters, 6/10/16)
2016 Jun 14, In Florida a boy (2) was dragged into the water by an alligator while wading near Disney’s Grand Florida Resort & Spa.
(SFC, 6/15/16, p.A5)
2016 Jun 14, Australian researchers said the Bramble Cay melomys, a rodent that only lived on Bramble Cay in the Great Barrier Reef, has become the first documented mammal to go extinct due to man-made climate change.
(SFC, 6/15/16, p.A4)
2016 Jun 15, In Indonesia more than 30 pilot whales began stranding themselves during high tide on the coast of Pesisir village in Probolinggo district in the province of East Java. At least 10 died as a mass rescue operation managed to pull most of the stranded whales into the deep sea.
(AP, 6/16/16)
2016 Jun 16, In the Solomon Islands scientists on World Sea Turtle Day tagged hawksbill sea turtles in a key South Pacific breeding ground, hoping that information fed to satellites will help them better understand the endangered species' nesting, feeding and migration patterns.
(Reuters, 6/16/16)
2016 Jun 17, Police in Michigan confiscated 25 dogs and arrested five people in an investigation into dog fighting in the Detroit suburbs of Inkster and Westland.
(SFC, 6/18/16, p.A5)
2016 Jun 19, In southern California a fire at a stable outside Los Angeles killed 10 horses.
(SFC, 6/20/16, p.A4)
2016 Jun 21, In southern China Yulin city went ahead with an annual dog-meat eating festival despite heavy criticism and protests from animal rights activists.
(AP, 6/21/16)
2016 Jun 22, Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific said it will ban carrying shark fin on all its flights, a victory for conservationists concerned for endangered species of the predator.
(AFP, 6/22/16)
2016 Jun 23, It was reported that Walt Disney Co has had more than 240 "nuisance" alligators captured and killed over the last 10 years at its Florida theme park property.
(Reuters, 6/23/16)
2016 Jun 27, Hong Kong called for an end to local ivory trading within five years, a move activists hailed as significant given the financial hub's reputation as a wildlife trafficking blackspot, while calling for this ban to be speeded up.
(Reuters, 6/27/16)
2016 Jun 29, In Montana a grizzly bear attacked and killed mountain biker Brad Treat (38) at Glacier national Park.
(SFC, 6/30/16, p.A5)
2016 Jul 5, Dozens of French farmers protested against the presence of bears in the Pyrenees mountains, after a flock of 125 sheep took fright and fell to their death in a ravine over the weekend. brown bears were reintroduced to the area 20 years ago after disappearing in the early 1990s.
(AP, 7/5/16)
2016 Jul 7, Australia's greyhound industry was reeling after New South Wales, the country's most populous, state banned the sport following a string of scandals including "live baiting" and the slaughter of tens of thousands of dogs.
(AFP, 7/7/16)
2016 Jul 8, In Spain six foreigners, including three Americans, were among seven people gored in a hair-raising second running of the bulls at Pamplona's San Fermin festival.
(AP, 7/8/16)
2016 Jul 9, In Spain a man from Valencia died after being gored in a late-night bull run near the southern town of Alicante. Two men were gored and 12 others injured in the more popular morning bull-run race in Pamplona.
(AP, 7/9/16)
2016 Jul 10, In Spain bullfighter Victor Barrio (29) was fatally gored at the Teruel bullring, the first professional matador to be killed in the ring since3 1985.
(AP, 7/10/16)
2016 Jul 12, Malawi began a massive project to move 500 elephants, by truck and crane, to a sanctuary for the threatened species.
(AP, 7/19/16)
2016 Jul 13, In Spain an American was gored and five other runners were injured in the next-to-last running of the bulls at Pamplona's San Fermin festival.
(AP, 7/13/16)
2016 Jul 15, The Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that US officials have wrongly allowed the Navy to use sonar at levels that could harm whales and other marine animals.
(SSFC, 7/17/16, p.C1)
2016 Jul 20, Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo signed legislation banning the use of bullhooks to train elephants, making her state the first to do so.
(http://tinyurl.com/hrewt2q)(SFC, 7/22/16, p.A7)
2016 Jul 22, In northern Indiana 14 dogs were found dead after air conditioning failed in a truck they were housed in for a dog show.
(SFC, 7/26/16, p.A5)
2016 Jul 22, In Kenya a court in Mombasa convicted Feisal Mohamed Ali of possessing ivory. He had been accused of leading an ivory smuggling ring. Ali was arrested in Tanzania in December 2014 over illegal elephant tusks weighing more than 2 tons.
(AP, 7/22/16)
2016 Jul 22, It was reported that days of heavy snowfall in Peru have killed some 50,000 alpacas. Sheep were also reported dying in large numbers in the high Andean plateaus.
(SFC, 7/22/16, p.A2)
2016 Jul 24, In northern Thailand about 100 macaques tore up voter lists publicly posted ahead of the August 7 referendum on a proposed constitution.
(AP, 7/25/16)
2016 Jul 26, In Morocco a girl was visiting the Zoological Garden of Rabat with her family, admiring three elephants when one picked up a stone, then tossed it more than 10 meters (yards) over a huge ditch and a wooden barrier toward the visitors. The girl was struck in the head and died hours later.
(AP, 7/29/16)
2016 Jul 27, In Venezuela a union leader said some 50 animals have starved to death in the last six months at the Caricuao zoo in Caracas, due to chronic food shortages that have plagued the crisis-stricken South American nation.
(Reuters, 7/27/16)
2016 Aug 2, In Russia the Yamal regional governor's office said a child has died of anthrax in Siberia in the first fatal outbreak of the bacterial disease reported in Russia in 75 years. More than 2,300 reindeer have also died in the outbreak in the region.
{Russia, Siberia, Animal, Microbiology}
(AP, 8/2/16)
2016 Aug 5, Cambodian customs seized more than 600 kg of illegal ivory in a container packed with corn that had languished unclaimed at a port for two years after being shipped from Africa.
(AFP, 8/5/16)
2016 Aug 15, Indonesian authorities seized 657 critically endangered pangolins, known as "scaly anteaters," found hidden in freezers and arrested a man (55) for allegedly breaking wildlife protection laws.
(AFP, 8/26/16)
2016 Aug 22, A Canadian conservation officer said that authorities have killed nine bears in three days in Revelstoke, British Columbia. He warned that the death toll will rise if unsecured trash continues to draw the animals into residential areas. 23 bears were killed there in 1995, but in recent years the average annual number had been fewer than seven.
(Reuters, 8/23/16)
2016 Aug 24, Australia’s New South Wales parliament in Sydney banned greyhound racing in an overnight session effective from July 1, 2017.
(AFP, 8/24/16)
2016 Aug 26, In central Norway 323 wild reindeer werre killed by lighting on the Hardangervidda mountain plateau.
(AP, 8/29/16)
2016 Aug 29, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a measure that bans the use of bullhooks and other devices to control elephants, the latest victory for animal rights activists who condemn the practice.
(Reuters, 8/30/16)
2016 Aug, A Botswana based team led the Great Elephant Census funded by Paul Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft. The survey suggested that about 350,000 African savannah elephants remained alive, down 140,000 from 2007.
(Econ 6/17/17, p.72)
2016 Sep 7, A US federal judge ordered wildlife managers to enlarge habitat protections in Idaho, Montana and Colorado for the Canada lynx, a rare wild cat that roams the Rockies and mountain forests of several other states.
(Reuters, 9/8/16)
2016 Sep 10, In Hawaii the International Union for Conservation of Nature voted to call on every country to shut down domestic ivory markets that threaten elephants. The group has 1,300 members from more than 160 countries, but no enforcement power.
(AP, 9/11/16)
2016 Sep 13, Cambodia released more than 200 nearly extinct royal turtles in muddy waters at a new breeding and conservation center that was built in hopes of keeping the national reptile from disappearing.
(AP, 9/13/16)
2016 Sep 13, In Spain a small group of local people and anti-bullfighting activists scuffled and exchanged insults at a centuries-old Spanish festival in the town of Tordesillas, where for the first time in its history the gory killing of a bull was banned and the beast was unharmed.
(AP, 9/13/16)
2016 Sep 14, South Africa said rangers in Kruger National Par are killing about 350 hippos and buffalos in an attempt to relieve the impact of the region's most severe drought in more than three decades.
(AP, 9/14/16)
2016 Sep 15, A local Japanese official said that hundreds of horseshoe crabs -- known as "living fossils" because they are among the Earth's oldest creatures -- have been found dead near Kitakyushu city where they lay their eggs.
(AFP, 9/15/16)
2016 Sep 16, In Kenya angry protesters marched in Nairobi against plans to build an elevated railway line over the country's oldest national park, saying the project will threaten wildlife that includes lions, leopards and giraffes.
(AP, 9/16/16)
2016 Sep 23, Conservation groups said Laos has promised to phase out farms that breed endangered tigers for their body parts, a positive step from a country believed to be a major hub of wildlife trafficking in Asia. Wildlife trade monitoring group TRAFFIC said that endangered species such as pangolins and helmeted hornbills were being openly sold in Laos and that law enforcement against the illegal trade remained threadbare.
(AP, 9/23/16)(AFP, 9/23/16)
2016 Sep 24, In South Africa thousands of conservationists and top government officials went into talks in Sandton, a suburb of Johannesburg, for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to thrash out international trade regulations on elephant ivory, rhino horn and hundreds of endangered wild animals and plants.
(AFP, 9/24/16)(Econ, 10/1/16, p.48)
2016 Sep 25, It was reported that the skies across North America have become increasingly quieter over recent decades as the bird populations plummeted by 1.5 billion. Domestic cats, farming and logging were all cited as contributing factors.
(SSFC, 9/25/16, p.C14)
2016 Sep 28, In South Africa the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting in Johannesburg voted overwhelmingly to ban trade in the endangered pangolin, the world's most heavily trafficked mammal.
(AFP, 9/28/16)
2016 Sep 28, South African rangers shot and killed three suspected poachers in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi park in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province.
(AP, 9/30/16)
2016 Sep 29, Thailand’s government said it has decided to suspend seahorse trade because of concern about threats to its wild population. The decision was announced at a meeting in South Africa of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
(AP, 9/29/16)
2016 Oct 16, In Spain about 3,500 dogs of all breeds and sizes ran through the streets Madrid with their owners in the fifth edition of the "Perroton," or Dogathon, a yearly event that seeks to raise awareness about animal cruelty and encourage dog adoptions.
(AP, 10/16/16)
2016 Oct 17, An Indonesian official said three men were arrested over the weekend for allegedly trading in protected species, with police seizing animal parts including a tiger skin, deer genitalia and pangolin scales.
(AFP, 10/17/16)
2016 Oct 20, Spain's Constitutional Court cancelled a bullfighting ban in Catalonia in what is likely to exacerbate tensions between Madrid and the separatist region, and drew an outcry from animal activists.
(AFP, 10/20/16)
2016 Nov 17, Argentina's Congress passed a law to ban greyhound racing in a bid to reduce the risk of animal cruelty in the South American country.
(AP, 11/17/16)
2016 Nov 18, The island nation of Kiribati established a large shark sanctuary that will help ensure the creatures are protected across much of the central Pacific. Palau established the first shark sanctuary in the region in 2009, and has been followed by the Marshall Islands, French Polynesia and other nations.
(AP, 11/19/16)
2016 Nov 20, The German news agency dpa reported that some 8,800 geese on two poultry farms will be culled in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein because some of the animals are infected with the bird flu. Last week 30,000 chickens were destroyed in Schleswig-Holstein after H5N8 was detected in their enclosure.
(AP, 11/20/16)
2016 Nov 23, Australian researchers said daylight saving time could reduce the decline of koalas in Queensland state, where the population has plunged by 80% in less than two decades in great part due to road accidents.
(SFC, 11/24/16, p.A2)
2016 Nov 23, South African police arrested a Hong Kong-bound Chinese man found with 18 rhino horns hidden in his luggage.
(AFP, 11/24/16)
2016 Nov, In Russia a cull of reindeer began in the northern Yamal region. The cull this year was raised from 70,000 to 100,000 and would continue to the end of January. Opponents of the plan said traditional pasture lands of the Nenets people are disappearing due to the growth of the oil and gas industry.
(SFC, 11/17/16, p.A6)
2016 Nov, Vietnam’s government hosted a big pow-wow on wildlife conservation and obliterated tons of confiscated ivory in a fireball.
(Econ, 2/18/17, p.36)
2016 Dec 8, The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) warned that wild giraffe numbers have plummeted by 40 percent in the last three decades, and the species is now "vulnerable" to extinction.
(AFP, 12/8/16)
2016 Dec 16, Cambodian authorities found 1.3 metric tons of ivory, 10 cheetah skulls and 82 kg (180 pounds) of cheetah bones, and 137 kg (301 pounds) of pangolin scales concealed in three containers shipped from Mozambique.
(AP, 12/22/16)
2016 Dec 27, Research led by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) said the Cheetah, the world's fastest land animal, is in danger of extinction because it is running out of space. The study said there are now just 7,100 cheetahs in the world.
(Reuters, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 28, In southwest Nepal a herd of elephants attacked a village, killing one person and wounding two others. The elephants attacked Praseni village at dawn, when there was not much light and poor visibility due to winter fog.
(AP, 12/28/16)
2016 Dec 28, Russian investigators said they had opened a criminal case into a group of men who filmed themselves crushing a bear to death by repeatedly driving over it in off-road vehicles in the Siberian tundra.
(Reuters, 12/28/16)
2016 Dec 30, China’s government said it will ban all ivory trade and processing by the end of 2017, in a move hailed by conservationists as a "game changer" for African elephants.
(AFP, 12/31/16)
2016 Charles Foster authored “Being a Beast."
(Econ, 2/27/16, p.74)
2016 In Cyprus trappers killed some 2.3 million birds this autumn, up from 1.4 million in 2010. Trappers can catch thousands of birds a season, selling a dozen for up to $45 (40 euros) to restaurants, which serve a traditional dish called ambelopoulia, for nearly twice the price.
(AFP, 6/18/17)
2016 In South Africa poaching killed some 1,054 rhinos this year, up from just 13 in 2007.
(Econ 5/6/17, p.69)
2017 Jan 5, Zimbabwe's wildlife agency said it has sold 35 elephants to China to ease overpopulation and raise funds for conservation, amid criticism from animal welfare activists that such sales are unethical.
(AP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 8, SeaWorld in San Diego hosted its last killer whale performance, the culmination of its promise to phase out the decades-old show after criticism of its treatment of the captive marine mammals.
(Reuters, 1/8/17)
2017 Jan 12, In Romania two tigers were among a number of animals that died when a fire broke out at an animal shelter which houses animals retired from the circus.
(AP, 1/12/17)
2017 Jan 19, The Obama administration passed the Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices rule that required an increase in the amount of space required for livestock and poultry, provide more access to the outdoors and outlaw the use of subtherapeutic antibiotics. On Dec. 15 the Trump adminsitration scrapped the rule.
(SSFC, 12/24/17, p.L9)
2017 Jan 19, Slovenia said it will allow hunters to kill 93 brown bears and up to 8 wolves this year in order to keep those animal populations from growing. Last year hunters killed 83 bears and 4 wolves.
(AP, 1/19/17)
2017 Jan 22, In India lawmakers in Tamil Nadu state passed an emergency order allowing bull-taming festivals (Jallikattu) to resume after a court ban on the traditional events led to mass protests. The Supreme Court had banned Jallikattu in 2014 and upheld the ban earlier this month.
(Reuters, 1/23/17)(Econ, 1/28/17, p.36)
2017 Jan 26, Scientists said they have grown human cells inside pig embryos, a very early step toward the goal of growing livers and other human organs in animals to transplant into people.
(AP, 1/26/17)
2017 Jan, In South Africa poachers cut through fences at an animal park and decapitated and chopped the paws off three male lions, possibly for use in traditional healing rituals.
(AP, 6/4/17)
2017 Feb 2, Wildlife anti-trafficking organization Freeland said that almost three tons of scales from endangered African pangolins, hidden in sacks, were seized last December at Bangkok's main airport. The haul was worth more than $1 million dollars on the illegal market, and represented as many as 6,000 dead animals. The scales were sent from Kinshasa in Congo, via Turkey with a final destination listed as Vientiane, Laos.
(AP, 2/2/17)
2017 Feb 4, In Taiwan a bill banning the euthanizing animals in shelters came into effect. This followed the tragic suicide last year of Chien Chih-cheng, a vet burdened with the task of putting down animals.
(AFP, 2/5/17)
2017 Feb 11, In New Zealand a new pod of 240 whales swam aground at a remote beach just hours after weary volunteers managed to refloat a different group of whales following an earlier mass stranding. In total, more than 650 pilot whales have beached themselves over two days on Farewell Spit at the tip of the South Island. About 350 of the whales were dead, 100 were refloated by volunteers and more than 200 managed to swim away unassisted.
(AP, 2/11/17)(SSFC, 2/12/17, p.A4)
2017 Feb 13, A Tanzanian court sentenced a married couple to 20 years in jail each for illegal possession of 210 pieces of ivory from 93 poached elephants. Peter and Leonida Loi Kabi had pleaded not guilty.
(Reuters, 2/14/17)
2017 Feb, Parks Canada reintroduced a herd of plains bison to the country's oldest national park in Banff, Alberta.
(Reuters, 2/13/17)
2017 Mar 1, US salmonella illnesses linked to turtles began to infect people. According to the US Centers for Disease Control some 37 people across 13 states were diagnosed with salmonella until August 3.
(SFC, 8/30/17, p.A5)
2017 Mar 3, A DC federal appeals court ruled that wolves in Wyoming should be stripped of Endangered Species Act protections and management given to the state rather than the US government, a decision that opens the door for hunting of the animals.
(Reuters, 3/3/17)
2017 Mar 5, It was reported that US federal authorities have approved a plan to move nearly 1,500 desert tortoises from California’s Marine base at Twentynine Palms so that the marine Corps can use the area for training with tanks and live ammunition.
(SSFC, 3/5/17, p.A11)
2017 Mar 6, In Kenya one of Africa's oldest and largest elephants was killed by poachers in Tsavo National Park. Two poachers believed to be responsible for the killing were soon apprehended.
(AFP, 3/6/17)
2017 Mar 7, In France poachers broke into the Thoiry Zoo overnight and shot a 5-year-old rhinoceros named Vince three times in the head. They used a chain saw to remove the animal's ivory horn.
(AP, 3/7/17)
2017 Mar 8, The European Union's police agency said an international operation has dismantled a crime network smuggling live eels to China, describing it as the EU's biggest success in recent years against trafficking in endangered species.
(AP, 3/8/17)
2017 Mar 9, Scientists said they have developed a vaccine to shield endangered chimpanzees and gorillas against Ebola, which has wiped out tens of thousands of the wild apes in three decades.
(AFP, 3/9/17)
2017 Mar 15, Turkey said its red meat association has ordered a consignment of prize Dutch cattle to be sent back to the Netherlands, saying it no longer wants to farm the cows due to the diplomatic crisis between the countries.
(AFP, 3/15/17)
2017 Mar 20, A Czech zoo started sawing off the horns of its 21 rhinos to protect them from poaching after the killing of a rhinoceros in France earlier this month.
(Reuters, 3/21/17)
2017 Mar 26, Indonesian farmer Akbar (25) failed to return home from a trip to the family's plantation on Sulawesi Island. His body was found the next day inside the belly of a giant python.
(AFP, 3/29/17)
2017 Mar 31, Japan's whaling fleet returned home after killing 333 whales in the Antarctic, achieving its goal for the second year under a revised research whaling program.
(AP, 3/31/17)
2017 Mar, In Brazil the howler-monkey population in Espirito Santo and Minas Gerais states was reported to be crashing. Doctors suspected this was due to yellow fever. Since December 371 human cases have been reported, a third of them fatal.
(Econ, 3/18/17, p.79)
2017 Mar, Researchers noted that there are 25 million tons of spiders around the world and that they consume collectively consume 400-800 million tons of animal prey every year, putting them in the same league as humans and whales.
(Econ, 3/18/17, p.82)
2017 Apr 1, Norway kicked off its annual six-month whale hunt season with a quota of 999 minke whales, up from 880 animals in 2016.
(AP, 4/1/17)
2017 Apr 4, Indonesian police saved a young sun bear, a clouded leopard and a baby orangutan from the wildlife trade after a tip from conservationists who tracked the illegal activities through Instagram. Abdul Malik was arrested in a raid on his southern Jakarta house where the animals were found caged.
(AP, 4/4/17)
2017 Apr 8, In southern Nepal a rare one-horned rhinoceros was found killed and horn cut off by poachers in the Chitwan National Forest.
(AP, 4/9/17)
2017 Apr, In waters off Bermuda a robot called Guardian LF1, Made by IRobot, caught 15 venomous lionfish during two days of testing.
(SFC, 4/29/17, p.A6)
2017 Apr, Taiwan became the first Asian country to ban eating or trading the meat of dogs or cats.
(Econ 7/8/17, p.38)
2017 May 4, In Texas office workers found nearly 400 migratory birds of brilliant plumage killed after they smashed into an office tower in Galveston while flying in a storm. More than 20 species were represented among the 395 birds that died.
(Reuters, 5/6/17)
2017 May 7, It was reported that more than 40 humpback whales have died since January along the Eastern Seaboard of the Unite States.
(SSFC, 5/7/17, p.C14)
2017 May 7, It was reported that Brazilian officials are urging residents to stop killing wild monkeys in an attempt to halt an expanding yellow fever outbreak.
(SSFC, 5/7/17, p.C14)
2017 May 19, In western Zimbabwe Theunis Botha (51), a professional hunter who specialized in hunting with hounds, was crushed to death when an elephant picked him up and then fell on him after being shot.
(AFP, 5/22/17)
2017 May 22, Nepal destroyed thousands of valuable animal skins and other parts seized from poachers on a giant bonfire in a symbolic gesture against the illegal wildlife trade. The bonfire was timed to coincide with International Day for Biological Diversity.
(AFP, 5/22/17)
2017 May 23, India’s government issued notification regarding changes to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. The environment ministry said that animal markets will only be able to trade in cattle meant for agricultural purposes. Animals for slaughter will have to be bought from farmers directly, a big blow to the meat business run mainly by Muslims.
(AP, 5/27/17)
2017 May 26, Albania's government declared May 10 as Pelican Day in an effort to protect the habitat of a bird under threat.
(AP, 5/26/17)
2017 May 26, In Spain 1,036 pigs died late today in a fire that engulfed a roofed feedlot filled with pig pens in the small town of Puerto Lumbreras in the Murcia region.
(AP, 5/27/17)
2017 May 26, In India rules took effect requiring that cattle traders pledge that any cows or buffalos sold are not intended for slaughter. At least one state government is planning a challenge in court.
(AP, 5/29/17)
2017 May 29, It was reported that a local rescue group has found dozens of sick and dying pelicans along California’s Ventura and Santa Barbara coasts. Poisoning from domoic acid, a naturally occurring toxin in algae, was suspected.
(SFC, 5/29/17, p.A4)
2017 May 29, In England an encounter between a tiger and a zookeeper at Hamerton Zoo Park, 130 km (80 miles) north of London, claimed the life of Rosa King (34).
(AP, 5/30/17)
2017 May 30, A court in southern India ordered a four-week stay on the federal government's decision to ban the sale of cows and buffaloes for slaughter.
(AP, 5/30/17)
2017 Jun 6, A local Myanmar official said thousands of rats have descended on villages on Haingyi island in the Irrawaddy Delta, in what some have taken to be an ill omen of impending disaster. More than 4,000 have been killed since the critters scurried into their villages over the weekend.
(AFP, 6/6/17)
2017 Jun 8, A Rwanda official said Hungarian ecologist Krisztian Gyongyi has been killed by a rhinoceros in the Akagera National Park while tracking animals there. He had been instrumental in supporting the reintroduction of black rhinos into the park.
(AP, 6/8/17)
2017 Jun 12, The Trump administration threw out a new rule intended to limit the number of endangered whales and sea turtles caught in fishing nets off the West Coast, saying existing protections were already working.
(SFC, 6/13/17, p.C2)
2017 Jun 14, Indonesian authorities said they have arrested two suspected wildlife smugglers after a raid on a port warehouse in Sumatra uncovered more than 200 pangolins, many of them dead from stress and dehydration.
(AP, 6/14/17)
2017 Jun 14, Japan kicked off a whaling campaign in the northwestern Pacific. Three ships left port on a three-month mission to catch 43 minke whales and 134 sei whales.
(AFP, 6/14/17)
2017 Jun 15, Malaysian customs officials seized nearly 400 kg (880 pounds) of pangolin scales worth 5 million ringgit ($1.2 million) from Ghana.
(AP, 6/16/17)
2017 Jun 20, The London-based group World Animal Protection said dried penises of endangered Bengal monitor lizards and yellow monitor lizards look similar to a rare plant root sought by people who believe it brings good luck. Wildlife authorities conducted raids in five Indian states last month and some raids were continuing.
(AP, 6/20/17)
2017 Jun 21, A notorious Chinese dog meat festival opened in the southern city of Yulin with sellers torching the hair off carcasses, butchers chopping slabs of canines and cooks frying up dishes, dispelling rumors that authorities would ban sales this year.
(AFP, 6/21/17)
2017 Jun 28, Botswana's government moved to crack down on the multi-billion dollar trade in donkey skins following a spate of killings of the animals fuelled by soaring demand from China. Botswana became the sixth African country to impose restrictions on donkey exports, following Niger, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso and Gambia.
(AFP, 6/29/17)
2017 Jun 28, South Africa approved the export of some 800 skeletons of captive-bred lions this year, meeting demand for the bones in parts of Asia while alarming critics who believe the policy threatens Africa's wild lions.
(AP, 6/28/17)
2017 Jul 4, Hong Kong customs officials seized more than $9 million worth of ivory in a shipment from Malaysia that had been labeled as frozen fish. Three people at a trading company in Hong Kong were arrested in connection with the shipment.
(AP, 7/6/17)
2017 Jul 13, Botswana police said a Chinese man, alleged to be involved in illegal donkey skin trade, has been arrested after being found with 500 animals suffering in dire conditions.
(AFP, 7/13/17)
2017 Jul 13, In western Niger local authorities said at least 27 hippos have been slaughtered in a touristy zone by villagers who blame them for destroying crops and harming livestock.
(AFP, 7/13/17)
2017 Jul 14, In San Jose, Ca., Robert Farmer (26) was sentenced to a maximum of 16 years in prison. Last October he had pleaded guilty to 21 counts of animal cruelty. Farmer had killed at least 16 cats though only four bodies were recovered.
(SSFC, 7/16/17, p.C10)
2017 Jul 14, Malaysian authorities arrested a Vietnamese man and seized a stash of elephant ivory worth almost $70,000.
(AFP, 7/17/17)
2017 Jul 16, In Zambia a baboon plunged a tourist town into darkness after tampering with equipment at a hydro-electric power station in Livingstone.
(Reuters, 7/17/17)
2017 Jul 19, Vietnam planned to rescue more than 1,000 bears from illegal farms across the country, in a move to end the traditional medicine trade in the creatures' bile.
(AFP, 7/19/17)
2017 Jul 22, In Zimbabwe a bull elephant, that gave tourist rides in the town of Victoria Falls, trampled to death Enock Kufandanda (50), his professional handler. Parks and wildlife authority rangers shot and killed the elephant, reported to be about 30 years old.
(AFP, 7/25/17)
2017 Aug 1, India released data this week data showing that about one person has been killed every day for the past three years by roaming tigers or rampaging elephants.
(AP, 8/1/17)
2017 Aug 3, Malawi celebrated the successful conclusion of a two-year project moving 520 sedated elephants by truck to a reserve where the animals had been nearly wiped out by poaching.
(AFP, 8/3/17)
2017 Aug 4, A district in central Indonesia said it has invited the army, police and local hunters to help battle bands of wild long-tailed macaque monkeys, which were raiding plantations and attacking villagers in Boyolali district in central Java.
(AP, 8/4/17)
2017 Aug 4, In northern Sweden an employee at Orsa Rovdjurspark, one of Europe's largest predator parks, died of bite wounds after being attacked by a bear. The 2-year-old bear was euthanized after the attack.
(AP, 8/4/17)
2017 Aug 5, In southern France hundreds of farmers, shepherds and politicians rallied in Aveyron calling for action to halt the slaughter of livestock by packs of wolves.
(AFP, 8/5/17)
2017 Aug 7, Chantek (39), a male orangutan, died at Zoo Atlanta. He was among the first apes to learn sign language, could clean his room and memorized the way to a fast-food restaurant.
(Reuters, 8/8/17)
2017 Aug 7, In Germany some 2,600 pigs and piglets died in a fire at a farm southwest of Berlin that caused an estimated 800,000 euros ($950,000) in damage in the area of Frankenfoerde.
(AP, 8/8/17)
2017 Aug 10, Scientists in Germany said they have identified a new type of pox virus that's sickening young red squirrels in Berlin.
(AP, 8/10/17)
2017 Aug 11, Chaoyi Le (28), of Mississauga, Ontario, was taken into custody in Los Angeles after getting off a flight from Shanghai for attempting to ship live snakes to China through the mail.
(AP, 8/15/17)
2017 Aug 11, In India an elephant blamed for killing more than a dozen people in the eastern states of Jharkhand and Bihar was shot dead, after an elaborate hunt that involved dozens of forest officials and a sharpshooter.
(Reuters, 8/12/17)
2017 Aug 16, In Tanzania Wayne Lotter, the South African co-founder of the Protected Areas management Solutions (PAMS), a conservation group for the protection of elephans, was shot and killed in the Masa-ki district of Dar es Salaam.
(SFC, 3/18/17, p.A2)(Econ, 9/2/17, p.78)
2017 Aug 17, In South Africa John Hume, the owner of the world's biggest private rhino herd, took court action to force the government to allow its first online sale of rhino horn, which he aims to hold next week.
(AP, 8/17/17)
2017 Aug 18, South Africa moved to halt an online auction of rhino horn starting next week, as outraged conservationists said the sale would undermine the global ban on rhino trade. The Pretoria High Court was expected to make a decision on Aug 20.
(AFP, 8/18/17)
2017 Aug 19, In India park director Satyendra Singh said rising floodwaters have inundated large parts of Kaziranga National Park in Assam state, killing more than 225 animals and forcing hundreds of other animals to flee.
(AP, 8/19/17)
2017 Aug 20, A South African court ordered the government to allow John Hume, the owner of the world's biggest private rhino herd, to hold an online sale of rhino horn, which he aims to hold this week.
(Reuters, 8/20/17)
2017 Aug 23, South Africa's first legal auction of rhino horns opened for bids and 264 horns went on sale after the owner of the world's biggest private rhino herd won a court case against the government.
(Reuters, 8/23/17)
2017 Aug 25, South Africa's first online auction of rhino horn concluded amid outrage from conservationists, but no details of the sale were immediately available.
(AFP, 8/25/17)
2017 Aug, Chinese police found pangolins in the trunk of a smuggler's car. 33 of the trafficked animals — endangered scaly mammals from southern China — were still alive, but died within a few months under government captivity.
{China, Animal}
(AP, 1/25/19)
2017 Aug, In Rwanda seven people were killed this month by crocodiles as they tried to draw water from the diminished Nyabarongo River.
(SSFC, 9/3/17, p.C14)
2017 Sep 1, German’s Cologne Zoo said German-born Elizabeth Reichert (93), an American widow of a Holocaust survivor, is leaving it $22 million (18.5 million euros) in her will. Reichert has already started transferring $6,000 per month to the zoo. The entire sum is to be donated upon her death.
(AP, 9/1/17)
2017 Sep 7, A study by wildlife trade monitoring network Traffic said weak governance, corruption and shifting trade dynamics are seriously undermining efforts to control ivory trafficking throughout Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Gabon.
(AFP, 9/7/17)
2017 Sep 8, A new study by UC Davis showed that the number of deer and other large animals killed or injured by California motorists jumped 20 percent in 2016 in accidents that killed five people, led drivers to put themselves in harm's way trying to save the animals, and cost society about $276 million.
(Reuters, 9/8/17)
2017 Sep 14, In Sri Lanka Paul Stewart McClean, a reporter for the Financial Times, went missing in a lagoon near the city of Panama. The next day local navy divers found the body of the British journalist, believed to have been attacked by a crocodile while holidaying with friends.
(AP, 9/15/17)
2017 Sep 18, A Botswana Power Co. official discovered eight dead elephants that had come into contact with a fallen power line near a water source created by a leaking pipe. A ninth elephant soon died despite efforts to save it.
(SFC, 9/22/17 p.A2)
2017 Sep 20, The US Fish and Wildlife Service announced an endangered species designation for the Sonoyta mud turtle, citing threats from climate change to loss of habitat for the southern Arizona animal, whose numbers are believed to have dwindled to as low as 100 turtles.
(AP, 9/24/17)
2017 Sep 21, Africa's leading anti-poaching coalition said the fight against poaching must be treated as a war, as it called for the illicit wildlife trade to be monitored like global conflicts. Enact, an EU-funded anti-poaching analytical taskforce that includes Interpol, called for the expansion of a media tracking system to track poaching incidents similar to established conflict monitoring methods.
(AP, 9/21/17)
2017 Sep 22, In Greece Celia Lois Hollingworth (63) was reported missing by the British embassy. The next day a woman's gnawed body was discovered in a remote hilly area.
(AP, 9/26/17)
2017 Sep 27, It was reported that hundreds of vultures in Namibia died after feeding on an elephant carcass that poachers had poisoned. Poachers in Zimbabwe used cyanide to kill dozens of elephants for their ivory tusks. In Mozambique three lions died after eating bait infused with a crop pesticide.
(AP, 9/27/17)
2017 Sep 28, Vietnam's annual water buffalo fighting festival resumed despite calls for an end to the traditional event because of its violence. The tournament was halted temporarily three months ago after a buffalo killed its owner on the fighting field.
(AP, 9/28/17)
2017 Sep, Oregon and Washington state authorities said an extensive poaching ring was responsible for slaughtering more than 100 black bears, cougars, bobcats, deer and elk dating back to 2015. Seven people were charged and investigators planned to recommend charges against more people.
(SSFC, 9/10/17 p.A12)
2017 Sep, Romania moved to kill or relocate 140 bears and 97 wolves after attacks on humans. The World Wildlife Fund denounced the measure and blamed the attacks on deforestation.
(SSFC, 9/10/17 p.C14)
2017 Oct 8, It was reported that Australia’s pet and feral cats are killing more than 1 million birds every day.
(SSFC, 10/8/17, p.C14)
2017 Oct 9, French farmers trucked hundreds of sheep into a central square in Lyon in protest against the government's protection of wolves, which they blame for livestock deaths and heavy financial losses. The president of the National Sheep Federation, said wolves were costing livestock producers 26 million euros a year compared with 1.5 million euros in 2004.
(Reuters, 10/9/17)
2017 Oct 9, Namibia’s environment minister said over 100 hippos have died in a remote national park in the past week, warning that anthrax could be to blame.
(AFP, 10/9/17)
2017 Oct 10, Thai authorities arrested two Chinese citizens suspected of smuggling rhinoceros horns worth about $300,000 through Bangkok's main airport.
(AP, 10/11/17)
2017 Oct 14, In southern Bangladesh wild elephants attacked the new Balukhali camp in Ukhiya town where Rohingya refugees were sleeping, killing a woman and her three children.
(AP, 10/15/17)
2017 Oct 16, Guam's territorial veterinarian said the island has four animal control officers who field as many as 30 stray dog calls daily. A draft bill crafted by the island's Stray Dog Committee aimed at decreasing Guam's stray dog population by 75 percent over the next 18 months, part of a plan to reduce the island's population of about 25,000 stray dogs, about one stray dog for every seven residents.
(AP, 10/16/17)
2017 Oct 30, It was reported that Iranian environmentalists have mobilized to protect the world's last Asiatic cheetahs, estimated to number just 50 and faced with the threats of becoming roadkill, a shortage of prey and farmers' dogs.
(AFP, 10/30/17)
2017 Oct, Tanzania seized and auctioned off 1,300 cattle which had wandered across the border from Kenya to graze in a region where herders typically pay little heed to frontiers.
(AFP, 11/8/17)
2017 Nov 2, Researchers said a new species of orangutan has been discovered in the remote jungles of Indonesia, immediately becoming the world's most endangered great ape. The species, called 'Tapanuli orangutan', lives in the Batang Toru forest on Sumatra island, and numbers only about 800 in total.
(AFP, 11/3/17)
2017 Nov 3, Russian authorities said they were investigating whether 141 Baikal earless seals starved to death after their carcasses began washing up last weekend on the shoreline of Lake Baikal.
(AP, 11/3/17)
2017 Nov 3, Tommy Zhou of Brooklyn was sentenced in a federal Virginia court to 1 ½ years behind bars for illegally trafficking more than $150,000 worth of baby eels from Virginia. He had pleaded guilty in April.
(AP, 11/6/17)
2017 Nov 14, It was reported that Pakistan’s white-backed vulture is facing extinction. Its population has been devastated by the use of industrial drugs to breed the cattle whose carcasses they traditionally feed on. Diclofenac, used as a painkiller by livestock breeders, was banned in neighboring India in 2006 after it was also blamed for destroying the vulture population there.
(AP, 11/14/17)
2017 Nov 14, A Miami judge sentenced Michael Hegarty of Ireland to 18 months in US prison for the international smuggling of a cup carved from the horn of an endangered rhinoceros.
(AP, 11/15/17)
2017 Nov 16, Conservation groups decried US President Donald Trump's decision to allow trophy hunters who kill elephants in Zambia and Zimbabwe to bring home the endangered animals' tusks or other body parts as trophies.
(Reuters, 11/16/17)(SFC, 11/16/17, p.A6)
2017 Nov 17, US President Donald Trump said in a tweet he is putting a decision to allow imports of big game trophies on hold until he can "review all conservation facts."
(Reuters, 11/18/17)
2017 Nov 19, In northeastern India two endangered Asian elephants were hit and killed by a passenger train near the city of Gauhati.
(AP, 11/19/17)
2017 Nov 21, A Norwegian court granted a reprieve to seven wolves near Oslo caught in the middle of a battle between environmental activists and sheep farmers. It issued an injunction temporarily stopping the hunt of 12 wolves in the Oslo region -- five of which have already been killed -- pending a final decision on the matter.
(AFP, 11/21/17)
2017 Nov 27, In India police in Assam state used elephants and tear gas in an attempt to evict hundreds of people living illegally in the Amchang forest, an elephant habitat threatened by unauthorized settlements.
(SFC, 11/28/17, p.A2)
2017 Nov 29, A Norwegian train smashed into a herd of reindeer in the country's Arctic region, killing 17 animals. Reindeer have been hit eight times between Nov. 22 and 25, resulting in the death of 110 animals.
(AP, 11/29/17)
2017 Dec 13, Zimbabwe’s parks agency said it has seized 200 kg (440 pounds) of ivory, worth over $500,000, destined for Malaysia.
(AP, 12/13/17)
2017 Dec 21, A small reindeer herder from the indigenous Sami community in the Norwegian Arctic lost a much-publicized appeal with Norway's top court over a ruling that he must cull 41 of his 116-strong herd.
(AP, 12/21/17)
2017 Dec 22, The Trump administration said energy companies and other businesses that accidentally kill migratory birds will no longer be criminally prosecuted, in a decision hailed by industry but denounced by environmental groups.
(Reuters, 12/23/17)
2017 Dec 22, In Indonesia the remains of a pregnant elephant, already dead for about ten days, was found in a palm oil plantation in Aceh on Sumatra island, in what authorities suspect was a deliberate poisoning.
(AFP, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 24, In Malaysia a sun bear and tapir were killed in road accidents in the northeast of the country on Christmas Eve, with the tapir skinned by villagers after its carcass was discovered. A second sun bear was killed and cut up, with its parts spotted on the same day sold openly at a market in Sarawak state on Borneo island.
(AFP, 12/28/17)
2017 Dec 24, Mexican fishermen in the Gulf of California fired 25 shots at a night-vision drone belonging to the environmental group Sea Shepherd, bringing it down. The drone had located four small boats illegally fishing for totoaba, a fish whose swim bladder is prized in China.
(AP, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 31, China's complete ban on ivory trade went into effect, a major step forward in Beijing's efforts to rein in what was once the world's largest market for illegal ivory.
(AFP, 12/31/17)
2017 Susanna Forest authored “The Age of the Horse: An Equine Journey Through Human History."
(Econ 6/3/17, p.75)
2017 The US Fish and Wildlife Service lifted protections for 700 grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park, located in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.
(SFC, 8/31/18, p.A9)
2017 A sharp accumulation of sea ice around an Antarctic island caused all but two Adelie penguin chicks to starve. The sea ice had forced the adults to venture 60 miles further than usual to find food for their young.
(SSFC, 12/31/17, p.C12)
2017 In Siberia a lion cub called Boris was found at the Semyuelyakh River in Russia's Yakutia region. Boris, a male cub, lived around 43,448 years ago. A female cub, named Sparta, was found in the same area a year later and lived 28,000 years ago. Cave lions have been extinct for thousands of years.
(AP, 8/13/21)
2018 Jan 2, In England 13 Patas monkeys died in a fire at Woburn Safari Park, marking the second major fire at an animal attraction in the last two weeks.
(AP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 10, Switzerland banned the common culinary practice of throwing fresh lobsters into boiling water as part of an overhaul of its animal protection rules, which take effect in March.
(Reuters, 1/10/18)
2018 Jan 11, Brazilian scientists said the cetacean morbillivirus is the main cause for the death of close to 200 gray dolphins since late November on the coast of Rio de Janeiro state.
(AP, 1/11/18)
2018 Jan 16, In Indonesia a conservation official said a Bornean orangutan, a critically endangered species, has been found stabbed to death in Central Kalimantan province. The World Wildlife Fund estimates there are 104,700 Bornean orangutans left in the world.
(Reuters, 1/16/18)
2018 Jan 19, Thailand police arrested Boonchai Bach, a 40-year-old Thai of Vietnamese descent, in the northeastern border province of Nakhon Phanom in connection with the with smuggling of 14 rhino horns worth over $1 million from Africa into Thailand last month. He had allegedly fueled much of Asia's illegal trade for over a decade.
(AP, 1/20/18)
2018 Jan 29, The German government dismissed as unjustifiable any auto emissions testing on monkeys or people. German daily Stuttgarter Zeitung reported at the weekend that a research organization funded by German carmakers sponsored scientific experiments testing nitrogen dioxide, a gas found in exhaust fumes, on people.
(Reuters, 1/29/18)
2018 Jan 31, Hong Kong lawmakers gave final approval to a government proposal banning local ivory trading in the Chinese territory by 2021, with conservation groups hailing it as a major victory in the fight to save elephants.
(AP, 1/31/18)
2018 Feb 4, In Indonesia villagers spotted a wounded orangutan in a lake in the Kutai Timur district, East Kalimantan province. The male orangutan had been shot at least 130 times with an air gun and was apparently stabbed and clubbed. He died in a hospital on Feb 6 in the second known killing of a critically endangered orangutan this year. Police later arrested four farmers and a 13-year-old boy who admitted they stabbed, clubbed and shot the orangutan to protect their pineapple crop.
(AP, 2/7/18)(AP, 2/19/18)
2018 Feb 4, In Kenya Esmond Bradley Martin, a leading American investigator into the illegal ivory and rhino horn trade, was found stabbed to death in his Nairobi home. He had researched the illegal ivory trade in Myanmar shortly before he was killed. In October the "Save The Elephants" conservation group released a report saying the illegal flow of ivory from Myanmar to neighboring China is continuing "largely unabated."
(AP, 2/5/18)(AP, 10/2/18)
2018 Feb 4, Thai police arrested construction tycoon Premchai Karnasuta and three others for poaching in a protected wildlife sanctuary. Photos of hunting equipment and animal carcasses including a black leopard soon circulated on social media.
(AFP, 2/6/18)
2018 Feb 9, In South Africa a pride of lions killed a suspected poacher at the Umbabat Private Nature Reserve. Human tracks found nearby suggested the alleged poacher had companions who escaped.
(AP, 2/14/18)
2018 Feb 10, In San Francisco Wakeen Best (34) broke into a white Mercedes at the parking structure on Stockton and Sutter streets and hurled a 5-year-old Chihuahua from its 7th story. On July 20 a SF Superior Court jury found her guilty animal cruelty, auto burglary and vandalism.
(SFC, 7/21/18, p.C1)
2018 Feb 10, Spanish police said they have confiscated 310 kilos (683 pounds) of young eels over the past week that were about to be smuggled out of the country and shipped to Hong Kong and Vietnam. The confiscated eels were released in rivers.
(AP, 2/10/18)
2018 Feb 27, In South Africa a lion mauled a young woman (22) to death in the Dinokeng Game Reserve. The lion was under the care of Kevin Richardson known as the "lion whisperer" for his close interactions with the predators.
(AP, 2/28/18)
2018 Mar 10, In Indonesia Yusri Effendi (34), a construction worker, died after he was mauled by a rare Sumatran tiger in the Indragiri Hilir district of Riau province.
(AP, 3/11/18)
2018 Mar 13, Malaysian officials said four heavily armed poachers who targeted wild elephants, have been caught, the second such arrest in less than two years.
(AFP, 3/13/18)
2018 Mar 15, California wildlife officials said Richard Parker (67) had shot and killed more that 130 protected birds of prey in Lassen County. Parker was reported jailed on charges of taking protected birds of prey and migratory non-game birds.
(SFC, 3/16/18, p.D3)
2018 Mar 19, In Kenya the world's last male northern white rhino died, leaving only two females of its subspecies alive in the world, although scientists still hope to save it from extinction by in vitro fertilization.
(AP, 3/20/18)
2018 Mar 20, Wildlife authorities in Zimbabwe shot dead a large crocodile that strayed into the northern town of Hwange and blocked entry to a hospital.
(AFP, 3/22/18)
2018 Mar 23, In western Australia more than 150 whales were found stranded in Hamelin Bay, and only 15 of them were still alive. The mammals are believed to be short-finned pilot whales. Volunteers managed to rescue only five of 150 short-finned pilot whales.
(AP, 3/23/18)(AP, 3/24/18)
2018 Mar 23, Meeting in Colombia the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) reported that mankind's voracious consumption of biodiversity has unleashed the first mass species die-off since the demise of the dinosaurs. Scientists issued four regional reports on how well animal and plants are doing in the Americas; Europe and Central Asia; Africa; and the Asia-Pacific area, concluding that Earth is losing plants, animals and clean water at a dramatic rate.
(AFP, 3/23/18)(AP, 3/23/18)
2018 Mar 27, Bulgarian prosecutors said they have launched an investigation into the owner of a herd of around 100 horses after they were found starving to death or already dead on snow-bound Mount Osogovo.
(Reuters, 3/27/18)
2018 Mar 31, Japanese whaling vessels returned to port after catching 333 minke whales in the Antarctic Ocean without facing protests by anti-whaling groups.
(AFP, 3/31/18)
2018 Apr 3, Britain said it will ban the sale of ivory, no matter how old, to help protect the world's elephant population.
(AP, 4/3/18)
2018 Apr 3, Indonesian police said a group of people have been arrested after a video emerged of them skinning and cooking four sun bears that they had slaughtered. The sun bear population is in decline in Indonesia because of rapid deforestation, which has led to habitat loss.
(AFP, 4/3/18)
2018 Apr 4, A Berlin court convicted two Romanian men (29) of killing an Angora goat at the Hasenheide petting zoo in February, following a trial in which the defendants testified that they had been hungry.
(AP, 4/4/18)
2018 Apr 5, In India Bollywood superstar Salman Khan was convicted of poaching rare deer in a wildlife preserve two decades ago and sentenced to five years in prison.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Kenya started marking rhinos and aimed to tag and identify 22 of them in two weeks at a cost of $600,000, as part of conserving their dwindling numbers.
(Reuters, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 6, Spain's Civil Guard said it has brought down a criminal network making lucrative profits by smuggling glass eels to Asia, a burgeoning illicit traffic that is worrying both law enforcement agencies and scientists. Europol coordinated the operation involving Spanish and Portuguese investigators.
(AP, 4/6/18)
2018 Apr 7, In India a court in Jodhpur granted bail to Bollywood superstar Salman Khan, who will be allowed to remain free while he appeals his conviction on charges of poaching rare deer in a wildlife preserve two decades ago.
(AP, 4/7/18)
2018 Apr 10, It was reported that Mexico's vaquita marina, the world's smalest porpose, has been virtually wiped out by totoaba fishing, because it gets stuck in the same kind of net. Totoaba swim bladders sell for up to $20,000 in China, where it is reputed to rejuvenate the skin and heal a host of ailments, from arthritis pain to discomfort during pregnancy.
(AFP, 4/10/18)
2018 Apr 13, In Uganda a wildlife official said a pride of 11 lions have been killed by suspected poisoning in Queen Elizabeth National Park, one of the country's major protected areas.
(AP, 4/13/18)
2018 Apr 26, Romania's environment ministry said that the country had between 6,050 to 6,640 brown bears in 2016 and that 4,000 bears was an optimum figure from an "ecological, social and economic point of view."
(AP, 4/26/18)
2018 May 2, In Kenya three rhinos were found dead with their horns missing in Rhino Sanctuary in Meru National Park. The country's Ministry of Tourism called it an act of poaching.
(Reuters, 5/3/18)
2018 May 2, In South Africa news media reported that staff member at Marakele Predator Center in Limpopo province has shot dead the male lion named Shamba after it mauled Michael Hodge, the proprietor of the facility, a day earlier. Hodge suffered neck and jaw injuries and was being treated at a Johannesburg hospital.
(AP, 5/2/18)
2018 May 3, Six critically endangered black rhinos were en route from South Africa to Chad in a pioneering project to re-introduce the animals to a country where they were wiped out by poaching nearly 50 years ago.
(AFP, 5/3/18)
2018 May 4, In Uganda a leopard snatched and ate the three-year-old son of a female ranger working in the popular Queen Elizabeth National Park.
(AFP, 5/7/18)
2018 May 7, Indian officials said 12 children between the ages 5 and 12 have been killed in dog attacks in and around the northern town of Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh state, since November. Roaming packs of feral dogs killed six children in the area last week.
(AP, 5/7/18)
2018 May 11, It was reported that a court in Thailand has sentenced Boonchai Bach (41), believed to be a kingpin in the illicit wildlife trade, to 2 ½ years in prison for smuggling rhinoceros horns.
(AP, 5/11/18)
2018 May 19, In Washington state Sonja Brooks was killed and her friend Isaac Sederbaum seriously injured when they encountered a cougar while mountain biking near North Bend. The cougar was soon located and fatally shot. The last cougar killing of a human in the state was in 1924.
(SSFC, 5/20/18, p.A10)(SFC, 5/21/18, p.A6)
2018 May 21, Australia's New South Wales Deputy Premier John Barilaro said his state government has decided to legally protect rather than kill thousands of wild horses, known as brumbies, infuriating scientists who argue the feral species is doing severe environmental damage to the country's iconic Snowy Mountains alpine region.
(AP, 5/21/18)
2018 May 21, A letter to Indonesia's President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo was released in which International stars of acting, music and sports urged Widodo to ban what they say is a "brutal" trade in dog and cat meat for human consumption.
(AP, 5/21/18)
2018 May 28, New Zealand politicians and industry leaders announced plans to slaughter about 150,000 cows in an effort to eradicate Mycoplasma bovis, a strain of disease-causing bacteria from the national herd.
(AP, 5/28/18)
2018 May 30, Environmental campaigners said a hidden shipment of shark fins including some from endangered species had been shipped to Hong Kong via Singapore Airlines, despite a ban by the carrier.
(AFP, 5/30/18)
2018 May 30, In Kenya wildlife troopers shot dead three armed men in Mount Elgon National Park, while two other suspected poachers were injured but escaped.
(Reuters, 5/30/18)
2018 May, Interpol's Operation Thunderstorm, which followed similar stings in past years, yielded seizures worth millions of dollars, in a globe-spanning crackdown in nearly 100 countries this month on the illegal wildlife trade.
(AP, 6/20/18)
2018 Jun 1, A small pilot whale died in southern Thailand after an attempted rescue failed to nurse the mammal back to health. An autopsy revealed 80 plastic bags weighing up to eight kg (18 pounds) in the creature's stomach. It was reported that least 300 marine animals including pilot whales, sea turtles and dolphins perish each year in Thai waters after ingesting plastic.
(AFP, 6/2/18)
2018 Jun 8, In Florida Shizuka Matsuki (47) disappeared while walking her dogs and was likely killed by an alligator near a lake in Davie. The alligator was captured and a necropsy confirmed that it had bit Matsuki.
(SFC, 6/9/18, p.A6)
2018 Jun 14, In central Indonesia a 7-meter-long (23-foot-long) python swallowed Wa Tiba (54) as she checked her vegetable garden near her village on Muna island, Southeast Sulawesi province.
(AP, 6/16/18)
2018 Jun 16, It was reported that Kenya's donkey population has fallen from 1.8 million to 1.2 million as the country's three slaughterhouses butcher some 1,000 donkeys a day to supply skins to China, where donkey skins are processed to produce ejiao, a gelatin that purports to provide health benefits. The Chinese demand for donkey skins has led to donkey theft across Africa.
(SFC, 6/16/18, p.A4)
2018 Jun 19, In South Carolina Steven Verren Baker (38) of Holly Hill pleaded guilty in Charleston, again, to smuggling turtles. The latest crimes were committed while Baker was serving three years' probation after pleading guilty in 2014 to illegally trafficking turtles taken from the wild in South Carolina for sale in Florida.
(AP, 6/21/18)
2018 Jun 21, In California the Gorilla Foundation in Woodside announced that Koko (b.1971), a San Francisco-born gorilla famed for her ability to communicate in sign language, died in her sleep.
(SFC, 6/22/18, p.D1)
2018 Jun 21, In Belgium a female lion was shot and killed following several attempts to sedate it after she escaped from the Planckendael zoo in Machelen.
(SFC, 6/22/18, p.A2)
2018 Jun 21, Botswana's parliament passed a motion to review and reconsider a ban on hunting for sport, which was imposed by former president Ian Khama in 2014 after surveys showed declining wildlife populations in the north. France-sized Botswana has only has around 2.3 million people and the mostly arid country has vast tracts of remote wilderness which also make it a magnet for foreign tourists who want to view wildlife.
(Reuters, 7/15/18)
2018 Jun 21, In Sri Lanka a dozen men beat a leopard to death after it strayed into a village in Kilinochchi and attacked people. Police were deployed the next day to arrest those responsible for the killing, which was captured on mobile phones and shared on social media.
(AFP, 6/22/18)
2018 Jun 24, Sri Lankan police arrested two men accused of beating a leopard to death in an attack caught on video and widely condemned by wildlife activists.
(AP, 6/24/18)
2018 Jul 13, Kenya's government said eight critically endangered black rhinos died after being moved to a new reserve in southern Kenya, doubling the number of deaths from similar operations in the previous dozen years. Kenya's Tourism and Wildlife Minister Najib Balala ordered the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) to immediately suspend the ongoing translocation of black rhinos.
(AFP, 7/13/18)
2018 Jul 14, In Indonesia a mob illegally slaughtered 292 crocodiles at a breeding ground in West Papua province in retaliation for the death of a local man.
(AP, 7/16/18)
2018 Jul 14, In northern Spain the final bull run of the San Fermin festival in Pamplona left six people injured in the fastest dash this year.
(AP, 7/14/18)
2018 Jul 18, Hundreds of farmers from around Bulgaria rallied in the capital Sofia against the government-ordered mass slaughter of livestock following the first outbreak in the EU of the highly contagious Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR).
(Reuters, 7/18/18)
2018 Jul 21, Macau authorities took in 533 greyhounds abandoned following the closure today of Asia's only legal dog-racing track.
(AP, 7/21/18)
2018 Jul 23, Diamond producer De Beers said it was relocating 200 elephants from its private reserve in South Africa to neighboring Mozambique, part of wider efforts to restore wildlife populations ravaged by conflict there.
(Reuters, 7/23/18)
2018 Jul 24, In Mexico the remains of endangered sea turtles began turning up at a wildlife sanctuary on the Pacific coast of Chiapas state. By August 13 some 113 turtles were found dead at the Playas de Puerto Arista Sanctuary.
(SFC, 8/20/18, p.A2)
2018 Jul 26, Kenyan wildlife authorities said a tenth critically endangered black rhino has died after being moved from the capital to a new wildlife park and the sole survivor has been attacked by lions in what some conservationists have called a national disaster.
(AP, 7/26/18)
2018 Jul 27, The International Fund for Animal Welfare said the controversial hunt for minke whales in Iceland has come to end after declining profits led to the local industry closing.
(AFP, 7/27/18)
2018 Jul 27, An official of Macau's Yat Yuen, the company that ran the only dog-racing track in the world's largest gambling hub until last week, joined hands with animal rights group Anima to announce plans for a center to rehouse more than 500 greyhounds.
(Reuters, 7/27/18)
2018 Jul 28, Norwegian authorities said a polar bear has attacked and injured a man leading tourists off a cruise ship on the most northern island of Svalbard. The man was taken by helicopter to Spitsbergen island and the bear was shot dead.
(AP, 7/28/18)
2018 Jul 30, In Kenya poachers killed a 12-year-old black rhino in Lake Nakuru national park days after the authorities announced that ten of the critically endangered animals had died in a bungled relocation.
(Reuters, 7/31/18)
2018 Jul, The US federal Bureau of land management began rounding up wild horses in Nevada and Utah as drought threatened their livelihood. Volunteers in Arizona and Colorado were said to be hauling food and water to dried up grazing grounds. The region was home to some 67,000 wild horses.
(SFC, 7/24/18, p.A10)
2018 Aug 2, One of Iceland's top whaling companies said it has stopped hunting minke whales this year, in response to a new government regulation that enlarged the protected area for baleen whales.
(AP, 8/2/18)
2018 Aug 3, A new study published in Nature said tegu lizards from South America, that can grow up to four feet long (1.2 meters), have established a home in the Florida wild after being brought to the United States as pets, and that the reptiles could begin a voracious march across the US South.
(Reuters, 8/3/18)
2018 Aug 3, Egyptian media reported that human remains were found on a beach in Marsa Alam. A Czech tourist was killed by a shark while swimming in the Red Sea.
(AFP, 8/5/18)
2018 Aug 3, Latvia's government voted to fund the disposal of pig carcasses after a pork producer decided to exterminate all of its livestock when the animals contracted African swine fever. 15,570 pigs were to be killed via lethal gassing.
(AFP, 8/3/18)
2018 Aug 6, Romanian authorities reported more than 500 separate outbreaks of African swine fever in pigs, mainly in the Danube Delta and near the Hungarian border. 48,000 pigs had been culled since June after they came down with the disease.
(AP, 8/6/18)
2018 Aug 8, Kenya's national wildlife service said authorities have arrested a suspected poacher linked to the killing of a 12-year-old black rhino last month in Lake Nakuru national park.
(Reuters, 8/8/18)
2018 Aug 11, In Kenya a Chinese tourist died after he was attacked by a hippo as he was taking pictures on the shores of Lake Naivasha in the Rift Valley.
(AP, 8/12/18)
2018 Aug 12, It was reported that a French theme park has trained six rooks to pick up cigarette butts and other rubbish dropped by visitors in return for food.
(Reuters, 8/12/18)
2018 Aug 15, Denmark's Environmental Protection Agency said it had approved the outline for a steel fence along the German border, which will be up to 1.5 meters (5 feet) tall, to keep out wild boars, in the hope of preventing the spread of African swine fever, which can jeopardize the country's valuable pork industry. Pigs outnumber people in Denmark, with 215 pigs to every 100 residents.
(AP, 8/15/18)
2018 Aug 21, Romanian hunting officials shot dead a brown bear after it rampaged through an empty high school and scared residents in Miercurea Ciuc. There are believed to be more than 6,000 brown bears in Romania.
(AP, 8/21/18)
2018 Aug 23, Europol, the European law enforcement agency, said police in Mallorca have seized around 1,100 turtles and 750 eggs, including specimens of 14 of the 50 most endangered species in the world. Europol also said Spanish police have shut down what they believe to be Europe's biggest illegal turtle farm, selling endangered species worth 10,000 euros ($11,500) each.
(AP, 8/23/18)
2018 Aug 25, In South Africa two lion cubs, a male and female, were born by means of artificial insemination -- the first such pair anywhere in the world.
(AFP, 9/30/18)
2018 Aug 30, A US federal judge temporarily blocked the opening of grizzly bear hunting two days before Idaho and Wyoming prepared to open the first grizzly bear hunting season in the lower 48 states since 1974.
(SFC, 8/31/18, p.A9)
2018 Sep 2, China's agriculture ministry said more than 38,000 hogs have been culled as of Sept. 1 due to African swine fever outbreaks.
(Reuters, 9/2/18)
2018 Sep 3, Zimbabwe's wildlife authority said it is donating 10 white rhinos to Democratic Republic of Congo to re-establish a population driven to extinction by poachers a decade ago.
(Reuters, 9/3/18)
2018 Sep 4, Elephants Without Borders said ninety elephant carcasses have been discovered in Botswana with their tusks hacked off, in what is believed to be one of Africa's worst mass poaching sprees.
(AFP, 9/4/18)
2018 Sep 10, A wildlife monitoring group says research it has conducted since 2016 has found a sharp increase in the number of people belonging to Facebook groups in Thailand where endangered animals are bought and sold.
(AP, 9/10/18)
2018 Sep 11, Hanoi Vice Mayor Nguyen Van Suu said in a message published on the city's website that slaughtering and consuming dog and cat meat are disturbing to foreigners and "negatively impact the image of a civilized and modern capital." Officials say there are 493,000 dogs and cats in Hanoi, of which more than 10 percent are raised for commercial purposes.
(AP, 9/11/18)
2018 Sep 12, In Brazil countries on both sides of the whaling divide voted to renew quotas for limited whale hunts for indigenous communities in Alaska, Russia, Greenland and the Caribbean -- taking into account their cultural and subsistence needs.
(AFP, 9/13/18)
2018 Sep 13, In Brazil the International Whaling Commission (IWC) voted to back a proposal which would safeguard whales in perpetuity, after a bitter debate. The biennial meeting of the 89-nation body passed the host country's "Florianopolis Declaration" which sees whaling as no longer being a necessary economic activity.
(AFP, 9/13/18)
2018 Sep 14, In Wyoming hunting guide Mark Uptain (37) and client Corey Chubon were attacked by a bear. Chubom escaped with injuries. Uptain's body was found the next day.
(SFC, 9/17/18, p.A4)
2018 Sep 14, Japan's determined bid to return to commercial whale hunting was blocked by anti-whaling nations in a tense vote at the International Whaling Commission meeting in Brazil.
(AFP, 9/14/18)
2018 Sep 18, It was reported that millions of animals trapped inside of North Carolina’s factory farm operations died from drowning during Hurricane Florence.
(http://tinyurl.com/y8ekdjej)
2018 Sep 20, Botswana rejected claims of a surge of elephant poaching made by a leading conservation charity and put on display carcasses of animals allegedly slaughtered for ivory -- some with tusks still intact.
(AFP, 9/20/18)
2018 Sep 20, In France dozens of farmers and lawmakers stormed out of a meeting with the new environment minister after he confirmed that two more bears would soon be released into the Pyrenees mountains. Some 40 brown bears currently roam the range between France and Spain after France began importing them from Slovenia in 1996 after the native population had been hunted to near-extinction.
(AFP, 9/20/18)
2018 Sep 22, Hundreds of marchers demanded better protection for British wildlife at the People's Walk for Wildlife in Hyde Park.
(AP, 9/23/18)
2018 Sep 23, In Australia a Fisheries Queensland spokesman said four large sharks have been killed after a woman and a 12-year-old girl were attacked in separate incidents just a day apart last week at the Whitsunday Islands of the Great Barrier Reef.
(AFP, 9/23/18)
2018 Sep 24, In Montana a US judge in Billings restored protections to grizzly bears in the Northern Rocky Mountains and blocked the first hunts in the lower 48 states planned in almost three decades.
(SFC, 9/25/18, p.A6)
2018 Sep 25, A beluga whale was spotted in the River Thames estuary outside London, far from its natural Arctic habitat.
(AFP, 9/26/18)
2018 Sep 26, A critically endangered Sumatran tiger pregnant with two cubs was found dead in the Indonesian province of Riau after being caught in a pig trap. The tigers are estimated to have dwindled to about 400.
(AP, 9/27/18)
2018 Sep 26, In Zimbabwe an elephant trampled a German tourist (49) while she was trying to take photos of it in Mana Pools National Park.
(AP, 9/27/18)
2018 Sep 28, In Vietnam authorities at Hanoi's airport found 805 kg of pangolin scales as well as 193 kg of ivory and ivory-derived products in two dozen boxes.
(AFP, 9/30/18)
2018 Oct 4, French authorities helicoptered a Slovenian she-bear into the Pyrenees mountains, despite an all-night protest by furious local farmers who fear she will eat their sheep.
(AFP, 10/4/18)
2018 Oct 4, Authorities in Myanmar destroyed an estimated $1.3 million worth of confiscated ivory and other parts of endangered animals, days after a conservation group charged that the country's ivory exports to China are increasing.
(AP, 10/4/18)
2018 Oct 4, Vietnam seized eight tons of pangolin scales and elephant ivory shipped from Nigeria, the second such haul in a week.
(AFP, 10/5/18)
2018 Oct 7, Around a thousand dogs and their owners marched on Britain's parliament demanding an end to Brexit via a second vote on the terms of the country's exit from the European Union.
(Reuters, 10/7/18)
2018 Oct 8, In Japan zookeeper Akira Furusho died after he was found bleeding from his neck and lying on the floor inside a tiger cage at Hirakawa Zoological Park in Kagoshima following an apparent attack by a white tiger.
(AP, 10/9/18)
2018 Oct 12, It was reported that animal-rights in Nepal campaigned to reduce animal slaughter as the 15-day Dasain festival began this week. Traditionally tens of thousands of goats, buffaloes, chickens and ducks are sacrificed to please the gods and goddesses as part of a practice that dates back centuries.
(AP, 10/12/18)
2018 Oct 15, It was reported that Idaho Fish and Game Commissioner Blake Fisher and his wife were being criticized after having shot at least 14 animals while hunting in Namibia. One photo showed showed him smiling with four dead baboons propped in front of him. Idaho Gov. C.L. Otter asked for and accepted Fischer's resignation.
(SFC, 10/15/18, p.A6)(SFC, 10/17/18, p.A6)
2018 Oct 17, It was reported that six to ten sea lions suffering from leptospirosis were being received on a daily basis at the Marine Mammal Center in the Marin Headlands. Veterinarians have treated 220 sea lions so far this year.
(SFC, 10/17/18, p.A1)
2018 Oct 21, Officials from Chad and South Africa said two of six critically endangered black rhinos have died of unknown causes five months after being flown from South Africa to Chad in a pioneering project to re-introduce the animals. The carcasses of the cow and bull were discovered on October 15.
(AFP, 10/21/18)
2018 Oct 27, In eastern India seven elephants in search of food were electrocuted after coming in contact with loosely hanging electric wires in Orissa state.
(AP, 10/27/18)
2018 Oct 29, China's State Council unexpectedly announced that it would allow the sale of rhino and tiger products under "special circumstances". China prohibited the trade of rhino horn and tiger bones in 1993 but a thriving transnational black market has since flourished.
(AFP, 10/30/18)
2018 Oct 30, China defended its controversial decision to ease a 25-year ban on trading tiger bones and rhinoceros horns after conservationists warned that the government had effectively signed a "death warrant" for the endangered species.
(AFP, 10/30/18)
2018 Nov 2, In India a man-eating tiger that stalked the hills of Maharashtra state was killed after an attempt to tranquilize her failed. She was suspected of killing at least 13 villagers.
(SSFC, 11/4/18, p.A6)
2018 Nov 4, It was reported that the world's wild animal population has lunged 60 percent since 1970 because of pressure from human activities.
(SSFC, 11/4/18, p.B12)
2018 Nov 4, In India villagers circled around the female tiger after it killed the farmer late today in Uttar Pradesh state. When the tiger tried to escape, the villagers crushed it under the wheels of a tractor. Villagers said the tiger injured another person in an attack about 10 days ago.
(AP, 11/5/18)
2018 Nov 5, In Australia a shark killed Daniel Christidis (33) near Cid Harbor on Whitsunday Island on the Great Barrier Reef where two tourists were mauled on consecutive days in September.
(AP, 11/6/18)
2018 Nov 9, Dorothy L. Cheney (68), American primate scientist, died at her home in Pennsylvania. She and her husband, Robert M. Seyfarth, authored "How Monkeys See the World: Inside the Mind of Another Species" (1990) and "Baboon Metaphysics: The Evolution of a Social Mind" (2007).
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Cheney_(scientist))(SFC, 11/16/18, p.C4)
2018 Nov 11, It was reported that a Florida trapper has captured a record-setting 17-foot, 5-inch female Burmese python in Miami-Dade County last week. Python hunters have now eliminated 1,859 of the snakes from the Everglades.
(SSFC, 11/11/18, p.A8)
2018 Nov 12, China said it is postponing a decision to allow trading in tiger and rhinoceros parts a bare two weeks after the easing of the ban had raised fears the country was giving legal cover to poaching and smuggling of endangered wildlife.
(AP, 11/13/18)
2018 Nov 16, An Indonesian conservation official said a Sumatran elephant was found dead earlier this week in Aceh province with its tusks removed in an apparent poaching case targeting the critically endangered animal.
(AP, 11/17/18)
2018 Nov 17, An Australia man went into cardiac arrest at Lauderdale Beach, east of Hobart in Tasmania, after he suffered a stingray puncture wound to his lower abdomen.
(AP, 11/18/18)
2018 Nov 19, In Indonesia the rotting carcass of a 31-foot sperm whale in Southeast
Sulawesi province. Researchers found 13 pounds of plastic inside the animal's stomach. A study plublished last January said Indonesia produces 3.2 million tons of mismanaged plastic waste a year, of which 1.29 million tons end up in the ocean.
(SFC, 11/21/18, p.A5)
2018 Nov 25, It was reported that six sea lions have died from gunshot wounds in central Puget Sound and Washington state's Kitsap county since September. Another seven were suspected to have died from acute trauma caused by humans.
(SSFC, 11/25/18, p.A13)
2018 Nov 28, In Canada the Yukon Coroner's Service said a grizzly bear killed a woman and her 10-month-old baby. The bear was killed by the woman's husband.
(SFC, 11/29/18, p.A2)
2018 Nov 28, In northeastern Thailand a man was killed by a wild elephant after his speeding car hit the animal near Khao Yai National Park.
(AP, 11/29/18)
2018 Nov 29, Up to 90 pilot whales beached themselves at Hanson Bay on the Chatham Islands of New Zealand. 51 died by the next day, less than a week after 145 pilot whales and nine pigmy whales perished in two other strandings.
(SFC, 12/1/18, p.A2)
2018 Dec 5, It was reported that Pinna nobilis, a giant species of clam only found in the Mediterranean Sea, was in danger of extinction due to a mysterious parasite. The mollusk has been the EU's list of protected species for decades.
(SFC, 12/5/18, p.A2)
2018 Dec 6, A Dutch court gave the go-ahead for a cull of hundreds of red deer in a nature reserve north of Amsterdam, in a wildlife management case that has sparked fierce opposition from animal rights activists.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 7, ABC News reported that a 28-year-old Australian man will spend five months in prison for brutally killing a kangaroo in an attack filmed and posted on social media. Ricky Ian Swan was one of four men charged in September with using weapons to torture and kill two kangaroos.
(Reuters, 12/8/18)
2018 Dec 13, Cambodian authorities seized more than 3 tons of rare African ivory hidden inside an abandoned shipping container, the country's largest haul of elephant tusks in the last four years. The ivory was sent from Mozambique.
(AP, 12/15/18)
2018 Dec 15, A fire at the Chester Zoo in northwest England killed insects, frogs, fish and small birds in an enclosure devoted to exotic tropical habitats.
(AP, 12/16/18)
2018 Dec 16, In Spain dozens of animal rights activists stripped naked and covered themselves in fake blood in Barcelona in a protest against the use of fur and leather.
(Reuters, 12/16/18)
2018 Dec 24, It was reported that Britain has banned third-party sales of puppies and kittens to protect the animals from exploitation.
(AP, 12/24/18)
2018 Dec 26, Japan announced that it is leaving the International Whaling Commission to resume commercial hunts for the animals for the first time in 30 years, but said it would no longer go to the Antarctic for its much-criticized annual killings.
(AP, 12/26/18)
2018 Dec 30, In North Carolina a lion killed Alexandra Black (22) after it got loose from a locked space at a wildlife conservatory in Burlington. The lion was killed after attempts to tranquilize it failed.
(SFC, 12/31/18, p.A5)
2018 The grey wolf was voted Estonia's national animal by nature organizations.
(AP, 2/24/19)
2019 Jan 9, Thousands of Poles protested a government plan to hold a massive slaughter of wild boars as a way to stop the spread of the deadly African swine fever among farm pigs.
(AP, 1/9/19)
2019 Jan 16, Hong Kong customs officers and mainland officials seized 8,300 kilos of pangolin scales and 2,100 kilos of ivory tusks hidden inside a container -- declared to be carrying frozen beef -- at a customs facility. A man and a woman from a trading company in the city were soon arrested.
{China, Hong Kong}
(AFP, 2/1/19)
2019 Jan 28, Denmark began erecting a 70-km (43.4-mile) fence along the German border to keep out wild boars in an attempt to prevent the spread of African swine fever, which could jeopardize the country's valuable pork industry.
(AP, 1/28/19)
2019 Jan 28, In western Germany three Polish men were killed when their car collided with a truck transporting pigs.
(AP, 1/28/19)
2019 Jan 31, Poland's top state veterinary official said about 2,500 kg (5,500 pounds) of meat from sick cows who were slaughtered illegally in Poland has been exported to 10 other European Union countries. The Polish veterinary inspectorate stripped the slaughterhouse in Ostrow Mazowiecka of permission to operate earlier this week.
(AP, 1/31/19)
2019 Jan 31, Uganda's revenue agency said authorities have seized 750 pieces of ivory and thousands of pangolin scales being smuggled from neighboring South Sudan, in one of the largest seizures of wildlife contraband in the East African country. Two Vietnamese nationals were in custody over the contraband.
(AP, 1/31/19)
2019 Feb 1, In San Francisco federal Judge Richard Seeborg ruled that Ndume, the Gorilla Foundation's companion gorilla to the late Koko, must go back to the Cincinnati Zoo in accordance with a 2015 agreement. Ndume returned to Cincinnati on June 14.
(SFC, 2/4/19, p.C3)(SFC, 6/15/19, p.C1)
2019 Feb 1, It was reported that a special airlift for thousands of baby flamingos is under way in South Africa as drought has put their breeding ground in peril.
(AP, 2/1/19)
2019 Feb 3, It was reported that Britain's brown hares are dying from a pathogen found to be the deadly rabbit hemorrhagic disease Type 2. Numbers of the animals have plummeted by about 80 percent in recent decades due to intensive agriculture that has destroyed their habitats and food supplies.
(SSFC, 2/3/19, p.A20)
2019 Feb 5, It was reported that activists in Russia are expressing alarm about more than 100 whales that are being kept in small, crowded pools in what environmentalists are calling a "whale prison," off the coast of the Russian Far East.
(AP, 2/5/19)
2019 Feb 12, A wildlife monitoring group said Malaysian authorities have seized a record 30 tons of pangolin and pangolin products in eastern Sabah state on Borneo, the biggest such bust in the country.
(AP, 2/12/19)
2019 Feb 12, Spanish police said they had seized more than 200 stuffed endangered animals, including giraffes, rhinos, lions and tigers, from an illegal taxidermy workshop that was selling them online.
(AFP, 2/12/19)
2019 Feb 16, World Pangolin Day was marked around the globe. Conservationists say well over 1 million pangolins have been poached since around 2000.
(AP, 2/16/19)
2019 Feb 19, A Tanzanian court sentenced Yang Feng Glan (69) of China to 15 years in jail for her role in trafficking tusks from more than 400 elephants. Two Tanzanian men were also found guilty for their role in the illegal commerce. They were also sentenced to 15 years each.
(AFP, 2/19/19)(Reuters, 2/19/19)
2019 Mar 3, Philippine authorities found 1,529 live exotic turtles stuffed inside luggage at Manila's airport. The various types of turtles were found inside four pieces of left-behind luggage of a Filipino passenger arriving at Ninoy Aquino International Airport on a Philippine Airlines flight from Hong Kong.
(AP, 3/4/19)
2019 Mar 4, In Indonesia a court ruled that construction of a Chinese-backed dam, that will cut through the habitat of a the most critically endangered orangutan species, can continue.
(SFC, 3/5/19, p.A2)
2019 Mar 18, An Indonesian official and veterinarian said that an endangered orangutan with a young baby on Sumatra island was blinded after being shot at least 74 times with an air gun last week. The baby died from malnutrition as rescuers rushed the two animals to an orangutan veterinary clinic.
(AP, 3/18/19)
2019 Mar 22, In Fresno, Ca., a one-year-old boy was fatally mauled by two roaming rottweiler dogs in the front yard of his home.
(SSFC, 3/24/19, p.A10)
2019 Mar 22, Indonesian authorities detained a Russian man at Ngurah Rai airport in Bali as he was caught trying to smuggle a young orangutan in a suitcase. Zhestkov Andrei also had two live geckos and five lizards in his luggage and was scheduled to fly to Russia.
(Reuters, 3/23/19)(AFP, 3/23/19)
2019 Mar 30, China's Customs Administration confiscated nearly 7.5 tons (6,803 kg) of ivory. Since the start of the year, customs officers have seized a total of 8.5 tons (7,711 kg) of ivory products through 53 investigations.
(AP, 4/15/19)
2019 Apr 1, The World Wildlife Foundation sounded the alarm over plastics in the Mediterranean Sea after an 8-meter (over 26-foot) sperm whale was found dead off Sardinia with 22 kg (48.5 pounds) of plastic in its belly.
(AP, 4/1/19)
2019 Apr 5, Jean-Michel Cousteau of the Ocean Futures Society arrived in Russia's Far East on a mission to inspect 97 belugas and orcas and help create conditions for them to be released. Environmentalists said four animals likely died because of cramped conditions and low temperatures.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 7, In Cuba more than 400 animal-lovers peacefully marched more than a mile through Havana, shouting slogans and waving signs calling for an end to animal cruelty in their country.
(AP, 4/7/19)
2019 Apr 7, Dozens of neglected animals were evacuated from a ramshackle Gaza zoo in the fourth and largest such rescue mission in the blockaded Palestinian enclave. Vets and volunteers from Four Paws International transported some 40 animals into Israel from the neglected zoo in the southern town of Rafah.
(AP, 4/7/19)
2019 Apr 8, Australian police arrested 38 animal rights activists after they blocked peak hour traffic in Melbourne in protests to mark the first anniversary of a film, Dominion, about factory farming.
(Reuters, 4/8/19)
2019 Apr 8, A Greek marine conservation group said the Aegean Sea has seen a "very unusual" spike in dolphin deaths over the past few weeks, adding that the rise could be linked to massive Turkish naval exercises in the area.
(AP, 4/8/19)
2019 Apr 8, Russian officials said they will work towards freeing all orca and beluga whales from a notorious facility in the east of the country, after a visit by US-based marine mammal advocates.
(AFP, 4/8/19)
2019 Apr 11, Police in North Macedonia said they have detained five men, including two Chinese citizens and a customs official, on suspicion of smuggling a critically endangered species of eel.
(AP, 4/11/19)
2019 Apr 13, In southern China the only known female member of one of the world's rarest turtle species died at a zoo in Suzhou city. The animal was one of four Yangtze giant softshell turtles known to be remaining in the world.
(AP, 4/14/19)
2019 Apr 13, South African police intercepted 167 rhino horns believed to be destined for Southeast Asia, in one of the biggest such hauls ever in the country. Two suspects, aged 57 and 61, were arrested.
(Reuters, 4/15/19)
2019 Apr 15, In Malaysia two Vietnamese men, aged 25 and 29, were arrested by a wildlife enforcement team in a national park in eastern Terengganu state. Authorities seized body parts from tigers and bears from the suspected poachers.
(AFP, 4/16/19)
2019 Apr 23, In Boston Derrick Semedo (26) of New Hampshire pleaded guilty to smuggling rare lizards from the Philippines to the US in 2016 by hiding them in socks and placing them inside electronic equipment.
(AP, 4/24/19)
2019 Apr 30, Malaysia destroyed nearly four tons of elephant tusks and ivory products estimated to be worth 13.26 million ringgit ($3.2 million) as part of its fight against the illegal ivory trade. The ivory was confiscated in 15 raids between 2011 and 2017.
(AP, 4/30/19)
2019 May 3, In Spain the town council of Barcelona voted to modify its zoo's bylaws to include a rule by which any of its breeding programs will be stopped unless there is a plan to eventually release the offspring into nature. The goal is to convert the zoo, which was built inside a park in the city center in 1892, into a center focused on education and research, and a refuge for animals that can no longer survive in liberty.
(AP, 5/23/19)
2019 May 11, Animal rights groups cheered the release of 37 spotted seal pups rescued from traffickers into the wild in northern China in a small victory for efforts to save the country's endangered species.
(AP, 5/11/19)
2019 May 16, Animal activists urged Kenya to ban the slaughter of donkeys for use in Chinese medicine, a practice which has soared in recent years and decimated African populations of the animal.
(AFP, 5/16/19)
2019 May 22, Botswana announced on it would overturn the hunting ban introduced in 2014 to reverse a decline in the population of elephants and other wildlife. Lawmakers from the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) have been lobbying to overturn the ban, saying wild animal numbers have become unmanageable in some areas.
(AFP, 5/23/19)
2019 May 27, Malaysia's last surviving male Sumatran rhino died, leaving behind only one female in the country and pushing the critically-endangered species closer to extinction.
(AFP, 5/27/19)
2019 May 29, In Bangladesh four people accused of poaching threatened Bengal tigers were shot dead by police during a gunfight in a mangrove forest.
(AFP, 5/29/19)
2019 May, European scientists successfully transferred a test tube rhino embryo back into a southern white female rhino whose eggs were fertilized in vitro at the Cherzow Zoo in Poland.
(SFC, 6/26/19, p.A2)
2019 Jun 11, Thai construction tycoon Premchai Karnasuta was sentenced to an additional one year in prison for bribing a park ranger in relation to a high-profile case of poaching endangered animals in a wildlife sanctuary last year.
(AP, 6/11/19)
2019 Jun 12, Authorities in Vietnam seized 3.5 tons of elephant ivory and 4 tons of pangolin scales in one of the country's biggest wildlife trafficking cases.
(AP, 6/14/19)(SFC, 6/18/19, p.A2)
2019 Jun 13, Germany's top administrative court ruled that the slaughtering of male chicks may continue in the poultry industry until a method is found to determine the sex of an embryo in the egg.
(AFP, 6/13/19)
2019 Jun 12, Authorities in Vietnam seized 7.5 tons of elephant ivory and pangolin scales in one of the country's biggest wildlife trafficking cases.
(AP, 6/14/19)
2019 Jun 17, New Jersey sentenced William "Billy" Gangemi to two years' probation for his role in a conspiracy to smuggle wildlife in the scheme that involved hiding rare turtles in candy wrappers or socks and shipping them overseas. South Carolina ringleader Steven Verren Baker, Matt Kail and Joseph Logan Brooks previously were each sentenced to prison in the scheme.
(AP, 6/18/19)
2019 Jun 20, Malaysia authorities arrested four Indians and seized more than 14 kg of drugs and 5,255 turtles from their luggage at the Kuala Lumpur airport. The red-ear slider baby turtles were kept in small baskets from the luggage of two Indian nationals who flew in from Guangzhou, China.
(AP, 6/26/19)
2019 Jun 20, State TV said Russia has started releasing a group of captive killer whales whose detention in Russia's Far East has caused an international outcry. Russian Deputy PM Alexei Gordeyev said the whales would be taken back to where they were caught and released within four months.
(Reuters, 6/20/19)
2019 Jun 26, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation allowing the state to immediately shut down horse races for safety reasons. This was in response to the deaths of 30 horses in the last racing season at Santa Anita park near Los Angeles.
(SFC, 6/27/19, p.C6)
2019 Jun 27, Russia said six beluga and two killer whales, captured to perform in aquariums and held in cramped pens, have been released into the wild.
(AFP, 6/27/19)
2019 Jul 1, Japanese whalers returned to port with their first catch after resuming commercial whaling for the first time in 31 years, achieving the long-cherished goal of traditionalists that is seen as largely a lost cause amid slowing demand for the meat. This was the first commercial hunt since 1988.
(Reuters, 7/1/19)
2019 Jul 7, It was reported that bats in northern California have begun dying from white-nose syndrome, a mysterious fungus that has killed millions of bats in the eastern United States. The first case in the state was detected a year ago and officials said the disease, caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans, was poised to spread across the state.
(SSFC, 7/7/19, p.C10)
2019 Jul 11, In Russia three orcas were loaded onto trucks at a controversial facility near the far eastern port town of Nakhodka, as the country continues to release animals from what the media have dubbed a "whale jail".
(AFP, 7/11/19)
2019 Jul 28, Vietnam said it has seized more than 125 kg (275 lb) of rhino horns hidden in plaster blocks and shipped from United Arab Emirates. Separately, police in Vietnam earlier this week arrested three men for transporting seven frozen tiger carcasses from Laos to Hanoi.
(Reuters, 7/28/19)
2019 Aug 12, Singapore said it will ban the domestic trade in ivory from September 2021. The international trade in ivory has been banned since 1990 under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
(Reuters, 8/12/19)
2019 Aug 16, In rural Washington state the last four members of a wolf pack that preyed on cattle in an area bordering Canada were killed by state hunters in helicopters, prompting protests from environmental groups.
(AP, 8/19/19)
2019 Aug 17, In Switzerland the World Wildlife Conference on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) opened in Geneva.
{Switzerland, Animal}
(SFC, 8/18/19, p.A6)
2019 Aug 17, In Thailand an orphaned baby dugong rescued earlier this year died due to pieces of plastic clogging her digestive system.
(Reuters, 8/17/19)
2019 Aug 19, In Michigan three dogs killed 9-year-old Detroit girl Emma Hernandez as she rode a bike. One dog was shot and killed and the others were captured. The owner of the pit bulls or pit-bull mixes was taken into custody.
(AP, 8/20/19)
2019 Aug 20, Elanco Animal Health Inc said it would buy Bayer AG's animal health unit in a cash and stock deal valued at $7.6 billion, a move that would create the second largest animal health business and expand Elanco's reach in the pet e-commerce space.
(Reuters, 8/20/19)
2019 Aug 22, In Switzerland countries voted overwhelmingly to regulate international trade in giraffes, an endangered species, and in their body parts, overcoming objections by southern African states and drawing praise from conservationists. The provisional decision, taken in a key committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), was expected to be endorsed at a plenary next week.
(Reuters, 8/22/19)
2019 Aug 24, US federal officials said more than 40 wild burros have been found shot and killed along I-5 near the California-Nevada line.
(SSFC, 8/25/19, p.A12)
2019 Aug 25, In Switzerland countries at a CITES meeting on the global wildlife trade agreed to strengthen protections for 18 threatened species of sharks and rays, including those whose fins are prized for making Chinese soups.
(Reuters, 8/25/19)
2019 Aug 31, Tennessee woman Adrieanna O'Shea (19) died 10 days after she was mauled by a pack of dogs. Deputies shot one of the dogs. The others were euthanized.
(AP, 9/4/19)
2019 Sep 1, Minnesota woman Catherine Sweatt-Mueller (62) was killed by a black bear on Red Pine Island in Rainy Lake, which straddles the US-Canada border. The bear was shot and killed.
(http://tinyurl.com/y4zhumrf)(SFC, 9/6/19, p.A2)
2019 Sep 2, It was reported that Denmark is spending 11 million kroner ($1.6 million) to buy the country's last four circus elephants to give them a proper retirement as the government moves to ban wild animals in circuses.
(AP, 9/2/19)
2019 Sep 5, US wildlife officials rejected petitions to protect Yellowstone National Park's storied bison herds but pledged to consider more help for two other species — a tiny, endangered squirrel in Arizona and bees that pollinate rare desert flowers in Nevada.
(AP, 9/5/19)
2019 Sep 6, Conservationists hoped the arrival of the environmentally-conscious Pope Francis will spotlight Madagascar's loss of 2% of primary rainforest last year, the highest of any tropical nation according to the World Resources Institute. Slash-and-burn farmers were driving humanity's smallest relative - the Madame Berthe’s mouse lemur - to extinction.
(Reuters, 9/6/19)
2019 Sep 7, Norwegian officials said they haven't been able to detect the cause behind an unexplained disease that is estimated to have killed dozens of dogs in the country in recent days.
(AP, 9/7/19)
2019 Sep 9, Authorities in southern Texas discovered about 270 animals, about two dozen of them dead, on property in the small community of Los Fresnos, north of Brownsville, after receiving complaints from neighbors about barking dogs. Tiffany Woodington (49) was later charged in Missouri with 10 counts of felony animal abuse and two misdemeanor counts of animal abuse. Her husband, Steven Woodington (55) was charged in Texas with animal cruelty. The couple operated All Accounted For, which brought rescued animals from Texas to Missouri.
(AP, 9/24/19)
2019 Sep 11, In Italy an international consortium of scientists and conservationists announced that they have succeeded in creating two embryos of the near-extinct northern white rhino, a milestone in assisted reproduction that may be a pivotal turning point in the fate of the species.
(AP, 9/11/19)
2019 Sep 12, Belgian and French researchers said they have detected high accumulations of industrial fluids and mercury in the blubber and skin of the rare bottlenose dolphins off the northwest coast of France.
(AP, 9/12/19)
2019 Sep 28, Jordan Gerbich shot an elephant seal in the head near the Piedras Blancas State Marine Reserve in San Simeon. In 2021 Gerbich (30) was sentenced to three months in prison. He will then serve three months in home detention and have to perform 120 hours of community service alongside paying a $1,000 fine.
(The Independent, 4/14/21)
2019 Oct 4, Local reports said Peruvian authorities, in an operation at the port of Callao, have seized some 12.3 million seahorses that were illegally fished and allegedly destined to be sold abroad.
(http://tinyurl.com/y6t96nq2)(SSFC, 10/6/19, p.A4)
2019 Oct 6, It was reported that Nevada Officials are testing dead animals and monitoring migratory elk and deer at the state line with Utah for signs of chronic wasting disease, a highly contagious and terminal disorder that causes symptoms such as lack of fear of humans, lethargy and emaciation.
(AP, 10/6/19)
2019 Oct 8, The US federal government said it will remove the Kirtland's warbler from its list of protected species, finding the small, yellow-bellied songbird had recovered more than half a century after being designated as endangered. The latest census put them at about 2,300 pairs.
(AP, 10/8/19)
2019 Oct 10, The US National Audubon Society said two-thirds of bird species in North America, already disappearing at an alarming rate, face extinction unless immediate action is taken to slow the rate of climate change.
(Reuters, 10/11/19)
2019 Oct 12, California Gov. Gavin Newson signed AB44, outlawing the sale and manufacture of new fur clothing and accessories effective Jan. 1, 2023. Newsome also signed SB313, which prohibits the use of wild animals in a circus.
(SSFC, 10/13/19, p.A6)
2019 Oct 13, The Indianapolis Zoo said it plans to open an international center devoted to saving threatened species, an effort that zoo officials call a natural extension of their biennial Indianapolis Prize honoring animal conservation leaders.
(AP, 10/13/19)
2019 Oct 14, It was reported that South Korea is deploying snipers to the Demilitarized Zone with orders to shoot any wild boar that are seen in the buffer zone with North Korea before they can bring more cases of African swine fever into the South.
(The Telegraph, 10/14/19)
2019 Oct 16, A Paris zoo showcased a mysterious new organism, dubbed the "blob", a yellowish unicellular small living being which looks like a fungus but acts like an animal. The blob has almost 720 sexes, can move without legs or wings and heals itself in two minutes if cut in half.
(Reuters, 10/16/19)
2019 Oct 21, Zimbabwe authorities said at least 55 elephants have starved to death in the past two months in the country's biggest national park as a serious drought forces animals to stray into nearby communities in search of food and water.
(AP, 10/21/19)
2019 Oct 25, Humane Society International said Zimbabwe has sent about 30 young elephants to China this week, where they will be held in zoos. Authorities said at least 55 elephants have starved to death in the past two months in Hwange National Park as drought dries up water sources and overcrowding results in massive loss of habitat. The park has a carrying capacity of 15,000 elephants but is home to more than 50,000.
(AP, 10/25/19)
2019 Oct 30, In Indiana emergency workers were called to the home in Battle Ground and found 36-year-old Laura Hurst dead with an 8-foot python coiled around her neck. The Reticulated Python was one of 140 snakes that were found inside the home.
(ABC News, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, It was reported that the recent transfer of hundreds of elephants to Malawi's largest wildlife reserve has led to residents falling ill from sleeping sickness, a parasitic disease spread by testse flies, a companion of the elephants.
(SFC, 8/31/19, p.A2)
2019 Nov 12, Zimbabwe said more than 200 elephants have died amid a severe drought, and announced plans for a mass relocation of animals to ease congestion.
(AP, 11/12/19)
2019 Nov 18, The head of a UN treaty said a rare species of porpoise is facing imminent extinction as fishing vessels appear to be flouting an international ban on them entering its last sanctuary, off the coast of Mexico.
(Reuters, 11/19/19)
2019 Nov 19, A new US federal law, effective January 1, was published in the federal register. It will restrict bottom trawling over 90% of the sea floor along the West Coast from Canada to Mexico.
(SFC, 11/20/19, p.A1)
2019 Nov 20, Activists said six conservationists working to save the critically endangered Asiatic cheetah have been sentenced to prison on internationally criticized espionage charges in Iran.
(AP, 11/20/19)
2019 Nov 23, The last Sumatran rhinoceros in Malaysia, a female rhino named Iman, died. This left the smallest species of rhino, which once roamed across Asia, surviving in small numbers mostly in Indonesia. The Sumatran rhino was declared extinct in the wild in Malaysia in 2015. Malaysia's last male Sumatran rhino died in May this year.
(Reuters, 11/23/19)
2019 Nov 24, In Texas Christine Rollins (59) was killed by multiple feral hogs outside a rural home where she worked as a caretaker.
(SFC, 11/28/19, p.A7)
2019 Nov 24, The Queen Hind, a cargo ship carrying 14,600 sheep, capsized off the coast of Romania. All crew memberswere saved along with 32 sheep found swimming by the ship. Many of the sheep were expected to have drowned.
(USA Today, 11/26,19, p.4A)
2019 Nov 25, In northern Thailand a wild deer was found dead in a national park with seven kg of plastic waste and other trash in its stomach. Officials estimated that the 10-year-old deer had died at least two days earlier.
(AP, 11/27/19)
2019 Nov, North Carolina's Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper warned that no more than 14 known red wolves remain in the wild and that the breed is on the verge of extinction. Red wolves were reintroduced to North Carolina in 1987. An additional 200 live in captive breeding programs.
{North Carolina, USA, Animal}
(SFC, 12/27/19, p.A11)
2019 Dec 4, Poland's agriculture minister said an outbreak of African swine fever near the German border has killed 21 wild boar.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 7, Indonesian authorities arrested five suspected poachers of a pair of critically endangered pregnant Sumatran tigers and seized four fetuses that had been preserved in a jar. About 400 Sumatran tigers remained because of forest destruction and poaching.
(SFC, 12/9/19, p.A2)
2019 Dec 8, The SpaceX Dragon caqpsule delivered three tons supplies to the Int'l. Space Station.The delivery include 8 of 40 mice genetically engineered with twice the normal muscle mass for a muscle and bone experiment.
(SFC, 12/9/19, p.A6)
2019 Dec 14, Indonesian police arrested two men suspected of being part of a ring that poaches and trades in endangered animals and seized from them several lion and leopard cubs and dozens of turtles.
(AP, 12/15/19)
2019 Dec 17, It was reported that scientists are working quickly to discover the cause of a massive fresh water mussel die-off on the Clinch River in Tennessee and understand whether it is related to similar die-offs on at least five US rivers and another in Spain.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, In eastern Kentucky at least 15 horses were found fatally shot at a strip mine site along US 23 near the Floyd-Pike County line.
(AP, 12/18/19)
2019 Dec 18, Puerto Rico adopted a law to keep cock-fighting alive, seeking to protect a 400-year-old tradition despite a US federal ban due to go into effect this week.
(SFC, 12/19/19, p.A9)
2019 Dec 28, In Australia thousands of koalas were feared to have died in a wildfire-ravaged area north of Sydney, further diminishing the iconic marsupial, while the fire danger increased in the country’s east as temperatures soared.
(AP, 12/28/19)
2019 In Sri Lanka about 386 elephants died at human hands, up from 319 a year earlier. Human fatalities due to wild elephants rose to 114.
(Econ., 2/29/20, p.31)
2020 Jan 1, In western Germany a fire at the Krefeld zoo in the first minutes of 2020 killed more than 30 animals, including apes, monkeys, bats and birds. Police said the fire may have been caused by sky lanterns launched to celebrate the new year.
(AP, 1/1/20)
2020 Jan 5, It was reported that wildfires that have been ravaging swaths of Australia have burned through one-third of Kangaroo Island, killing a father and his son and leaving behind a scorched wasteland and a devastated community. The fires have killed thousands of koalas and kangaroos, and also have raised questions about whether any members of a mouse-like marsupial species that carries its young in a pouch have survived.
(AP, 1/5/20)
2020 Jan 6, In Wyoming gunners contracted by Grand Teton National Park began culling about 100 goats that threatened the park's bighorn sheep herd.
(SFC, 1/6/20, p.A6)
2020 Jan 9, Chicago authorities captured a coyote late today after two reported attacks by wild canines on humans in the city, including a 6-year-old boy who was bitten in the head. DNA tests would confirm if this was the animal involved in either of the attacks.
(AP, 1/10/20)
2020 Jan 15, Researchers announced the successful creation of another embryo of the nearly extinct northern white rhino. The last two females, hosted in Kenya, provided the eggs.
(SFC, 1/16/20, p.A4)
2020 Jan 20, In New Hampshire a coyote attacked a pair of dogs, bit a woman and skirmished with a vehicle before being killed by a father defending his family.
(AP, 1/21/20)
2020 Jan 21, European Union lawmakers backed measures to clamp down on abuse of EU pet passports by criminals and gangs that illegally trade cats and dogs.
(Reuters, 1/21/20)
2020 Jan 31, Fifty North Atlantic right whales were spotted south of Nantucket Island. The US federal government asked Atlantic Ocean vessels to slow down in the area as only about 400 right wales are left in the world.
(SFC, 2/6/20, p.A5)
2020 Feb 2, Punxsutawney Phil, Pennsylvania's most famous groundhog, declared: “Spring will be early, it's a certainty".
(AP, 2/2/20)
2020 Feb, In Cyprus 96 flamingos were found dead over the last two months in the Larnaca Salt Lake wetlands as a result of lead poisoning. In 2021 Conservationists in Cyprus urged authorities to expand a hunting ban throughout a coastal salt lake network amid concerns that migrating flamingos could potentially swallow lethal quantities of lead shotgun pellets.
(AP, 2/21/21)
2020 Mar 3, In Mexico a boat from a conservation group carrying government inspectors was attacked while monitoring a near-extinct porpoise species in a protected zone of Mexico’s Gulf of California.
(Reuters, 3/4/20)
2020 Mar 6, Gilbert Khoo, a seafood salesman in the UK, received a two-year suspended sentence for six offenses related to the transport of $7 million worth of endangered eels.
(Business Insider, 3/8/20)
2020 Mar 11, Kenyan officials said a white female giraffe and her 7-month-old calf have been killed by poachers. About 110,000 giraffes remained in Africa.
(SFC, 3/12/20, p.A2)
2020 Mar 17, In South Africa Lt Col Leroy Brewer, a top rhino poaching investigator, was driving to work when he was shot dead by gunmen with high-caliber weapons. He died on the spot.
(AP, 3/18/20)
2020 Mar 18, A new report said a tiny fossil skull nicknamed “Wonderchicken" may be the oldest known fossil from this group. A skull of partridge-sized bird, named Asteriornis maastrichtensis, was found in Belgium and said to be some 66.7 to 66.8 million years old. It lived just before the asteroid impact that's blamed for killing off many species, most notably the giant dinosaurs.
(AP, 3/18/20)(Reuters, 3/18/20)
2020 Mar, In South Africa some 218,000 farm animals, such as cows sheep or goats, were stolen over the last 12 months, up from 180,000 five years earlier. 87% of the cases involved criminal syndicates.
(Econ., 11/21/20, p.42)
2020 Apr 5, US federal and local zoo officials said a tiger at the Bronx Zoo has tested positive for the new coronavirus, in what is believed to be the first known infection in an animal in the US or a tiger anywhere.
(AP, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 6, Malta said it would allow hunters to hunt quail from April 10 until the end of the month, despite health authorities urging everyone to stay indoors to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Malta has so far reported 227 COVID-19 cases but no deaths.
(Reuters, 4/6/20)
2020 Apr 9, A US judge ruled that the National Marine Fisheries Service failed to adequately protect endangered right whales from lobster fishing activities. Right whales currently number only about 400.
(SFC, 4/11/20, p.A3)
2020 Apr 19, It was reported that dogs are no longer to be classified as livestock in China and are instead considered merely pets in new guidelines issued by Beijing because of the coronavirus crisis.
(SSFC, 4/19/20, p.E4)
2020 Apr 25, In the SF Bay Area the Alameda County Sheriff's Office shut down a cockfighting ring in rural Pleasanton. Officers seized nearly 600 hens, chicks and razor-wielding roosters.
(SFC, 4/28/20, p.B1)
2020 Apr 30, It was reported that the US Fish and Wildlife Service is offering a $1,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest of someone who is poisoning pets and wildlife in northern Wisconsin. Ongoing poisonings in Florence, Forest and Marinette counties have been investigated for about a year. 7 pet dogs have died so far along with coyotes, weasels and wolves.
(AP, 4/30/20)
2020 May 4, Hong Kong customs officials impounded 24 tons of shark fins from Ecuador with a retail value of $1.1 million.
(Econ., 11/21/20, p.30)
2020 May 8, The World Health Organization said that although a market in the Chinese city of Wuhan selling live animals likely played a significant role in the emergence of the new coronavirus, it does not recommend that such markets be shut down globally.
(AP, 5/8/20)
2020 May 14, US federal land managers said it will take two decades and cost more than $1 billion over the first six years alone to slash wild horse populations across 10 Western states to sustainable levels necessary to protect rangeland.
(SFC, 5/15/20, p.A5)
2020 May 15, Britain's wildlife charity the RSPB said it has been "overrun" by reports of birds of prey being illegally killed since the lockdown started six weeks ago. All birds of prey are protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981).
(BBC, 5/15/20)
2020 May 22, It was reported that archaeologists in Mexico have found the bones of about 60 mammoths at an airport under construction just north of Mexico City, near human-built ’traps’ where more than a dozen mammoths were found last year. The bones were found in sediment layers corresponding to 15,000 to 20,000 years ago.
(AP, 5/22/20)
2020 Jun 1, Rafiki, one of Uganda's best known mountain gorillas, went missing. His body was discovered by a search party the following day. The silverback, believed to be around 25-years-old when he died in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, was the leader of a group of 17 mountain gorillas. Four men were expected to be charged under a wildlife protection law that was passed last year. In late July Felix Byamukama pleaded guilty to illegally entering a protected area and killing the gorilla and was jailed for 11 years.
(BBC, 6/12/20)(BBC, 7/30/20)
2020 Jun 3, It was reported that poachers in Ethiopia killed at least six elephants in a single day last week. In the 1970s Ethiopia had more than 10,000 elephants, but poaching and habitat degradation have reduced the number to about 2,500 to 3,000.
(SFC, 6/3/20, p.A2)
2020 Jun 3, In India a pregnant elephant died in agony in a river in Silent Valley National Park in Kerala's Palakkad district after eating a firecracker-stuffed pineapple. Her death caused outrage in the country. A suspect was soon arrested Farmers in the area are known for using explosives in fruit to protect their land from wild animals.
(https://tinyurl.com/y9t66rxj)(SFC, 6/8/20, p.A2)
2020 Jun 3, Dutch broadcaster RTL reported that the government intends to cull the mink at farms where animals have been infected with the coronavirus. Coronavirus has so far been detected on eight farms in the Netherlands. A law banning mink farming in the Netherlands was passed in 2013, and the remaining 120 farms are due to cease operations in 2023.
(Reuters, 6/3/20)
2020 Jun 17, Danish authorities said mink at a farm in Denmark were found to be infected with the new coronavirus and all 11,000 of the animals there will have to be culled.
(Reuters, 6/17/20)
2020 Jun 18, In San Francisco a 50-pound male cougar, believed to be under 2 years old, was spotted roaming downtown over several days this week. He was seen sleeping in a planter box and looking at his reflection in the glass of an office tower before being captured. Authorities said he may have killed three animals at the city zoo. The cougar was soon released back to the wild. On July 3 the mountain lion was found dead on the shoulder of Highway 1 near Pacifica.
(AP, 6/20/20)(AP, 7/4/20)
2020 Jun 21, It was reported that poaching in India has become increasingly common amid the coronavirus pandemic, as people left jobless turn to wildlife to make money and feed their families. The problem extended into Nepal, southeast Asia and parts of Africa.
(AP, 6/21/20)
2020 Jul 1, It was reported that some 350 elephant carcasses have been found in the Okavango Delta of Botswana over the last two months. It was unknown why the animals are dying.
(BBC, 7/1/20)
2020 Jul 3, Botswana said it is investigating a staggeringly high number of elephant carcasses — 275 — found in the popular Okavango Delta area in recent weeks. A day earlier Botswana's government announced “an alarming surge of rhinoceros poaching in the Okavango Delta" in recent days.
(AP, 7/3/20)
2020 Jul 6, In Cambodia the province of Siem Reap outlawed the trade of dog meat. The trade remains legal in other parts of the country. Recent reports estimated that 2-3 million dogs are killed annually in Cambodia for their meat.
(SFC, 7/10/20, p.A2)
2020 Jul 7, US Secretary of the Interior David L. Bernhardt announced his agency will not conduct the environmental impact statement needed to move forward with the idea to reintroduce grizzly bears to the forested mountains in and around North Cascades National Park in north central Washington state.
(AP, 7/11/20)
2020 Jul 9, The Swiss-based Int'l. Union for the Conservation of Nature updated its red list and said the lemurs of Madagascar are just one step away form extinction. North Atlantic Right Whales were also said to be nearing extinction.
(SFC, 7/10/20, p.A2)
2020 Jul 10, The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) revealed that the illegal global ivory trade has decreased, but trafficking of pangolins is on the rise.
(AP, 7/10/20)
2020 Jul 14, The FBI arrested an Indiana woman (19) they say was torturing and graphically killing cats and dogs. Private citizens helped identify Krystal Cherika Scott using social media and providing the information to law enforcement.
(Insider, 7/17/20)
2020 Jul 20, A University of Toronto-led study, published in Nature Climate Change, said polar bears could be starved into extinction by 2100 as the Arctic sea ice continues to shrink at alarming rates, making it hard for the bears to hunt for food.
(Good Morning America, 7/22/20)
2020 Aug 3, It was reported that authorities in the Netherlands and Spain have killed more than 1 million minks at breeding farms following outbreaks of coronavirus in the animals.
(SFC, 8/3/20, p.A6)
2020 Aug 10, It was reported that at least five horses have been killed around Pearland, Texas, since late May. Police believe the horses were killed for their meat.
(Miami Herald, 8/10/20)
2020 Aug 14, US authorities gave wildlife managers in Washington, Oregon and Idaho permission to start killing hundreds of sea lions in the Columbia River basin in hopes of helping struggling salmon and steelhead trout.
(AP, 8/14/20)
2020 Aug 14, It was reported that Spanish police in Catalonia have broken up a gang of poachers believed to have captured 10,000 protected finches in two years, amassing an estimated €150,000 by illegally selling the animals as caged songbirds.
(The Telegraph, 8/14/20)
2020 Aug 20, In New Mexico a mystery started with the discovery of a large number of dead birds at the US Army White Sands Missile Range and White Sands National Monument. Dead migratory birds were also being found in Colorado, Texas and Mexico.
(https://tinyurl.com/y5fgjb6w)
2020 Aug 26, It was reported that at least 13 dead dolphins have been found on the seashore in Mauritius, more than a month after the huge oil spill caused by a Japanese-owned ship.
(BBC, 8/26/20)
2020 Aug 26, In South Africa well-known conservationist West Mathewson died after he was mauled by two white lions as he was taking them for a walk.
(BBC, 8/27/20)
2020 Aug 28, The Dutch government brought forward to March a ban on mink-farming that had been scheduled to take effect in 2024.
(Econ., 9/5/20, p.43)
2020 Aug 28, A polar bear attacked a camping site in Norway's remote Svalbard Islands, killing a 38-year-old Dutch man before being shot and killed by onlookers. Johan Jacobus Kootte was the fifth person on Svalbard to have been killed by polar bears since 1971.
(AP, 8/28/20)
2020 Aug 29, It was reported that attackers armed with knives, some knowledge of their prey and a large dose of cruelty, are going after horses and ponies in pastures across France in what may be ritual mutilations.
(AP, 8/29/20)
2020 Aug 29, Thousands of people marched through the Mauritian capital, Port Louis, in protest at the authorities' handling of a massive oil spill, and the discovery of at least 40 dead dolphins. Dead fish, turtles, whales and crabs were also observed.
(BBC, 8/30/20)(SSFC, 9/6/20, p.B10)
2020 Aug 30, Zimbabwe's parks authorities said they are investigating the death of 11 elephants in a forest in the west of the country. The carcasses of the elephants were discovered August 28 in Pandamasue Forest.
(AP, 8/30/20)
2020 Aug, In Siberia the remains of a woolly rhino, dating to the late Pleistocene era, was found at a river in the diamond-producing region of Yakutia complete with all its limbs, some of its organs, its tusk, and even its wool.
(AP, 12/30/20)
2020 Sep 7, France's interior minister said investigators have made numerous arrests since a macabre series of attacks left scores of horses mutilated or killed this year and have opened more than 150 investigations into such cases.
(AP, 9/7/20)
2020 Sep 8, It was reported that an environmental group in Zimbabwe has applied to the country’s High Court to stop a Chinese firm from mining coal in Hwange National Park, which hosts one of Africa’s largest populations of elephants. The mining license was granted by President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government to the Chinese firm in February, 2019, and the firm has started exploratory work in the park. Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa announced a ban on mining in all national parks, reversing a decision to let Chinese firms explore for coal at its famous Hwange game park with immediate effect.
(AP, 9/8/20)(BBC, 9/9/20)
2020 Sep 20, In Alaska a grizzly bear mauled and killed a moose hunter in a first-of-its-kind attack in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve.
(Good Morning America, 9/23/20)
2020 Sep 21, In Australia hundreds of pilot whales were discovered beached on the shore and sand bars along the remote west coast of Tasmania state.
(SFC, 9/25/20, p.A6)
2020 Sep 21, Wildlife officials said a total of 330 elephants in Botswana are now known to have died from ingesting cyanobacteria, a toxic bacteria which can occur naturally in standing water and sometimes grow into large blooms known as blue-green algae.
(BBC, 9/21/20)
2020 Sep 23, More pilot whales were found stranded in Australia, raising the estimated total to nearly 500, including 380 that have died, in the largest mass stranding ever recorded in the country. 88 whales were rescued and crews worked to free 20 more.
(AP, 9/23/20)(SFC, 9/25/20, p.A6)
2020 Sep 25, The British charity People's Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA) said Magawa, a giant African pouched rat, has been awarded its Gold Medal for his "lifesaving bravery and devotion" after discovering 39 landmines and 28 items of unexploded ordinance in the past seven years in Cambodia. Before Magawa, all the recipients were dogs.
(AP, 9/25/20)
2020 Sep 27, It was reported that experts are warning of a "feral swine bomb" that could go off at any time, as the numbers of hybrid wild pigs have soared to six million and spread from 17 to 39 US states over the last three decades.
(SSFC, 9/27/20, p.B10)
2020 Sep 29, France's environmental minister announced a gradual ban on using wild animals in traveling circuses, on keeping dolphins and killer whales in captivity in marine parks and on raising mink on fur farms.
(SFC, 9/30/20, p.A2)
2020 Sep 29, Wildlife officials in Zimbabwe said they suspect a bacterial disease is responsible for the deaths of more than 30 elephants since late August.
(BBC, 9/30/20)
2020 Oct 6, It was reported that Tasmanian devils, the carnivorous marsupials whose feisty, frenzied eating habits won the animals cartoon fame, have returned to mainland Australia for the first time in some 3,000 years. The 11 most recently released devils began exploring their new home at the nearly 1,000-acre Barrington Tops wildlife refuge in New South Wales state.
(AP, 10/6/20)
2020 Oct 19, In Alabama Ruthie Brown (36), a mother of four boys from Jasper, died after being mauled by a pack of five dogs.
(Miami Herald, 10/20/20)
2020 Oct 29, The Trump administration announced that the gray wolf will lose endangered species protection.
(SFC, 10/30/20, p.A1)
2020 Nov 4, Denmark said it will cull its entire herd of up to 17 million mink after a mutation of the coronavirus found in the animals spread to humans, posing risk to any possible future vaccine.
(Reuters, 11/4/20)
2020 Nov 5, A US federal judge ruled that the government in 2015 illegally approved a breed of genetically engineered salmon because it failed to assess the harm the fish might cause if they escaped their confines and interbred with other salmon species. The fish, engineered by AquaBounty Technologies, grow twice as fast as others, but are not yet available for sale.
(SFC, 11/9/20, p.B4)
2020 Nov 6, It was reported that more than 14,000 farmed minks have died in recent weeks in Utah and Wisconsin after contracting COVID-19.
(SFC, 11/6/20, p.A7)
2020 Nov 13, A Greek agriculture ministry official said the new coronavirus has been found in mink at two farms in northern Greece. A cull of the 2,500 mink at one farm was due to begin shortly.
(Reuters, 11/13/20)
2020 Nov 22, The French agriculture ministry said mink infected with coronavirus have been found at a farm in the Eure-et-Loire region of western France, and 1,000 mink at the farm will be culled.
(Reuters, 11/22/20)
2020 Nov 23, Australian scientists pushed to list the platypus as a vulnerable species after a report showed the habitat of the semi-aquatic native mammal had shrunk more than a fifth in the last 30 years.
(Reuters, 11/23/20)
2020 Nov 24, The acting head of a big Russian state fur company floated the idea of vaccinating minks to prevent the spread of COVID-19, after millions of infected minks were destroyed in Denmark and cases of the disease were found elsewhere.
(Reuters, 11/24/20)
2020 Dec 2, The US Transportation Dept. issued a final rule saying only dogs can be service animals on airlines, and companions used for emotional support don't count.
(SFC, 12/3/20, p.A6)
2020 Dec 2, Christopher Allen Whiteley (28) was last seen early today in Lipan, Texas. Whiteley’s body was found days later in a nearby wooded area after a search. A preliminary report found that he likely died of a mountain lion attack.
(NBC News, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 8, Spanish veterinary authorities said four lions at Barcelona Zoo have tested positive for COVID-19, in only the second known case in which large felines have contracted coronavirus.
(Reuters, 12/8/20)
2020 Dec 14, Russian authorities said they are investigating the death of nearly 300 endangered seals, including pregnant females, that have been found washed up on the Caspian Sea shores of Dagestan since December 6. The Caspian seal was included in Russia’s Red Data Book of rare and endangered species this year.
(The Telegraph, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 21, Denmark agreed on a temporary ban on mink breeding, leaving little hope to rebuild the industry, which pioneered the global fur trade.
(Reuters, 12/21/20)
2020 Dec 24, It was reported that a $5,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the conviction of whoever is slashing the pouches and necks of brown pelicans on the Southern California coast.
(AP, 12/24/20)
2021 Jan 5, The Trump administration finalized changes that weaken the government's enforcement powers under a century-old law protecting most American wild bird species.
(SFC, 1/6/21, p.A4)
2021 Jan 8, In southern California 8 gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park tested positive for the coronavirus in what is believed to be the first cases among such primates in captivity.
(https://tinyurl.com/yxcwcttz)(SFC, 1/13/21, p.A4)
2021 Jan 20, Germany's Cabinet approved legislation that will prohibit the killing male chicks after they hatch from Jan. 1 next year. In a second step, the killing of chick embryos in the egg will be prohibited after the sixth day of incubation starting on Jan. 1, 2024.
(AP, 1/20/21)
2021 Jan 26, Lifestyle guru Martha Stewart launched a line of cannabis-infused oil drops and soft-baked chews for dogs, months after the successful release of her cannabidiol (CBD) gummie treats for humans hit shelves in the United States. Stewart is banking on a nearly one-year partnership with Canada's Canopy Growth Corp, the world's top pot producer by market value.
(AP, 1/26/21)
2021 Feb 9, It was reported that the Indian army is training dogs to find COVID-19 in its ranks by sniffing human sweat and urine.
(Reuters, 2/9/21)
2021 Feb 10, It was reported that the hippo population at Hacienda Napoles Park in Colombia, once the private estate of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, now numbered between 65 and 80. Escobar had imported 3 female hippos and one male decades ago. Scientists now warned that the hippos pose a major threat to the areas biodiversity.
(SFC, 2/10/21, p.A3)
2021 Feb 14, It was reported that parts of southeastern Australia have been overrun by mice. The pests in rural New South Walews have spread into Queensland, Victoria and South Australia dued to abundant rainfall and a good harvest.
(SSFC, 2/14/21, p.B8)
2021 Feb 22, It was reported that three rare, Rothschild's giraffes have died after being electrocuted by low-hanging power lines in Soysambu conservancy in Nakuru, Kenya. Conservationists have estimated there are fewer than 1,600 in the wild with about 600 in Kenya.
(BBC, 2/22/21)
2021 Feb 22, In New Zealand volunteers tried to save 28 stranded long-finned pilot whales by refloating them on the high tide. Dozens of whales had already died on Farewell Spit.
(SFC, 2/24/21, p.A4)
2021 Feb 23, In Mozambique 86 dolphin carcasses were found on Bazaruto Island, north of the capital Maputo, after a first group of 14 was washed ashore two days earlier. Last week Cyclone Guambe caused unrest in the waters off the island of Bazaruto.
(BBC, 2/24/21)
2021 Feb 24, In Los Angeles a 30-year-old man was walking three of Lady Gaga's dogs when an unknown male shot him about in the 1500 block of North Sierra Bonita Avenue. The dog walker was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Lady Gaga soon offered $500,000 for the return of her two French bulldogs. On Feb. 26 a woman brought the dogs into a Los Angeles police station.
(NBC News, 2/26/21)(The Independent, 2/27/21)
2021 Feb 27, A confidential report by Spanish government veterinarians said more than 850 cows that spent months aboard a ship wandering across the Mediterranean are not fit for transport anymore and should be killed.
(Reuters, 2/27/21)
2021 Feb 28, Spanish authorities said nearly 900 cattle that have been on a ship traveling the Mediterranean Sea for two months will be sacrificed after veterinarians deemed them no longer fit for export.
(AP, 2/28/21)
2021 Mar 6, Spanish authorities said the culling of nearly 900 cattle that were deemed unfit after spending more than two months at sea and on a ship has begun in the Mediterranean port of Cartagena.
(AP, 3/7/21)
2021 Mar 8, The Biden administration reversed a policy imposed under former President Donald Trump that drastically weakened the government's power to enforce a century-old law that protects most US bird species.
(AP, 3/8/21)
2021 Mar 12, In China The Polar Bear Hotel, part of the Harbin Polarland theme park in Heilongjiang's capital and largest city, Harbin, opened its doors with the promise of round-the-clock polar bear viewing from all 21 guest rooms.
(Reuters, 3/13/21)
2021 Mar 13, Thailand celebrated Elephant Day and held a fruit banquet for dozens of elephants in the ancient capital of Ayutthaya.
(Reuters, 3/13/21)
2021 Mar 21, Uganda reported that six lions have been found in Queen Elizabeth National Park with their heads and paws hacked off, and their bodies surrounded by dead vultures.
(BBC, 3/21/21)
2021 Mar 22, Germany’s agriculture ministry said the governments of Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic have agreed that intensified hunting of wild boar is needed to combat an outbreak of African swine fever (ASF) among wild animals.
(Reuters, 3/22/21)
2021 Mar 25, A report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature said increasing threats of poaching and loss of habitat have made Africa's elephant populations more endangered. The African forest elephant is now critically endangered, and the African savanna elephant is endangered. The IUCN said Africa currently has 415,000 elephants, counting the forest and savanna elephants together.
(AP, 3/25/21)
2021 Apr 4, New Zealand hunters resumed their annual tradition of shooting invasive rabbits over the Easter weekend after a 4-year break. 11,968 rabbits were shot in the fundraising event that began more than 25 years ago.
(SFC, 4/11/21, p.A18)
2021 Apr 5, It was reported that authorities in Ghana are trying to find out what has caused more than 60 dead dolphins to wash up on several beaches.
(BBC, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 8, In the SF Bay Area two dead whales washed ashore, joining two more that were discovered dead in area beaches since March 31. Of the four animals, two died from blunt force trauma from ship strikes.
(Reuters, 4/10/21)
2021 Apr 13, The United Nations' health agency urged countries to suspend the sale of live animals captured from the wild in food markets. The World Health Organization recommended it as an emergency measure, saying wild animals are a leading source of emerging infectious diseases like the coronavirus.
(CBS News, 4/13/21)
2021 Apr 15, In Montana a backcountry guide who was fishing just west of Yellowstone National Park was fatally attacked by a large grizzly bear that might have been protecting a food source.
(NY Times, 4/19/21)
2021 Apr 17, In South Africa a suspected poacher was trampled and killed by a herd of elephants at Kruger National Park. The deceased man and his accomplices were fleeing from park rangers when they unexpectedly encountered a breeding herd of elephants.
(CBS News, 4/19/21)
2021 Apr 27, The Idaho House approved legislation allowing the state to hire private contractors and expand methods to kill wolves roaming the state. The measure could cut the wolf population by 90%.
(SFC, 4/29/21, p.A5)
2021 Apr 27, In Texas Grand Prairie police closed down a $500,000 cockfighting operation after seizing almost 300 roosters, hens and chicks.
(Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 4/30/21)
2021 Apr 30, A Colorado woman (39) died in an apparent black bear attack near the town of Durango, marking just the fourth fatal mauling in the state since record-keeping began in 1960.
(Reuters, 5/1/21)
2021 May 4, India's government said 8 Asiatic lions at a zoo in Hyderabad have contracted the coronavirus, adding that there was no evidence that animals could transmit the disease to humans. The Nehru Zoological Park has now been closed.
(AP, 5/4/21)
2021 May 7, It was reported that South Africa will end its captive lion industry. The move would outlaw "canned hunting" and sale of their bones as well as popular tourist experiences like petting cubs. Wild lion hunts were not affected and would continue under strict controls.
(SFC, 5/7/21, p.A3)
2021 May 14, It was reported that Denmark this week began digging up millions of culled mink buried six months ago because of concerns that the mass graves could contaminate drinking water and a nearby bathing lake.
(Reuters, 5/14/21)
2021 May 20, The DOJ said federal law enforcement officers have seized nearly 70 protected big cats from Jeffrey and Lauren Lowe's Thackerville, Oklahoma, Tiger King Park.
(CBS News, 5/21/21)
2021 May 27, Thailand said it is ramping up efforts to curb trade in wildlife to help reduce the risk of future pandemics, though it was unclear whether that would mean an end to all sales of exotic species in the wildlife trafficking hub.
(AP, 5/27/21)
2021 May 28, Spain's Environment Ministry said the Iberian lynx population in Portugal and Spain rose above 1,000 last year after 414 cubs were born under a joint breeding program, in a major leap towards conserving the endangered species.
(Reuters, 5/28/21)
2021 May 29, In Bangladesh Habib Talukder (50), a notorious poacher accused of killing at least 70 endangered Bengal tigers, was caught after evading arrest for 20 years.
(The Telegraph, 6/1/21)
2021 May 30, It was reported that farmers in Australia's New South Wales state were being threatened by an unprecedented mouse plague. The state government has ordered 1,320 gallons of the banned poison Bromadiolone from India.
(SSFC, 5/30/21, p.A8)
2021 Jun 2, A herd of 15 wild elephants was approaching the city of Kunming, the capital of southwest China's Yunnan province, defying attempts to redirect them after a journey of several hundred kilometers from forests to the south.
(Reuters, 6/2/21)
2021 Jun 4, The Biden administration said it will revise or reverse a slate of Trump-era actions that rolled back protections for endangered or threatened species.
(Axios, 6/4/21)
2021 Jun 13, In South Carolina Shamar Jackson (7) died after he was mauled by dogs while walking in his neighborhood with his brother in Marion County.
(NBC News, 6/16/21)
2021 Jun 14, US officials announced a one-year ban on importing dogs from more than 100 countries. The ban is in response to the alarming number of dogs bought from foreign countries that arrived in the US with false rabies vaccination certificates over the past year.
(NPR, 6/14/21)
2021 Jun 28, France's top administrative court definitively banned the use of glue trapping to hunt birds, a technique that was denounced by animal protection groups as barbaric and endangering some species.
(AP, 6/28/21)
2021 Jul 2, The record heat in the northwest US and Canada has left hundreds dead. The death toll in Oregon reached 79. British Colombia reported at least 486 sudden deaths. More than a billion seashore animals were also killed due to the heat wave.
(SFC, 7/2/21, p.A8)(SSFC, 7/11/21, p.B8)
2021 Jul 4, It was reported that birds from Washington, DC, to Kentucky have been found suffering from a mysterious illness that causes them to have crusty eyes and swollen faces that prevent them from flying.
(SSFC, 7/4/21, p.B8)
2021 Jul 5, University of Wisconsin scientists said as many as one-third of the state's gray wolves likely died at the hands of humans in the months after the federal government in January announced it was ending legal protections.
(AP, 7/5/21)
2021 Jul 6, A grizzly bear attacked and killed a person who was camping in western Montana early today, after previously wandering into the campsite. Leah Lokan (65) of Chico, Ca., was killed while sleeping in her tent on a bicycle camping trip. The bear was shot dead e days later.
(AP, 7/6/21)(SFC, 7/9/21, p.B1)(SFC, 7/10/21, p.B4)
2021 Jul 25, It was reported that the dried-up lake bed of Turkey's Lake Tuz is littered with the remains of thousands of flamingos that became victims of a devastating regional drought. Most of the 5,000 chicks that hatched this year died.
(SSFC, 7/25/21, p.B10)
2021 Jul 30, Endangered killer whales received new habitat protections from the US government. The National Marine Fisheries Service finalized rules to expand the Southern Resident orca’s critical habitat from the Canadian border down to Point Sur, Ca.
(AP, 7/30/21)
2021 Aug 8, In China the 14 Asian elephants of various sizes and ages were guided across the Yuanjiang river in Yunnan late today and a path was being opened for them to return to the nature reserve where they lived in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture.
(AP, 8/8/21)
2021 Aug 11, The state of Wisconsin authorized the killing of 300 wolves as part of a hunt this fall, far exceeding the recommendations of its own biologists for the once-protected species and drawing criticism from conservationists.
(NY Times, 8/12/21)
2021 Aug 24, In Indonesia three critically endangered Sumatran tigers, including two cubs, were found dead in a conservation area on Sumatra island after being caught in traps apparently set by a poacher.
(AP, 8/27/21)
2021 Aug 30, A new analysis of data from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Bird Life International found that 30% of 557 raptor species worldwide are considered near threatened, vulnerable or endangered or critically endangered.
(AP, 8/31/21)
2021 Aug 31, New rules were announced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration designed to protect the North Atlantic right whale. The whales number only about 360 and are vulnerable to lethal entanglement in fishing gear. Members of the lobster fishing industry have said strict new rules could make it difficult to get lobsters to consumers.
(AP, 8/31/21)
2021 Aug 31, In western England the alpaca named Geronimo (8), at the center of a legal row with the British government and whose plight triggered a nationwide campaign to keep him alive, was killed after twice testing positive for bovine tuberculosis.
(Reuters, 8/31/21)
2021 Aug 31, Kenya said its black rhinos, sable antelope and three other species are critically endangered, while nine more species including lions, elephants and cheetahs are endangered, citing the threat from an expanding human population.
(Reuters, 9/1/21)
2021 Sep 4, In France a new red list released today at a global conference aimed at protecting dwindling species said the world's sharks and rays have seen declines in their populations since 2014 and more and more are now threatened with extinction.
(AP, 9/4/21)
2021 Sep 10, Atlanta's zoo said at least 13 western lowland gorillas have tested positive for COVID-19, including 60-year-old Ozzie, the oldest male gorilla in captivity.
(AP, 9/11/21)
2021 Sep 12, The slaughter of 1,428 white-sided dolphins, part of a four-century-old traditional drive of sea mammals into shallow water where they are killed for their meat and blubber, reignited a debate on the small Faeroe Islands, a semi-independent and part of the Danish realm.
(AP, 9/14/21)
2021 Sep 14, Somaliland police said they have arrested a man at an airport as he tried to smuggle 200 lizards to Egypt. The lizards appeared to be shield-tailed agama, which can retail for $500 each on pet websites.
(Reuters, 9/14/21)
2021 Sep 16, The Faeroese government said that it will review the way hunts of Atlantic white-sided dolphins are carried out following the release of gruesome video footage showing the mass killing on Sept. 12 of nearly 1,500 sea mammals.
(AP, 9/16/21)
2021 Sep 21, The Australian Koala Foundation said Australia has lost about 30% of its koalas over the past three years, hit by drought, bushfires and developers cutting down trees.
(Reuters, 9/21/21)
2021 Sep 28, US federal wildlife officials announced that 22 animals and one plant should be declared extinct and removed from the endangered species list. They included 11 birds, eight freshwater mussels, two fish, a bat and a plant.
(NY Times, 9/29/21)
2021 Sep 28, Denmark said it will extend its ban on mink breeding for another year to 2023.
(Reuters, 9/28/21)
2021 Oct 14, California's Fish and Game Commission approved the addition of the Western population of the Pacific leatherback sea turtle to the state's endangered species list. The population of these turtles has declined by 95% in the past 30 years.
(SFC, 10/18/21, p.C1)
2021 Oct 15, Maine's beloved puffins suffered one of their worst years for reproduction in decades this summer due to a lack of the small fish they eat.
(AP, 10/15/21)
2021 Oct 19, A wildlife official told a House committee that manatees have starved to death by the hundreds along Florida’s east coast because algae blooms and contaminants are killing the seagrass the beloved sea mammals eat.
(AP, 10/19/21)
2021 Nov 3, It was reported that an Iowa study showed that hundreds of white-tailed deer infected with the coronavirus likely contracted the disease from humans and have rapidly spread it among other animals. 80% of the deer sampled from April 2020 to January 2021 were infected.
(SFC, 11/3/21, p.A4)
2021 Nov 9 It was reported that South African officials are investigating an alarming rise in seal deaths along the west coast near Cape Town, with malnutrition one potential cause.
(Reuters, 11/9/21)
2021 Nov 17, Hong Kong authorities captured and euthanized seven wild boars late as they began a campaign to reduce their numbers in urban areas around the financial center after one bit a policeman last week.
(Reuters, 11/18/21)
2021 Nov 25, South Korea said it will start a task force to consider outlawing the centuries-old practice of dog meat consumption.
(SFC, 11/26/21, p.A2)
2021 Dec 15, It was reported that efforts using poison to eradicate invasive mice on Britain's Gough Island, home to one of the world's largest seabird colonies, have failed. A remote camera recently revealed that at least one mouse had survived on the South Atlantic island.
(BBC, 12/15/21)(SSFC, 12/19/21, p.B10)
2021 Dec 26, It was reported that Louisiana researchers have identified 14 new species of shrews on Indonesia's Sulawesi island where seven in that genus were previously known.
(AP, 12/26/21)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Animals
Return to home
Return to home
German Shepherd Country
2Bil BC About this time a bacterium became symbiotic with the cell from which animals and plants developed. Chromosomes from this bacterium’s mitochondria later carried 37 genes in the human body. The bacterium came from a group called the Alphaproteobacteria. The ancestral eukaryote was later believed to be a Lokiarchaeote.
(Econ, 10/27/12, p.79)(Econ, 5/9/15, p.74)
890Mil BC In 2021 it was reported that Canadian geologist may have found the earliest fossil record of animal life on Earth. She found rock layers in the Northwest Territories indicating that three-dimensional structures that resemble modern sponge skeletons are about 890 million years old, which would make them about 350 million years older than the oldest undisputed sponge fossils previously found.
(AP, 7/28/21)
760Mil BC - 550Mil BC In 2012 researchers said tiny vase-shaped creatures' fossils were found in Namibia's Etosha National Park and other sites around the country in rocks dating to this period. A 10-member team of international researchers published their paper in the South African Journal of Science. The discovery pushed the emergence of animal life back millions of years.
(AFP, 2/6/12)
750Mil BC Researchers at UC Riverside in 2009 reported evidence in rock sediments that indicated the presence of sponges dating back from 750 million to 635 million years ago. Sponges were believed to be one of the first animals to evolve from single-celled organisms.
(SFC, 2/6/09, p.A8)
575Mil BC-160 Mil BC Rangeomorphs, a world-wide feathery life form, lived during this period known as the Ediactaran. They fed by filtering tiny organisms from seawater were later considered as the 1st examples of complex animal life.
(SFC, 8/20/04, p.A12)
560Mil BC The Fermeuse formation of Newfoundland, Canada, dated to about this time. In 2014 scientists identified traces of muscle in a cnidarian, Haootia quadriformis, a creature related to modern jellyfish, sea anemones and coral.
(Econ, 8/30/14, p.70)
520Mil BC An arthropod called a fuxhianhuiid, with primitive limbs under its head, as well as the earliest example of a nervous system that extended past the head, lived about this time. A 2013 study reported on fossils of the creature which lived nearly 50 million years before animals first emerged from the sea onto land.
(Live Science, 2/27/13)
520Mil BC An eyeless worm later dubbed Collinsium ciliosum filtered food from the ocean floor using frontal appendages developed into sieving baskets. Fossils of the armored creature were found in the rocks of China’s Yunnan province.
{HistoryBC, Animal}
(Econ, 7/4/15, p.67)
515Mil BC A clawed critter later called Lyrarapax unguispinus lived on the seabed of what became southwest China. It belonged to an extinct early arthropod group called anomalocaridids.
(Econ, 7/19/14,p.68)
500Mil BC A huge shellfish-type creature called anomalocaris lived about this time. In 2011 Australian scientists hailed the discovery of a pair of insect-like eyes belonging to a freakish prehistoric super-predator. The fossilized eyes measuring three cm (1.2 inches) across and with a whopping 16,000 individual lenses.
(AFP, 12/8/11)
480Mil BC Scientists in 2019 said fossils found in Morocco suggest the practice of forming orderly lines may date back to this time and could have had evolutionary advantages. Their study described groups of blind trilobites — known as Ampyx — all facing in the same direction, apparently maintaining contact via their long rearward spines.
(AP, 10/17/19)
397Mil BC Four-legged creatures were mucking around a muddy basin in what is now Poland about this time. In 2010 scientists reported the discovery of their fossilized footprints in the Holy Cross Mountains in southeastern Poland.
(http://tinyurl.com/ybp6x78)
380Mil BC In 2008 scientists traced the origin of fingers and toes to fish-like creatures that roamed the seas about this time. In 1839 Swiss scientist Louis Agassiz described a fossil fish that had been found in Permian marl slate near Durham, northern England. He named it coelacanthus. Over the decades similar fossils were found dating from around 380 million to 70 million years ago.
(AFP, 9/21/08)(Econ, 12/14/13, IL p.10)
375Mil BC In 2006 scientists reported the discovery of a predator fossil fish dating to this time in on Canada’s Ellesmere Island in the High Arctic. It was later named Tiktaalik roseae and further analysis found it to have developed a mobile neck, an important development for living on land. The fish displayed bones at the ends of its fins suggestive of developing fingers and toes.
(SFC, 10/16/08, p.A10)(SFC, 5/12/09, p.A8)
270Mil BC Octopuses separated from other cephalopods about this time.
(Econ, 8/15/15, p.71)
260Mil BC Scientists in 2011 reported the discovery of the remains of a saber-toothed vegetarian. The leaf-crunching animal, about the size of a large dog, lived 260 million years ago in what is now Brazil. Its upper canine teeth were nearly 5 inches long.
(AP, 3/25/11)
237Mil BC A reptile group called lagerpetids, later known from a few partial skeletons from the United States, Argentina, Brazil and Madagascar, first appeared about this time. They were generally small and may have been bipedal insect-eaters and could not fly. In 2020 researchers said the lagerpetids appear to have been the evolutionary precursor to pterosaurs, which became Earth's first flying vertebrates, with birds and then bats appearing much later.
(Reuters, 12/9/20)
230Mil BC - 200Mil BC In 2015 scientists reported that a large primitive amphibian, named Metoposaurus algarvensis, lived about this time in southern Portugal. It grew to the size of a samll car and lived much like crocodiles do feeding mainly on fish
(SFC, 3/25/15, p.A2)
190Mil BC Fossils of frogs date back to about this time.
(Econ 7/8/17, p.71)
187Mil BC Platypuses diverged from other mammals about this time, making them an important part of understanding evolution.
(NY Times, 1/10/21)
170Mil BC The semi-aquatic platypus is thought to have split off from a common ancestor shared with humans approximately about this time. In 2008 scientists laid bare the platypus genome of 2.2 billion base pairs spread across 18,500 genes.
(AFP, 5/8/08)
166Mil BC Monotremes split off from ancestral mammals about this time.
(Econ, 3/31/07, p.88)
160Mil BC A small feather dinosaur lived in China about this time. Its fossils were identified in 2015 named Yi qi, meaning strange wing. Scientists were unable to determine if the creature could fly or glide, do both or neither.
(SFC, 5/1/15, p.D1)
155Mil BC - 150Mil BC In mid-Jurassic rocks of Germany occurred the very rare remains of Archaeopteryx, widely considered as the earliest known bird. It was about the size of a dove, had a long, reptile-like tail but with real feathers, not scales, and it possessed teeth in its beak. The first Archaeopteryx fossil turned up in 1861.
(Econ, 11/10/07, p.101)(SFC, 7/28/11, p.A8)
148Mil BC Marsupials parted company with placentals about this time.
(Econ, 3/31/07, p.88)
130Mil BC Lines leading to mice and men separated about this time.
(Econ, 5/31/14, p.71)
125Mil BC Zhenyuanlong suni, a close cousin of the dinosaur predator Velociraptor, lived about this time in China. In 2015 a nearly complete fossil was unearthed in Liaoning province, the first in its family to have unusually short feathered wings.
(AP, 7/16/15)
110Mil BC An ankylosaur, a plant-eating dinosaur with powerful limbs, armor plating and a club-like tail inhabited northern Alberta. Its fossils, discovered in 2011, were not supposed to be there because the area at this time was covered by water.
(AP, 3/26/11)
97Mil BC - 94Mil BC A giant dinosaur lived in Patagonia about this time. Its first fossils were found in 1987 and later named Argentinosaurus. It is among the largest known dinosaurs.
(SFC, 5/20/14, p.A4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentinosaurus)
95Mil BC About this time birds that were the ancestor of modern birds, evolved an improved sense of smell. In 2011 studies used fossils of Bambiraptor to determine that birds inherited a good sense of smell from dinosaurs, and then improved the faculty. Bambiraptor, dating to this time, was a fast-moving, non-flying critter about the size of a dog.
(AP, 4/13/11)
80Mil BC In 2013 scientists in Utah unveiled the bones of a dinosaur discovered in 2009. It was named Lythronax argestes, or "king of gore," for its large teeth and apparent dominance as a predator. They dated it to about 80 million BC.
(Reuters, 11/7/13)
76Mil BC The horned dinosaur Spinops sternbergorum, which comes from the same herbivore family as the Triceratops, lived about this time. It remains were discovered in 1916 in a quarry known as the "bone bed" in Alberta, Canada. In 2011 scientists identified the bull-size dinosaur as a new species of the Late Cretaceous.
(AP, 12/8/11)(http://tinyurl.com/7s7ubxt)
75Mil BC A small two-legged creature resembling an odd mix of duck, crocodile and ostrich lived in Mongolia about this time. In 2017 scientists named it Halszkaraptor escuilliei after the Polish paleontologist Halszka Osmolska.
{Mongolia, Poland, HistoryBC}
(SFC, 12/7/17, p.A3)
70Mil BC Tyrannosaurus bataars, dating to this time, were first discovered in 1946 during a joint Soviet-Mongolian expedition in Mongolia’s Omnogovi Province.
(SFC, 6/20/12, p.A8)
67Mil BC In 1987 scientists in India found the fossilized remains of an 11½-foot snake, dating to about this time, coiled around a dinosaur egg.
(SFC, 3/3/10, p.A3)
66Mil BC In 2020 researchers described an exquisitely preserved fossil of the plant-eating mammal named Adalatherium hui, which lived in Madagascar about this time during the Cretaceous Period and superficially resembled a badger with its long torso and stubby tail.
(AP, 4/29/20)
50Mil BC Placentals split into four superorders about this time.
(Econ, 3/31/07, p.88)
50Mil BC The dog traces its ancestry back to a 5-toed, weasel-like animal called Miacis, that lived about this time.
(MT, Fall 02, p.14)
49Mil BC The Ambulocetus natans, a walking and swimming whale, inhabited the warm seas which covered eastern Pakistan. In 1996 fossils of the creature, about the size of a modern sea lion, were found by paleontologist Hans Thewissen.
(SFC, 5/12/09, p.A8)
40Mil-35Mil BC Cynodictis resembled a modern dog and lived about this time.
(MT, Fall 02, p.14)
34Mil BC -23Mil BC Indricotherium, a 15-foot tall mammal, lived during this period. It was later said to be the largest known mammal and related to the modern day rhinoceros.
(SFC, 4/2/10, p.C5)
23Mil BC Researchers in 2019 said a giant lion, which they named Simbakubwa kutokaafrika, lived in what is modern-day Kenya around this time, a key period in the evolution of carnivorous mammals.
(AFP, 4/18/19)
21Mil BC A fossil of a creature called Morotopithecus bishopi, a tree-dwelling, ape-like creature that lived in what is now Uganda, was found in the 1960s and indicated that its transverse process had moved backward, behind the opening for the spinal cord. In 2007 Dr. Aaron Filler authored "The Upright Ape: a new origin of the Species," in which he argued that this common ancestor, and ancestors going back many millions of years before, walked upright. Homo sapiens, the human species, continued upright, while apes evolved back toward all fours.
(AP, 7/16/07)
20Mil BC Ugandapithecus Major, a remote cousin of modern great apes, roamed Uganda about this time. The fossilized skull of a male Ugandapithecus Major was discovered in 2011.
(AFP, 8/2/11)
20000 BC-15000 BC In 2019 archaeologists in Mexico found the bones of about 60 mammoths at an airport under construction just north of Mexico City, near human-built ’traps’. The bones were found in sediment layers corresponding to 15,000 to 20,000 years ago.
(AP, 5/22/20)
15Mil BC In Australia a sheep-sized creature with giant claws lived about this time. The wombat-like marsupial was later named Nimbadon lavarackorum. In 2010 scientists discovered a cave filled with fossils of the creature.
(SFC, 7/17/10, p.A2)
14Mil BC In 1990 paleontologists found bones from a 35-foot whale in a quarry in eastern Virginia. It took several years to prepare and identify them as a new species. It was named Eobalaenoptera harrisoni, after Carter Harrison, a Virginia Museum of Natural History volunteer.
(AP, 6/14/04)
12Mil BC A raptorial sperm whale living about this time grew up to 60 feet with some teeth 14 inches long. Fossils were discovered in a Peruvian desert and in 2010 scientists named it Leviathan melvillei.
(SFC, 7/1/10, p.A3)
2Mil BC - 50,000BC In Australia a herbivorous diprotodon, the largest marsupial to ever roam the earth, lived about this time. A fossil of the car sized mega-wombat was unearthed in northern Australia in 2011.
(AFP, 7/6/11)
1Mil BC DNA evidence in 2008 suggested that the black rat originated in South-East Asia about this time and then split into 6 lines, one of which colonized India and the Middle East and then spread to Europe.
(Econ, 3/15/08, p.97)
600000 BC DNA evidence in 2012 indicated that the polar bears species dated back to about this time.
(Econ, 6/16/12, SR p.9)
180000 BC On Malta the Ghar Dalam cave near the harbor of Marsaxlokk revealed bones dating to about this time of an extinct pygmy hippo and elephant.
(AM, Jul/Aug '97 p.42)
135000 BC DNA evidence in 1997 indicated that the modern dog has been around since about this time.
(SFC, 6/13/97, p.A10)(MT, Fall 02, p.14)
48000BC -18000BC In 2011 the journal Current Biology reported that all polar bears today have descended from one female brown bear in Ireland between 20,000 and 50,000 years ago.
(SFC, 7/8/11, p.A6)
43000BC Scientists in 2008 reported that one of two genetically distinct mammoth groups went extinct about this time.
(www.science.psu.edu/alert/Schuster6-2008.htm)
43000BC In 2016 Russian scientists reported that mammoth bones from about this time, found near the Kara Sea in Siberia, indicated that they were hunted by humans.
(SFC, 1/15/16, p.A6)
41000BC A land bridge between Australia and Tasmania formed about this time allowing people to cross into Tasmania. Two thousand years later the megafauna of Tasmania were gone.
(Econ, 9/14/13, SR p.5)
15590BC Saber tooth cats roamed the hills north of Las Vegas about this time. Fossils of the front legs of such a cat were identified in 2012.
(SFC, 12/17/12, p.A5)
c15000BCE Dogs first began to associate with some humans as people began to form settlements.
(WSJ, 11/22/02, p.B1)
14000 BCE The earliest fossils of domestic dogs date to this time. They were found in Germany.
(MT, Fall 02, p.14)
9000BC Canine transmissible venereal tumor (CTVT) is believed to have originated about this time in a single dog. By 2016 it was found in dogs worldwide.
(Econ, 5/21/16, p.70)
8000BC Mastodons roamed over Ohio. In 1887 Newton S. Conway discovered the skeleton of a mastodon on his farm on the Clark-Champaign County line. It became known as the Conway Mastodon.
(SSFC, 1/9/11, p.A10)(http://tinyurl.com/2ecv34t)
8000BC The 15-foot, 3-toed Macrauchenia, a native of Patagonia, went extinct about this time. It had a body like a camel, a neck like a giraffe, and a flexible nose like an elephant’s trunk. Its fossil was discovered by Charles Darwin during his trip to the region (1833-1834).
(SFC, 4/2/10, p.C5)
8000BC It is believed that the Chinese became to first to domesticate wild boars about this time.
(Econ, 12/20/14, p.68)
c7500BCE A research team in 2004 uncovered a carefully buried cat on Cyprus, placed just inches from a human burial that also contained polished stones, shells, tools and jewelry. The graves were estimated to be 9,500 years old.
(AP, 4/9/04)
6380BC Swedish archaeologists in 2020 reported finding the remains of a dog at a human burial site dating to about this time in southern Sweden. The dog was buried with a person near the town of Solvesborg.
(AP, 9/24/20)
6000BC The last wooly rhino died about this time.
(Econ, 8/24/13, p.72)
1000BC Camels were domesticated about this time.
(Econ, 11/19/16, p.71)
246BC-222BC Ptolemy III Euergeter served as Egypt’s 3rd ruler of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. In 2010 archeologists discovered a temple, thought to belong to Queen Berenice, wife of King Ptolemy III who ruled Egypt in the 3rd century B.C. Archeologists believed that the temple might have been dedicated to the ancient cat-goddess Bastet.
(www.crystalinks.com/ptolemaic.html)(AP, 1/19/10)
565 Aug 22, St. Columba reported seeing a monster in Loch Ness.
(MC, 8/22/02)
960 England’s King Edgar imposed an annual tribute of 300 wolf skins on Idwal, king of Wales.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.125)
1000 The flightless elephant bird Aepyornis maximus, which had stalked the savannah and rainforests of Madagascar, was hunted to extinction about this time. The elephant bird died out after a new wave of human settlers arrived. Researchers in 2018 said the creature would have stood at least three meters (10 feet) tall, and had an average weight of 650 kg, making it the largest bird genus yet uncovered.
(AFP, 9/26/18)
1250-1300 Maori ancestors arrived in New Zealand. By 2013 the country had lost 51 species of birds, 3 of frogs, 3 of lizards and one of a freshwater fish.
(Econ, 9/14/13, SR p.5)
1637 The last recorded auroch, a wild antecedent of modern domestic cattle, died in Poland's Jaktorow Forest.
(Econ., 10/3/20, p.68)
1657 The last wolf in Boston, Mass., was killed.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.125)
1751 Feb 25, The 1st performing monkey exhibited in America was in NYC.
(MC, 2/25/02)
1751 Pietro Longhi painted “Exhibition of a Rhinocerous at Venice." It depicted Clara, a touring Indian rhinoceros owned by Dutch sea captain Douwemout Van der Meer.
(SSFC, 3/27/05, p.E1)
1755 The “last specimen" of a dodo bird, a stuffed but rotted relic, was burned at the Ashmoleum Museum at Oxford, England. Fortunately, someone removed the head and the foot of the specimen and saved them. In 1996 by David Quammen authored The Song of the Dodo: Is-land Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions. In 2003 Clara Pinto-Correia authored “Return of the Crazy Bird." The London Museum of natural History later displayed a mounted specimen of Raphus cucullatus.
(www.complete-review.com/reviews/divsci/pintocc.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/c9zpyw)
1765 Mar 24, Austrian Empress Maria Theresa issued a decree to establish a School for Healing Animal Diseases.
(StuAus, April '95, p.23)
1770 Apr, Cockfighting in Puerto Rico, introduced by Spain in the 16th century, was officially recognized for the first time.
(AP, 7/23/12)
1780 A Japanese whaling ship ran aground near the western end of the Aleutian Islands. Rats from the ship reached the nearest island giving it the name Rat Island. The incident introduced the non-native Norway rat, also known as the brown rat, to Alaska. The rats terrorized all but the largest birds on the island. In the Fall of 2008 poison was dropped onto the island from helicopter-hoisted buckets for a week and a half. By mid 2009 there were no signs of living rats and some birds had returned.
(Econ, 1/20/07, p.43)(Reuters, 6/12/09)
1796 Apr 3, The 1st elephant was shipped to the US from Bengal, India, by Broadway show-man Jacob Croninshield.
(SFC, 11/18/00, p.B3)
1796 Apr 13, The 1st elephant arrived in US from India.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1808 A 56-foot oarfish washed ashore in Scotland. This was the first documented sighting of the rare fish.
(SFC, 12/4/10, p.A7)
1816 Naturalist Adelbert von Chamisso spent a month around SF Bay while aboard the Russian ship Rurik, which was circumnavigating the globe. Captain Otto von Kotzebue said the Gov. of California invited the crew to witness a bear and bull fight. Spanish troops captured a grizzly bear and a wild bull and chained them for battle on a beach.
(SFC, 4/1/99, p.E1)(SFC, 3/4/17, p.C1)
1820 Cats were introduce to Macquarie Island, located half-way between New Zealand and Antarctica. Rabbits were introduced in 1878. The eradication of cats led to an epidemic of rabbits, which devastated the native vegetation.
(Econ, 9/14/13, SR p.10)
1826 The Zoological Society of London was established by Sir Stamford Raffles and Sir Humphry Davy.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Zoo)
1828 Apr 27, The London Zoo opened to fellows of the Zoological Society of London. It was originally intended to be used as a collection for scientific study. As of 2017 it was the world's oldest scientific zoo and housed 20,166 animals.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Zoo)(Reuters, 12/23/17)
1831-1832 Animals from the Tower of London menagerie created the core of the London Zoo.
(Hem, 9/04, p.71)
1835 Jun 2, P.T. Barnum and his circus began 1st tour of US.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1836 The Swedish Hunter’s Association was founded with the aim of building up the moose population, which had dropped to some 300.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.128)
1839 Swiss scientist Louis Agassiz described a fossil fish that had been found in Permian marl slate near Durham, northern England. He named it coelocanthus. Over the decades similar fossils were found dating from around 380 million to 70 million years ago.
(Econ, 12/14/13, IL p.10)
1845 Mar 5, Congress appropriated $30,000 to ship camels to western US. [see 1855]
(MC, 3/5/02)
1845 Walter Potter, English taxidermist, opened his stuffed animal museum in Bramble, south of London. Admission was 2 cents.
(SFC, 11/29/02, p.K8)
1847 Dr. Thomas Savage, American doctor and missionary, brought back to the US partial skeletons of gorillas, and gave them the scientific name Troglodytes gorilla.
(ON, 11/04, p.11)
1847 The London Zoo opened to the public to aid funding.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Zoo)
1851 Jan 27, John James Audubon (b. 1785), wildlife painter and conservationist (Audubon Society), died. He was buried in NYC. In 2004 Duff Hart-Davis authored "Audubon's Elephant," and account of his 12 year sojourn to Europe to oversee the production of "Birds of America." In 2004 William Souder authored “Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of the Birds of America."
(HNQ, 7/15/01)(MC, 1/27/02)(WSJ, 3/26/04, p.W6)(SSFC, 6/20/04, p.M6)
1851 In the SF Bay Area a nearly weeklong bull and bear fiesta at Mission Santa Clara featured 12 bulls, two grizzly bears and a considerable number of Indians of whom four were killed on the 2nd day.
(SFC, 3/4/17, p.C4)
1852 May 1, San Francisco’s Board of Aldermen passed Ordnance 228 making it illegal to hold bullfights or to exhibit or fight other animals east of larking and Ninth streets or to advertise the fights on Sundays.
(SFC, 3/4/17, p.C4)
1852 Jun, In San Francisco one of the weekly bull and bear fights held this month near the crumbling old Mission Dolores was described in detail in a journal by Theophile de Rutte.
(SFC, 3/4/17, p.C4)
1855 Mar 3, Congress approved $30,000 to test camels for military use. [see 1845]
(SC, 3/3/02)
1856 Sep 2, Paul Du Chaillu (1831-1903), French-American journalist and hunter, shot and killed his 1st gorilla in Gabon. Over the next 3 years he killed 31 gorillas. In 1861 he published “Explorations & Adventures in Equatorial Africa."
(ON, 11/04, p.12)
1856 San Franciscans paid a quarter to venture into a basement room at the Mountaineer Museum at 143 Clay St. to view grizzly bears collected by John Adams, aka Grizzly Adams (1812-1860). In 1966 Richard Dillon authored "The Legend of Grizzly Adams: California's Greatest Mountain Man."
(http://tinyurl.com/yaucamr4)(SFC, 7/7/18, p.C1)
1857 West Coast whaler Capt. Charles Melville Scammon discovered a major breeding ground for gray whales in a Baja California lagoon. By 1861 an estimated 10,800 gray whales had been killed in lagoons along the Baha coast. The gray whale population was driven almost to extinction.
(SFC, 8/4/18, p.C4)
1859 The London Fish House unveiled 4 seahorses, long believed to mythical creatures. Seahorses are the only species in which the males become pregnant, providing the young with food and oxygen before giving birth to up to 1,000 babies, each the size of a flea.
(Econ, 9/12/09, p.93)
1861 Thailand's King Mongkut offered to send a pair of elephants to the United States as a gift of the friendship between the two countries. President Abraham Lincoln politely declined.
(AP, 3/24/18)
1862 Jun, SF Lawmakers signed a petition to anoint Lazarus (d.1963) and Bummer (d.1865), 2 popular rat catching dogs, as official city property and exempt from the recently passed muzzle law. In 1984 Malcolm E. Barker authored “Bummer & Lazarus: San Francisco’s Famous Dogs."
(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.D6)(SFC, 1/30/04, p.A23)(SSFC, 7/24/11, p.E11)
1866 Apr 10, The American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) was incorporated.
(AP, 4/9/97)
1874 Mar 17, Kincsem, a horse that never lost a race, was born.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1874 Jul 1, The 1st US zoo opened in Philadelphia.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1874 Cattleman Charles Goodnight rounded up 5 orphaned buffalo calves and set them loose on 10,000 acres in the Palo Duro Canyon of the Texas Panhandle. The herd grew to 250 animals and a number were sent to start herds elsewhere. In 1997 the herd was put under the guardianship of the state. By 2001 it was realized that inbreeding put the herd at risk of extinction. In 2005 Ted Turner agreed to provide 3 bulls from his herd in New Mexico to help the Texas herd.
(WSJ, 8/2/05, p.A1)
1876 Mar 1, Guernsey Cattle Club formed in Farmington, CT.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1879 P.T. Barnum (60) teamed up with James A. Bailey to create "The Greatest Show on Earth." [see Mar 28, 1881]
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R40)
1881 Mar 16, Barnum & Bailey Circus debuted. [see Mar 18]
(MC, 3/16/02)
1881 Mar 18, Barnum and Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth opened in Madison Square Gar-dens. [see Mar 16]
(HN, 3/18/98)
1881 Mar 28, "Greatest Show On Earth" was formed by P.T. Barnum and James A. Bailey. [see 1879 and Mar 16,18, 1881]
(MC, 3/28/02)
1882 Aug 28, Belle Benchley, the first female zoo director in the world, who directed the Zoo-logical Gardens of San Diego, was born.
(HN, 8/28/98)
1883 US big circus owners P.T. Barnum and Adam Forepaugh engaged in a “White Elephant War" to gain audience share. The press discovered that Forepaugh’s elephant, named Light of Asia, was painted. It died a year later. The story was later told by Michael Daly in “Topsy: The Startling Story of the Crooked-Tailed Elephant, P.T. Barnum, and the American Wizard, Thomas Edison" (2013).
(SSFC, 8/11/13, p.F7)
1885 Sep 15, Jumbo (b.~1860), a circus elephant, was killed in Ontario, Canada, after being struck by a goods train while being loaded into a circus carriage. In 2014 John Sutherland authored “Jumbo: The Unauthorized Biography of a Victorian Sensation."
(Econ, 2/8/14, p.81)
1888 Jul, Harold P. Brown, on behalf of Thomas Edison, zapped dogs at Columbia College to demonstrate the supposed danger of alternating current, a mode of power favored by Edison’s rival George Westinghouse. The NY state legislature had recently designated electrocution as the official means for capital punishment.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.A26)(ON, 10/04, p.7)
1888 In Brazil Joao Batista, Baron of Drummond, opened a zoo in Rio de Janeiro. To pull in business he printed animals on tickets and displayed a winning animal on a flag at the end of the day and paying 20 times the cost of the ticket. Side betting soon developed.
(Econ, 5/5/12, p.38)
1889 The British Royal Society for the Protection of Birds was founded.
(www.infomat.net/infomat/rd741/rd1/database/rspb/index.asp)
1890 In California the first opossums were released by humans in Los Angeles County about this time. Tow more releases were documented in 1910 and 1924.
(SFC, 11/26/08, p.G3)
1891 Feb 26, The 1st buffalo was purchased for Golden Gate Park in SF under John McLaren. A pair of bison, named Benjamin Harrison and Sarah Bernhardt, were settled in Golden Gate Park following reports that only 1000 were left in the US.
(SFC, 12/13/99, p.A18)(SC, 2/26/02)(SFC, 10/30/08, p.B1)
1892 Mar 3, 1st cattle tuberculosis test in US was made at Villa Nova, PA.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1893 Feb 26, 2 Clydesdale horses set a record by pulling 48 tons on a sledge in Michigan.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1894 Mar 8, NY passed the 1st state dog license law. [see Mar 10]
(MC, 3/8/02)
1894 Mar 10, New York Gov. Roswell P. Flower signed the nation's first dog-licensing law. The license fee was $2, renewable annually for $1.
(AP, 3/10/99)
1894 May 31, Victor Horsley, medical researcher, published a report in Nature indicating that cats shot through the head stop breathing and that resuscitative efforts helped them survive.
(WSJ, 8/21/96, p.A15)
1897 Apr 6 & 16, Frank M. Chapman, ornithologist with the American Museum of Natural His-tory, observed large numbers of flying hawks over Veracruz, Mexico.
(NH, 10/96, p.37)
1897 The Royal Pigeon Racing Association formed in England. In 2004 it began drug testing among its members for the use of steroids in their pigeons.
(WSJ, 11/11/04, p.A1)
1897 Ottoman authorities disbanded a reactivated League of Prizren, executed its leader and banned Albanian language books.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1897 Wolves disappeared from the Netherlands. In 2011 a wolf was again spotted in the country.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.125)
1898 Mar 26, In South Africa the Sabi Game Reserve, the world's 1st official designated game reserve, opened.
(http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/k/Kruger_National_Park.htm)
1898 Cockfighting in Puerto Rico was banned after the US invaded the island.
(AP, 7/23/12)
1900 May 25, President William McKinley signed the Lacey Act, 16 U.S.C. § 3371–3378, to defend fauna from poachers. It banned the illegal commercial transportation of wildlife. The conservation law was introduced by Iowa Rep. John F. Lacey. It has been amended several times. The most significant times were in 1969, 1981, and in 1989.
(Econ, 9/12/09, p.14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacey_Act)
1900 In London an estimated 300,000 horses pulled cabs and omnibuses as well as a variety of transport wagons. NYC counted some 100,000 horses.
(Econ, 11/26/16, SR p.3)
1900 At the Olympics in Paris a Belgian sharpshooter killed 21 live pigeons. The event was abolished shortly thereafter. Separately the game of croquet was featured for the first and last time.
(WSJ, 7/23/96, p.A6)
1903 Jan 4, Topsy the elephant was poisoned electrocuted in Luna Park, Coney Island, NYC. The 10-foot elephant had killed 3 keepers over the last 2 years. Edison used the opportunity to demonstrate the lethal potential of alternating current, promoted by rival George Westinghouse.
(Econ, 7/26/03, p.33)(Internet)
1903 Mar 14, The 1st national bird reservation was established in Sebastian, Florida.
(MC, 3/14/02)
1905 East Coasters including Theodore Roosevelt, Andrew Carnegie and Frederic Remington set up the American Bison Society. In 1907 they sent 15 animals by rail to the new Wichita Bi-son Refuge in Oklahoma. The society met for the last time in 1935. The society was revitalized in 2005 to secure the ecological future of the animal. In 2009 Steven Rinella authored “Ameri-can Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon."
(Econ, 1/17/09, p.82)
1905 California banned the collection of condor eggs. By 1982 only 22 condors were left in the state. In 1987 government biologists caught the last of 5 wild condors. Between 1992 and 2004 161 condors were released of which about half survived.
(CW, Winter 04, p.26)
1907 Oct 22, The five Ringling brothers of Baraboo, Wisconsin, bought out Barnum & Bailey Circus to form the Greatest Show on Earth.
(HN, 10/22/98)(SFC, 3/6/15, p.A10)
1907 Clarence Birdseye, an Amherst biology student, began selling bobcat and coyote hide from traders in New Mexico, purchased for fifty cents, to furriers in New York for a dollar and a quarter. In 1912 he moved to Labrador to farm foxes and trade furs.
(ON, 8/12, p.5)
1908 Aug 28, Roger Tory Peterson, author, was born in Jamestown, NY. His work included the innovative bird book “A Field Guide to Birds."
(HN, 8/28/00)
1909 Mar 4, US prohibited the interstate transportation of game birds.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1910 Feb 17, In San Francisco 3 elephants appearing at a Broadway vaudeville house went on a rampage while parading in North Beach.
(SSFC, 2/14/10, DB p.42)
1910 Aug 19, The advance guard of the Barnum & Bailey Circus began arriving in San Francisco, claiming to be the biggest ever to visit the Pacific Coast. It included 1,280 people, 85 railroad cars, 700 horses and 400 elephants.
(SSFC, 8/15/10, DB p.42)
1911 Wild oysters in SF Bay Area were pretty much wiped out by this time. The native Olympia oyster, Ostrea lurida, had once blanketed the region from Southern California to Southeastern Alaska. In 2012 a scientific study said the Olympia oyster was functionally extinct.
(SFC, 7/7/12, p.A10)
1911 A group of South Africans took part in the Trans-Saharan Ostrich Expedition to claim the Barbary Ostrich from French West Africa. They then sold the expensive plumes to milliners in across American and Europe.
(Econ, 6/4/11, p.95)
1912 Feb 4, In San Francisco two horses were killed when a huge truck loaded with 45 tons of copper cable broke free on the steep grade of Steiner Street hill. 50 horses were pulling against the truck with 4 horses guiding when the cable broke.
(SSFC, 2/5/12, DB p.42)
1913 Aug 27, In San Francisco a fire at arcade stables on Folsom St. between 5th and 6th killed 95 horses.
(SSFC, 8/25/13, DB p.58)
1914 Sep 1, Martha, the last known passenger pigeon, died at Cincinnati Zoo.
(MC, 9/1/02)
1916 Jul 11, Dan Patch (b.1896), a record-breaking, Indiana-born, harness race horse, died and was buried in Minnesota. He was the first harness race horse to break the 2-minute mile. In 2008 Charles Leersen authored “Crazy Good: The True Story of Dan Patch, The Most Famous Horse in America." Here Leersen details the pharmacopoeia used in racing at the turn of the century.
(WSJ, 5/17/08, p.W9)
1917 Mar 29, Man O'War, racehorse (winner of 20 out of 21 races and $249,465), was born.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1918 Dec 18, In San Francisco police recovered 55 suckling pigs stolen from the Hog Raising Company at Evans and Mendell. More than 150 pigs had been stolen during the past six weeks by children working there.
(SSFC, 12/16/18, DB p.46)
1920 Dec 6, In Boston, Mass., a dog with spectacles was shown at the annual fair of the Ani-mal Rescue League.
(http://tinyurl.com/5hbur6)
1920-1935 In the US thousands of mustangs were sent to slaughter to provide cheap meat in what came to be called the “Great Removal." In 2008 Deanne Stillman authored “Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West."
(Econ, 6/28/08, p.90)
1922 Jul 15, 1st duck-billed platypus was publicly exhibited in US at a NY zoo.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1924 The last known native wolf in California was trapped and killed in Lassen County. In 2011 a wolf named OR7 entered northern California from Oregon. OR7 returned to Oregon but as of 2018 the wolf's progeny appeared to have settled in the state.
(SFC, 2/18/12, p.A9)(SFC, 5/9/18, p.D1)
1924 An Ohio state spider count recorded 306 species.
(USAT, 5/18/04, p.17A)
1925 In Rwanda’s Virunga Mountains the Volcanoes National Park was formed to protect gorillas from poaching.
(SSFC, 6/23/13, p.M3)
1925 Goat races began in Tobago as a working-class alternative to horse racing. In 20011 the Buccoo Goat Race Festival, scheduled for April 25-26, sought support on Facebook.
(AP, 4/16/11)
1926 The last grey wolf disappeared from the Yellowstone region. By 1973 only a few wolves remained in northern Michigan and Minnesota. In 1995 the federal government reintroduced wolves to the greater Yellowstone region (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming) and by 2008 their population reached 1,500.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.44)
1927 New Bedford, Massachusetts sent out its last whaler, the John R. Mantra. In 2016 New Bedford’s whaling museum posted a list online of 127,000 men who embarked on whaling voyages out of Massachusetts from 1809 to 1927.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling_in_the_United_States)
1928 May 19, The 1st annual "Frog Jumping Jubilee" at Angel's Camp, Ca., drew 51 frogs.
(MC, 5/19/02)
1929 Jan 29, The first seeing-eye Dog Guide School in the United States received their char-ter. Seeing Eye, Inc., was founded in Morris Township, New Jersey, by Dorothy Harrison Eustus. In February Morris Frank and Jack Humphrey began operating the 1st Seeing Eye school in the US in Nashville, Tenn. Frank had trained under Humphrey in Switzerland at a kennel owned by Dorothy Eustis. Buddy was Frank's 1st dog and in 1936 became the 1st seeing-eye dog to ride as a passenger on an American commercial airline.
(HNQ, 3/10/01)(www.seeingeye.org/aboutus/?M_ID=472)(ON, 12/03, p.5)
1931 Jul 27, Grasshoppers in Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota destroyed thousands of acres of crops.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1932 Mar 31, 150 wild swans died in Niagara waterfall.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1932 Aug 10, Rin Tin Tin (b.1918), US Hollywood-dog, died. In 2011 Susan Orlean authored “Rin Tin Tin: The Life and Legend." In 1922 Rin Tin Tin was spotted by the maker of a motion picture camera and his career began. He went on to create a total of 26 motion pictures for Warner Brothers and received over 10,000 fan letters per week.
(http://www.tv.com/people/rin-tin-tin/)
1932 Phar Lap, an Australian race horse, took ill and died after being taken to the United States. The giant New Zealand-born chestnut became an icon in Australia during the Great Depression, winning 37 of his 51 races, including one Melbourne Cup in 1930 and two Cox Plates in 1930 and 1931. In 2008 tests proved that Phar Lap was poisoned by arsenic.
(AFP, 6/19/08)
1933 May 3, A white buffalo calf was born in western Montana. He was later named "Big Medicine" and lived until Aug 25, 1959. His hide was molded to a mannequin and that went on display at the Montana Historical Society on Jul 13, 1961.
(Helena Museum flyer, 9/11/97)
1933 Aug, The Puerto Rico legislature forced the governor to reinstate cockfighting, which had been banned, by threatening to block the budget. It won official status and became known as the "gentleman's sport" because of its honor-based betting system in which men yell bets at each other and later pay them.
(SFEC, 4/26/98, p.A3)(AP, 7/23/12)
1934 Apr 3, Jane van Lawick-Goodall, ethologist (studied African chimps, 1974 Walker Prize), was born in London, England. She was a British anthropologist, known for her work with African chimpanzees. In 2000 her autobiography "Africa in My Blood: An Autobiography in Letters, The Early Years, 1934-1966," was edited by Dale Peterson.
(HN, 3/4/99)(SFEC, 6/18/00, BR p.6)(SC, 3/4/02)(MC, 4/3/02)
1935 Apr 29, It was reported that live rabbits were being sewn onto dog-track racing ma-chines in the San Francisco Bay Area counties of San Mateo and Santa Clara.
(SSFC, 4/25/10, DB p.54)
1935 Dec 6, The San Francisco Chronicle reported that rats now exceeded city’s population of people by a factor of 3 to 1.
(SSFC, 12/5/10, DB p.50)
1935 In Australia cane toads (Bufo marinus) from Hawaii were introduced to wipe out beetles that were devastating Queensland's sugar cane industry. The beetles survived and the toads became a pest and a threat to the native quolls, small spotted marsupials. On March 28, 2009, a festive mass killing of the creatures began as “Toad Day Out." The corpses were turned into fertilizer for the very farmers who've battled the pests for years.
(Econ, 7/12/03, p.38)(SFC, 6/10/06, p.B8)(AP, 3/26/09)
1936 Jun 18, In San Francisco Wally the elephant (25) was shot to death following the June 16 trampling death of Fleishhacker Zoo keeper Edward Brown (42).
(SSFC, 6/12/11, DB p.46)(SSFC, 6/19/11, DB p.46)
1936 Nov 9, In China Ruth Harkness and her party found a 3-lb giant panda cub, eyes not yet open, in a hollow tree. They named the cub Su-Lin - Chinese for "something very cute."
(http://femexplorers.com/full_article.php?article_id=17)
1936 Dec 18, Su-Lin, the 1st giant panda to come to US from China, arrived in SF. The giant panda, captured by Ruth Harkness, was the 1st ever seen in the US. In 2005 Vicki Constantine Croke authored “The Lady and the Panda."
(http://femexplorers.com/full_article.php?article_id=17)(SSFC, 7/17/05, p.F2)
1936 India’s Jim Corbett National Park was established to provide endangered Bengal tigers with safe territory.
(AP, 2/10/14)
1937 Mar 18, In Missouri Jim the Wonder Dog died at age 12 at the Lake of the Ozarks. The dog had uncanny abilities that were verified but never explained.
(SFC, 3/29/99, p.A3)
1938 Mar 27, San Francisco SPCA officer Al Girolo broke up a cockfight at the back of 1363 Underwood Street in Hunters Point. 7 men were arrested and 6 roosters seized.
(SSFC, 2/24/13, DB p.42)
1938 Dec, A South African fishing trawler brought up in its nets a coelacanth fish, long thought to be extinct. The fish was identified by naturalist Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer. She sent a sketch of the fish to Prof. J.L.B. Smith who properly identified it as a new species of coelacanth and named it Latimeria chalumnae. It was later mounted and is now on display in the East London Museum.
(NG, 6/1988, p.825,831)(Econ, 12/14/13, IL p.11)
1938 Florida passed a law making it illegal to export alligators.
(SSFC, 5/15/05, p.C2)
1939 Mar 3, The new Goldfish swallowing craze began to sweep college campuses getting a start at the Ivy League's Harvard University.
(HC, Internet, 3/3/98)
1939 Jul 17, Paddy the Wanderer, a stray Airedale, died. The dog had become the unofficial mascot of the docks in Wellington, NZ. A fleet of black taxis led its funeral procession.
(SSFC, 11/14/04, p.F11)
1942 An American anti-submarine research project discovered the mesopelagic zone of the ocean, a layer of ocean that begins a few hundred meters below the surface and is home to an abundance of animals, who rise at night to feed and return to depths between 200 meters and 1 km to escape predation.
(Econ, 4/15/17, p.66)
1944 The last undisputed report of an ivory-billed woodpecker in the continental North America was in Louisiana this year.
(Econ, 10/15/11, p.42)
1945 Maria Dickin decorated Rip, a dog, for finding more than 100 people trapped by German bomb damage in World War II. Dickin was the creator of the Dickin Medal program, Britain's highest honor for animals. Rip died in 1948 and is buried in a pet charity cemetery in east Lon-don. In 2009 the medal sold at auction in London on Friday for 24,250 pounds ($35,700).
(AP, 4/24/09)
1946 Paul Falknor Iams (1915-2003), self-taught animal nutritionist, started Iams Food Co.
(SFC, 11/3/04, p.B15)
1947 Aug 28, Legendary bullfighter Manolete was mortally wounded by a bull during a fight in Linares, Spain; he died the following day at age 30.
(AP, 8/28/97)
1948 Oct 5, The International Union for Conservation of Nature's Species Survival Commission (IUCN) was founded in France. It is composed of biologists who maintain a list of threatened species and is considered the world's largest and most significant environmental conservation organization.
(http://tinyurl.com/yyrn6o6e)
1948 In Florida there was a monkey escape from the Dania Chimpanzee Farm, with most of the monkeys recaptured, but not all of them. In 2021 the colony numbered about 41.
(AP, 5/19/21)
1952 Mar 14, J. Fred Muggs, chimp on the Today show, was born.
(MC, 3/14/02)
1954 The Plum Island Animal Disease Center opened off of New York’s Long Island. Congress voted to close it in 2009.
(SFC, 8/27/13, p.A8)
1954 British Colonel Leofric Boyle began compiling information about endangered species. His card index system grew to become the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
(Econ, 9/14/13, SR p.12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUCN_Red_List)
1957 Mar 1, Kokomo the Chimp became the Today Show animal editor.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1957 Mar 23, US army sold its last homing pigeons.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1958 Apr 14, Sputnik 2 (with dog Laika) burned up in the atmosphere.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1958 May 18, Chairman Mao Tse Tung spoke at the Second Session of the Eight Party Congress and called for schoolchildren to assist in the elimination of the four pests, which included sparrows, rats, flies and mosquitoes. A massive 3-day campaign soon began to exterminate sparrows, which were thought harmful because they ate the peasant's grain. Numerous other birds were killed in the process and the following year a plague of locusts became a problem. In 2001 Judith Shapiro, Donald Worster and Alfred W. Crosby authored “Mao's War Against Nature: Politics & the Environment in Revolutionary China."
(http://tinyurl.com/8gbhg)(Econ, 12/20/08, p.65)(http://tinyurl.com/7m9egc)
1959 May 28, Monkeys Able & Baker zoomed 300 mi (500 km) into space on Jupiter missile and became the 1st animals retrieved from a space mission.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1959 Rex Burch (d.1996), microbiologist, and William Russell, a classics scholar, outlined how the use of animals in scientific research could be made more humane in their book: “The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique."
(www.nal.usda.gov/awic/newsletters/v7n2/7n2burch.htm)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.84)
1959 Alan Abel (1924-2018) formed the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals (SINA), seeking to clothe all naked animals that appear in public. In 1963 Time magazine exposed the organization as a hoax.
(SFC, 9/19/18, p.D6)
1959 The Usutu virus, a life threat to birds, was 1st observed in South African mosquitoes. By 2004 it had spread to Europe and ravaged the blackbird population.
(SFC, 8/21/04, p.B10)
1960 Aug 19, Korabl-Sputnik-2 (Spaceship Satellite-2), also known as Sputnik 5, was launched. On board were the dogs Belka ( Squirrel) and Strelka (Little Arrow). Also on board were 40 mice, 2 rats and a variety of plants. After a day in orbit, the spacecraft's retrorocket was fired and the landing capsule and the dogs were safely recovered. They were the first living animals to survive orbital flight.
(www.spacetoday.org/Astronauts/Animals/Dogs.html)
1960 Aug 23, World's largest frog (3.3 kg) was caught in Equatorial Guinea.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1960 Gavin Maxwell authored “Ring of Bright Water," his classic tale of living with otters.
(Economist, 9/1/12, p.81)
1961 Jan 31, Chimpanzee Ham landed safely and became the 1st primate in space after a 16 minute flight aboard a Mercury-Redstone 2 rocket.
(AH, 2/06, p.14)
1961 Mar 9, Korabl-Sputnik-4, also known as Sputnik 9, was launched with a dog named Chernushka (Blackie) on a one orbit mission. Also onboard the spacecraft was a dummy cosmonaut, mice and a guinea pig.
(www.spacetoday.org/Astronauts/Animals/Dogs.html)
1961 Aug 27, Francis the Talking Mule was the mystery guest on "What's My Line."
(MC, 8/27/01)
1961 Guy Mountfort (d.2003) and 3 other Britons: zoologist Sir Julian Huxley, broadcaster Peter Scott and wildlife advocate Max Nicholson, founded the Swiss-based World Wildlife Fund (Worldwide Fund for Nature).
(AP, 5/1/03)(Econ, 9/14/13, SR p.8)
1962 Mar 21, A female black bear was taken aboard a B-58 bomber out of Edwards Air Force Base in California, flown up to 35,000 feet at a supersonic speed of 850 miles per hour, and ejected from the bomber in a specially made capsule. She landed safely, and became the first living creature to survive a parachute jump from a plane flying faster than sound.
(www.worldhop.com/Journals/J1/Bear1.html)
c1962 Macaque monkeys began bathing in the hot springs near Nagano.
(SSFC, 8/11/02, p.C10)
1963 The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) was founded. It is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUCN_Red_List)
1964 The global Red List, a list of endangered species, was created. It was initially “a haphazard affair." In the early 1990s, Dr. Georgina Mace (1953-2020), then working for the Zoological Society of London, began the long process of developing the criteria for a more scientifically disciplined list.
(NY Times, 12/1/20)
1965 Jul 3, Trigger (25), the golden palomino horse of Roy Rogers, died. Trigger was mounted by Bishoff's Taxidermy of California and were on display for years at the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum in Victorville, California. The original Trigger is currently on display at The Roy Rogers - Dale Evans Museum in Branson, Missouri. In 2010 Trigger, along with his saddle, took top dollar at an auction of memorabilia.
(www.surfnetinc.com/chuck/hoss-rr.htm)(SFC, 7/7/98, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/2blll9t)
1965 A Navy dolphin named Tuffy carried tools and messages to Sealab II divers off the coast of La Jolla, Ca.
(SFC, 4/11/03, p.D1)
1965 Martin Seligman, psychologist, conducted experiments with dogs subjected to electric shock and found that they “learned helplessness" when unable to escape shocks.
(Econ, 3/31/07, p.63)
1966 Mar 10, Kelso, 5 time Horse of the Year, retired.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1966 Jun, Allen and Beatrix Gardner of the Univ. of Nevada began teaching sign language to a 10-month-old female chimpanzee named Washoe (d.2007).
(www.friendsofwashoe.org/timeline_project_begins.shtml)(SFC, 11/1/07, p.A2)
1966 Oct 15, US Congress passed the Endangered Species Preservation Act. It was expanded in 1973 as the Endangered Species Act. The Devils Hole Pupfish of Death Valley were among the first species protected. By 1972 only 124 remained. By 2007 only 42 were left. The count reached 75 in 2013.
(www.fws.gov/endangered/1966listing.html)(Econ, 1/19/12, p.79)
1967 Peru and 3 other countries in South America banned trade in vicuna, a relative of the llama, after numbers had severely dwindled. A CITES ban followed in 1975.
(Econ, 3/8/08, p.86)(www.rumbosonline.com/articles/4-46-vicuna.htm)
1968 In the SF Bay Area Marine World/Africa U.S.A. opened on 66 acres in Redwood Shores. The animal-themed amusement park moved to Vallejo in 1985 and the Redwood Shores land was developed as the headquarters of Oracle Corp.
(SFC, 3/10/18, p.D1)
1969 American Museum of Natural History in NYC installed a 94-foot, 21,000-pound, synthetic Blue Whale. It was based on a female carcass found in the South Atlantic in 1925.
(WSJ, 7/24/03, p.D10)
1969 Fish and wildlife officials in New York and Vermont banned fish shooting. In 1970 the Vermont Legislature re-instated the sport.
(SFC, 5/11/04, p.A2)
1969-1971 Yellowstone Park officials attempted to force grizzly bears to return to a wild diet. 220 bears, unable to quit junk food, were shot and killed during this period.
(Econ, 11/5/05, p.88)
1970 Mar 1, End of US commercial whale hunting.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1970 Mar 30, Secretariat, race horse, triple crown (1973), was born.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1970 Dec 24, A US Animal Welfare Act was passed expanding the list of animals covered by the 1966 Animal Welfare Act. It included guidelines for the use and care of laboratory animals.
(www.nal.usda.gov/awic/legislat/usdaleg1.htm)
1970 The US sent a 5-dolphin team to Vietnam to guard the Army munitions pier at Cam Ranh Bay. The dolphins were in Vietnam for 6 months and the pier remained safe. It was blown up after they left.
(SFC, 4/11/03, p.D1)(SFC, 5/18/10, p.C3)
1970 Mister Ed the talking horse, star of the 1961 TV sitcom, died. By the time Mister Ed reached the age of 19 he was suffering from a broken leg and a variety of health problems, and was quietly put to death with no publicity. However, in an interview on Los Angeles station KECT's program "Life and Times", Alan Young stated that Mr. Ed died from an inadvertent tranquilizer administered while he was "in retirement" in a stable in Burbank, California.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Ed)
1971 Nov 18, The US federal Airborne-Hunting Act prohibited shooting animals from planes without license.
(WSJ, 12/9/03, p.A1)(www.fws.gov/laws/lawsdigest/AIRBORN.HTML)
1971 Dec 15, Pres. Nixon signed the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burro Act. The $18 million Wild Horse and Burro Program, headed by the Bureau of Land Management, was designed to find homes for wild horses. "Excess" animals were annually culled. The 10-17,000 wild horses grew to some 43,000 in 1998. In 2004 Conrad Burns, Republican Senator for Montana, introduced an amendment that removed protection for wild horses over age 10.
(www.fs.fed.us/rangelands/ecology/wildhorseburro/whb_faqs.shtml)(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A1)(Econ, 6/28/08, p.90)
1971 California banned the import of kangaroo parts.
(SSFC, 5/23/21, p.A6)
1971 Jamaica began protecting crocodiles by law. By 2013 a growing taste for crocodile meat and even eggs had conservationists worried that the reptiles might be wiped from the wild altogether.
(AP, 10/6/13)
1972 Apr 16, The Republic of China presented two Pandas to the US National Zoo: Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling. Ling-Ling died in 1992.
(SFC, 4/16/97, p.C14)(HN, 4/16/98)
1972 Jul 10, Herd of stampeding elephants killed 24 in the Chandka Forest of India.
(MC, 7/10/02)
1972 Alison Jolly (1937-2014), American primatologist, authored “The Evolution of Primate Behaviour," based on her studies of lemurs in Madagascar.
(Econ, 3/1/14, p.94)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alison_Jolly)
1973 Feb 26, Triple Crown horse Secretariat was bought for a record $5.7m.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1973 India began Project Tiger and established a network of tiger reserves. Under Indira Gandhi 9 national parks were set aside to protect tigers. 14 more were later added. By 2010 the tiger population dropped to 1,400 from 40,000 a century earlier.
(http://projecttiger.nic.in/introduction.htm)(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.A16)(NG, 12/97, p.13)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.52)
1973 In Uganda some 14,300 elephants were in the Murchison Falls National Park at this time. By 1980 only 1,400 were left.
(NG, May 1985, p.627)
1974 Dr. Charles Lieber at the VA Medical Center in the Bronx, NY, fed alcohol to baboons along with a nutritionally complete diet. He found that the animals developed every stage of human alcoholic liver disease.
(SSFC, 8/23/09, p.K6)
1975 May 23, The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned the sale of turtles with shells that measured less than four inches in length. The turtles were identified as major carriers of salmonella bacterium and had been widely sold as pets for kids.
(WSJ, 5/30/96, p.B1)(http://tiny.cc/IEWJ3)
1975 Jul 28, The US Dept of Interior designated the grizzly bear a threatened species in the lower 48 states under the US Endangered Species Act. Most of the bears in the lower US lived in and around Yellowstone National Park in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
(http://fieldguide.mt.gov/detail_AMAJB01020.aspx)(Econ, 11/5/05, p.88)
1976 Donald Griffin authored “The Question of Animal Awareness."
(Econ, 7/18/15, p.72)
1976 The US federal government added Mexican wolves to its endangered species list. In 2017 some 113 Mexican wolves were counted between southwestern New Mexico and southeast Arizona.
(SSFC, 2/19/17, p.A8)
1976 Malcolm Douglas (1941-2010), Australia's original TV crocodile hunter, shot to fame with the production of his first documentary, "Across The Top." He had trekked across Australia's harsh hinterland filming his encounters with poisonous snakes and ferocious reptiles.
(AFP, 9/23/10)
1976 The UN Convention on Int’l. Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) imposed a ban on the trade of rhino horn. By the mid-1990s 90% of the world’s rhinos had disappeared.
(Econ, 11/20/10, p.55)
1979 Sep 19, The Bern Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats was signed. It became effective as of June 1, 1982.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.126)(http://tinyurl.com/yez66ct)
1979 Nov 22, Penny Patterson led Koko the gorilla from Stanford to a new home at the Gorilla Foundation in Woodside.
(SFC, 11/19/04, p.F2)
1980 Jun 2, The California State Senate voted 30-0 to pass a bill prohibiting the destruction of any pet through instructions left in an owner’s will.
(SFC, 5/27/05, p.F5)
1980 Jun 2, The California State Fish and Game Commission approved a captive-breeding plan to save the vanishing California condor from extinction.
(SFC, 5/27/05, p.F5)
1980 Jul 10, Nepo (14), a killer whale, was found dead in his Redwood City Marine World show tank.
(SFC, 7/8/05, p.F2)
1980 Indonesia established Komodo National Park to help protect the predatory Komodo dragons, a type of lizard that can grow to 10 feet. The park was named a World Heritage Site in 1991.
(SFC, 12/23/21, p.A4)
1980 In Indonesia a 7 ½ mile wall was built in West Java province to keep out jungle animals.
(SFC, 9/14/02, p.A20)
1981 In Wyoming a rancher found a solitary enclave of the black-footed ferret. The prairie-dg-eating member of the weasel family had been thought to be extinct. Plans in 2013 called for boosting the ferret count to 3,000 across its 12-state historic range.
(SFC, 12/24/13, p.A4)
1982 May 3, Sinbad the Sailor, the star horse of Ronald Reagan’s “Death Valley Days" TV series, died when he was struck by lightning at Kanab, Utah.
(SSFC, 5/3/09, p.C12)
1982 Jul 23, The Intl. Whaling Commission (IWC) voted for a total ban on commercial whaling starting in 1985.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling)
1982 Sep 9, Robert Thibadeau at CMU-10A: Pittsburgh Zoo Options: The zoo is a worthwhile place to visit, but in my three years in Pittsburgh I have watched it deteriorate for lack of funds. Fortunately they have this wonderful 'adopt an animal' program. The adoption can be a day or month. Orangutanns (sic) eat light at $.75 a day or $22.50 a month, and for $15 a day or $450 a month you get yourself an entire elephant. Double that and you can probably have his name changed to Clyde. Triple it and I bet they will let you dye him pink. Visitation rights come with any adoption. The flyer is on my office door -- 5321.
(http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sef/Orig-Smiley.htm)
1982 The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources was established by international convention.
(Econ, 7/16/16, p.68)
1982 Major Adrian Coles (d.2017) founded the British Hedgehog Preservation Society.
(https://www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/)(Econ, 4/15/17, p.82)
1982 In Nepal elephant polo began under the direction of Jim Edwards, a jungle safari organizer.
(WSJ, 1/16/98, p.A1)
1982 In Oman efforts to breed captive oryx and release them back into the Arabian Peninsula, the only place this species is found, began, a decade after the last one was apparently shot in the wild. By 2011 about 1,000 of the wild Arabian or White Oryx thrived owing to nearly three decades of successful breeding.
(AP, 6/16/11)
1983 Jul 25, 1st nonhuman primate, a baboon, was conceived in a lab dish in San Antonio.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1983 Zoo officials in Kazakhstan reportedly claimed that a teenage elephant named Batyr could reproduce Russian to utter 20 phrases, including "Batyr is good." But there was no scientific study on the claim.
(AP, 11/2/12)
1986 Spain banned whaling. No Blue Whales, having been hunted to near extinction, were spotted off Spain's coastline until 2017.
(SSFC, 8/29/21, p.B10)
1987 Apr 19, The last free-flying condor in California, a 19-pound, 7-year-old male, was captured. He was released in 2002.
(SFC, 3/3/00, p.A21)(SFC, 5/2/02, p.A6)
1988 Apr 29, Molloko, the 1st California condor chick conceived in captivity, was born in the San Diego Zoo.
(www.highbeam.com/library/docFree.asp?DOCID=1G1:6703253)
1988 Jun 6, In NYC 2 large snapping turtles were found in a Bronx sewage plant.
(http://ebeltz.net/column/chs/1988colu.html)
1988 Belgium passed a law that forbade the ritual execution of animals at home.
(WSJ, 1/4/07, p.A1)
1988-2013 China’s panda population increased from 1,114 to 1,864 during this period. By 2016 China counted 67 protected panda reserves.
(Econ, 9/10/16, p.36)
1989 Sep 18, California’s Gov. Deukmejian signed into law a bill making it illegal to eat household pets.
(SSFC, 9/14/14, DB p.42)
1989 Nedim Buyukmihci, animal rights leader, founded the nonprofit Animal Place sanctuary in Vacaville, Ca.
(SFCM, 8/24/03, p.8)
1989 Kenya burned a vast pile of elephant tusks in Nairobi National Park in an effort to curb the killing of elephants.
(Econ, 2/8/14, p.60)
1989 The UN Convention on Int’l. Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) imposed a total ban on the trade of ivory and elephant hide. In 2007 the ban was extended for another 9 years.
(WSJ, 1/7/97, p.A1)(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A20)(SFC, 4/18/00, p.A9)(Econ, 3/8/08, p.85)
1980-1989 In Romania a huge building spree, inspired by Nicolae Ceausescu’s visit to North Korea, leveled entire neighborhoods in Bucharest and left a large number of stray dogs roaming the streets. Their number reached 100-200,000 in 1997. Ceausescu ripped out 80% of the historical center to create the Civic Center district.
(SFEC,11/30/97, p.A20)(SSFC, 6/18/17, p.F6)
1990 Apr 10, H.J. Heinz said it would not sell tuna caught in nets that also trap dolphins.
(http://tinyurl.com/kj7mq)
1990 Oct 24, Humphrey the whale swam out the Golden Gate ending a 3-day visit to SF Bay. He had become famous in 1985 after a 3-week tour of the SF Bay and Sacramento River.
(SSFC, 10/25/15, DB p.50)
1990s A movement began to establish the Australian bilby, an long-eared, endangered marsupial of the bandicoot family, as a symbol for an Australian Easter.
(WSJ, 3/25/05, p.A1)
1991 Marlington, West Virginia, held its first roadkill festival as a joke. The festival received a boost in 1998 when the state passed a law making the gathering of roadkill legal.
(Econ, 10/5/13, p.34)
1991 Britain banned the ownership of pit bull terriers following a spate of attacks by the dangerous dogs.
(AFP, 3/22/12)
1991 The Canary Islands banned bullfighting.
(SFC, 3/6/10, p.A2)
1992 May 21, The EU adopted the Habitats Directive, more formally known as Council Directive 92/43/EEC on the Conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.126)(http://tinyurl.com/c27o68l)
1992 Mark Whitacre blew the whistle on a global conspiracy to fix the price of lysine, an animal feed additive. His story inspired the film “The Informant" (2009).
(Econ, 3/29/14, p.67)
1993 China banned the use of rhino horn and demand fell sharply.
(Econ 5/6/17, p.69)
1993 Norway resumed the hunting of minke whales after a six-year self-imposed moratorium.
(SFC, 5/9/98, p.A7)
1994 Prof. Melvin Bradley (d.2203 at 83) authored his 2-volume "The Missouri Mule: His Origin and Times."
(SFC, 1/21/02, p.A16)
1994 China lifted a ban on dogs in Beijing. Strict licensing was enforced until 2003.
(Econ 7/8/17, p.38)
1994 Mexico declared black bears a protected species. They were hunted out of about 80% of their original habitat in Mexico in the last half of the 20th century.
(AP, 10/19/12)
1995 Carol Buckley and Scott Blais founded the Elephant Sanctuary on a 800-acre farm in Hohenwald, Tenn.
(SSFC, 2/24/02, Par p.14)
1995 Prof. Marc. Hauser, Harvard psychologist, claimed that cotton-top tamarins can recognize themselves in mirrors. His results were questioned and in 2001 Hauser published another paper admitting failure to replicate earlier findings. His work on the cognitive abilities of monkeys were again questioned in 2007.
(Econ, 8/28/10, p.69)
1995 William Oliver (1947- 2014), English champion of wild pigs, managed to get the government of India and Assam state to agree to protect the endangered pigmy hogs.
(Econ, 9/27/14, p.94)
1995 Finnish hunting regulations began protecting wolverines. The increasing wolverine population soon began impacting the reindeer population.
(Econ, 12/24/16, p.26)
1996 Mar 10, Birdwatchers noted the "act of raptor love" between two red-tailed hawks on the Hotel Carlyle at 2:30 p.m. in New York City. It lasted a full five seconds.
(WSJ, 4/17/96, p.A-18)
1996 Apr 13, The annual Canadian seal hunt in Newfoundland went out of control and some 16,500 seals were slaughtered instead of the 8,000 quota.
(SFC, 4/13/96, p.A-15)
1996 May 25, In Indonesia’s southern Sumatran province of Lampung, villagers were being harassed by herds of marauding elephants. The elephants had been driven from their usual habitats by deforestation. Two people were trampled and villagers in the Perwakilan Suwoh subdistrict have been attacked.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.A5)
1996 Jul 4, Koko, the first gorilla to use sign language, turned 25 and asked for a box of scary, rubber snakes and lizards. Koko was the offspring of Jackie, who was donated to the SF Zoo by benefactor Carroll Soo-Hoo (d.1998 at 84).
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A24)(SFC, 7/3/98, p.D6)
1996 Aug 16, In Brookfield, Ill., a 3-year-old boy fell 15-feet into a concrete area of a zoo’s gorilla exhibit and was rescued by Binti-jua, a 7-year-old gorilla with her own 2-year-old on her back.
(SFC, 8/17/96, p.A3)(MC, 8/16/02)
1996 Aug 21, In Australia rescuers worked to save some 200 pilot whales on the southwestern coast near Dunsborough. Most were herded to sea but 14 died.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E3)
1996 Sep 1, In India wolves were reported to have killed 33 children in the area of Banbirpur in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Some reports had it that at least some of the killings were by dis-guised human beings.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A16)
1996 Frans de Waal authored "The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and other Animals."
(MT, Fall 02, p.33)
1997 Mar 1, At Spring Lake near Santa Rosa, Ca., Paul Duclos caught a 24-pound large-mouth bass, photographed it, weighed it and released it. The official record was a 22-pound, 4-ounce bass caught in Montgomery Lake, Ga. To be official the fish has to be killed, properly weighed and certified by the Int’l. Gamefish Assoc.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, p.C3)
1997 Apr 28, It was reported that a type of Mad Cow Disease was killing deer and elk in the Fort Collins region of Colorado and Wyoming. The "spongiform encephalopathies" riddled the brain with holes and it was wondered if the disease might be transmitted to humans as the fatal Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease.
(SFC, 4/28/97, p.A5)
1997 A North American ban on cattle feed that included bovine brain and spinal tissue went into effect to prevent the spread of mad cow disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
(SFC, 12/30/03, p.A1)
1997 May 10, It was reported that Iceland would resume whaling. Whaling had stopped there in 1989.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A8)
1997 May 17, From Gabon it was reported that controlled logging in the tropical forests has led to savage territorial wars among the native chimpanzees. The population was estimated to have dropped from 50,000 to 30,000.
(SFC, 5/17/97, p.A4)
1997 May 31, It was reported that more than 60 monk seals were killed from eating fish that had ingested a toxic algae off of Mauritania’s Atlantic coast. It was estimated that only some 350 of the monk seals were left worldwide.
(SFC, 5/31/97, p.A17)
1997 Oct 26, It was reported that hundreds of shorebirds washed up dead along the 25-mile stretch of Monterey Bay beaches. A non-toxic refined-sardine oil had been spilled into the bay and stuck the birds’ feathers together. The source of the oil was not yet determined. The substance was later thought to be a hydrogenated vegetable oil.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.D2)(SFC,10/29/97, p.A24)
1998 Feb 7, It was reported that over 1200 Hooker’s sea lion pups had died in the sub-Antarctic islands south of New Zealand from an unknown disease.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A5)
1998 Mar 30, In eastern Arizona nearly a dozen Mexican gray wolves were released into the White Mountains after an absence of 30 years.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.A3)
1998 Aug 3, In Austria Hermann Nitsch (b.1938) ignored animal rights protestors and began a 6-day festival during which he planned to kill pigs and bulls and paint pictures with their blood. This was his 100th such performance (named the 6-Day Play after its length) and it took place at his castle, Schloss Prinzendorf.
(SFC, 8/4/98, p.E3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Nitsch)
1998 Aug 15, In Britain it was reported that 6,000 mink from a fur farm in Ringworm had been released by animal rights activists. The released mink caused a wildlife disaster as they preyed on all wildlife.
(SFC, 8/15/98, p.A5)
1998 Aug 29, A England new type of mosquito was reported to be breeding in the under-ground Tube with a taste for the rats and mice that lived there.
(SFC, 8/28/98, p.A5)
1998 Sep 10, Keiko the killer whale, star of the 1993 "Free Willy" movie, was returned to Ice-land, where he was captured in 1979 at age 2. Much of his early life was spent at a Mexico City amusement park.
(SFC, 9/11/98, p.A10)(SFC, 10/17/03, p.D1)
1998 In France Eric Baratay and Elisabeth Hardouin-Fugier authored "Zoo: A History of Zoo-logical Gardens in the West." An English translation by Oliver Welsh was published in 2002.
(SSFC, 8/4/02, p.M6)
1999 Mar 18, In Malaysia an outbreak of encephalitis caused an order for the extermination of 64,000 pigs and the evacuation of 11,000 people.
(SFC, 3/19/99, p.A14)
1999 May 17, In Neah Bay, Washington state, Makah Indian hunters legally harpooned their first gray whale in 70-75 years.
(SFC, 5/18/99, p.A3)(AP, 5/17/00)
1999 May 19, Researchers reported that pollen from corn infused with genes from the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is toxic to monarch butterfly larvae when sprinkled on milkweed, a natural food source for the caterpillars. The genetically manipulated corn comprised about 20% of the US crop.
(SFC, 5/20/99, p.A1,15)
1999 Aug 20, The Peregrine falcon was removed from the list of endangered species.
(SFC, 8/20/99, p.A2)
1999 Aug 25, It was reported that Mickey Rooney had joined animal rights activists to support legislation to outlaw "crush" videos, which depict small animals being killed by scantily clad women.
(SFC, 8/25/99, p.C5)
1999 Barbara Smuts authored "Sex and Friendship in Baboons."
(MT, Fall 02, p.12)
1999 In the Philippines some 40 million people were left in the dark after swarms of jellyfish were sucked into the cooling system of a power plant, sparking fears of a military coup.
(Economist, 4/4/20, p.70)
1999-2001 Gambian rats first began showing up on Grassy Key after a local exotic animal breeder released eight of the rats into the wild. The rodents, officially known as the Gambian pouched rat, are the largest known breed of rats in the world. They can grow up to three feet in length and weigh as much as nine pounds.
(http://tinyurl.com/c9rn3q6)
2000 Feb, Rescue Bear 0001 arrived at the Animals Asia Foundation in Chengdu, China. He was named Andrew by the Hong Kong philanthropist who donated $1 million to create the animal sanctuary. Andrew (15) died in 2006 from a liver cancer likely related to years of being tapped for bile fluid.
(SFC, 2/16/06, p.A14)
2000 Jul 15, From China it was reported that an attack force of 700,000 ducks and chickens, trained to hunt and eat insects at the sound of a whistle, were placed in the locust-plagued fields of Xinjiang province.
(SFC, 7/15/00, p.A24)
2000 Jul 24, In Minneapolis, Minn., 80 people were arrested as demonstrators protested against a meeting of the Int’l. Society for Animal Genetics.
(SFC, 7/25/00, p.A4)
2000 The invasive New Zealand mud snail, believed to have been imported in the mid-1980s in a shipment of trout eggs to an Idaho hatchery, was first spotted in the Owens River in California's eastern Sierra. By 2018 they were established throughout California and other western states.
(SSFC, 10/28/18, p.C11)
2000-2010 More than 54,000 wild birds, including critically endangered species, were laundered through the Solomon islands into the global wildlife trade during this period. In 2012 TRAFFIC, a wildlife group, said Singapore and Malaysia accounted for 93 percent of all birds imported from Solomon Islands.
(AFP, 7/17/12)
2001 Mar 6, The EU ordered all livestock markets closed for 2 weeks to contain foot-and-mouth disease.
(SFC, 3/7/01, p.A10)
2001 Mar 21, In Vermont a flock of 234 sheep were seized by federal agents over fears of infection with a version of mad cow disease. The sheep had originated in Belgium in 1996.
(SFC, 3/22/01, p.A3)
2001 Apr 28, It was reported that researchers at the Univ. of Pennsylvania had used gene therapy to reverse a form of congenital blindness in dogs.
(SFC, 4/28/01, p.A3)
2001 Aug 14, In India it was reported that 15 wild elephants had died in Nameri National Park in Assam state from an unknown disease.
(SFC, 8/15/01, p.A7)
2001 Sep 1, Scientists gathered in the French Alps to discuss a medicine called ivermectine given to livestock to protect them from parasites. Dung from the animals was toxic and virtually indestructible and threatened the survival of insects, birds and bats.
(SSFC, 9/2/01, p.A20)
2001 Laura Hillenbrand authored her best selling book “Seabiscuit," the story of the champion race horse (1933-1947).
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.94)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabiscuit)
2001 Rome declared the ruins of the Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary to be a cultural heritage.
(SFC, 11/15/02, p.J1)
2002 Mar 6, It was reported that new regulations (Kuschelregel, the cuddle rule) required German pig farmers to spend at least 20 seconds each day looking at each pig.
(WSJ, 3/6/02, p.A1)
2002 May 11, It was reported that a dead orca whale found off the Washington state coast contained toxic PCBs so high that test equipment needed to be recalibrated. Levels were measured at 1,000 parts-per-million.
(SFC, 5/11/02, p.A5)
2002 Sep 24-25, In the Canary Islands over a dozen beaked whales beached themselves following NATO exercises that involved a cluster of warships and submarines. 9 of the whales washed ashore dead and showed lesions in the brain and hearing system, consistent with acoustic impact.
(SFC, 9/26/02, p.A20)(SFC, 10/7/02, p.A6)
2002 Sep 7, In Portugal the town of Reguengos de Monsaraz openly flouted a new bullfighting law, killing a bull in the ring without government permission, and selling the beef for human consumption afterward. The matador and the festival organizers will be arraigned in the first le-gal test of the new anti-bullfighting law. Killing in the bullring had been banned since 1928. However, Parliament voted in July to allow bulls to be put to death, but only in cities and towns that have carried on the bullfighting tradition for 50 years or more.
(AP, 9/8/02)
2002 Sep 14, In Ivory Coast’s Azagny National Park there are only 39,000 western chimpanzees left of an original 600,000. The western chimpanzee, one of four subspecies of the common chimpanzee, is already extinct in the wild in Benin, Gambia and Togo. It is almost extinct in Senegal, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Guinea Bissau and Ghana.
(AP, 9/14/02)
2002 Sep, At least a dozen beaked whales beached themselves following NATO exercises that involved a cluster of warships and submarines. 8 of the whales died.
(SFC, 9/26/02, p.A20)
2002 Oct 24, It was reported that over 8,000 backyard poultry had been killed in southern California to stop the spread of Exotic Newcastle disease. The deadly avian infection last sur-faced in California the 1970s when some 12 million birds were destroyed. The number of chickens killed reached 100,000.
(SFC, 10/24/02, p.G2)(SFC, 10/26/02, p.A3)(SFC, 12/28/02, p.A3)
2002 Oct 28, It was reported that 200 farms in China tap 7,000 live, caged bears for their bile in an excruciating process. Owners slice into the bears to milk bile from their gall bladder with a tube. Bear bile is viewed as a panacea in traditional Chinese medicine. Many bears do not sur-vive the initial operation and few live longer than 10 years, less than half the average life expectancy.
(Reuters, 10/28/02)
2002 Oct, Pat Derby opened the Ark 2002 elephant sanctuary in San Andreas, Ca.
(SFC, 6/21/04, p.A8)
2002 Nov 13, A U.N. body voted to restrict the international trade of bigleaf mahogany, sea horses and 26 species of sea turtles, but failed to pass legislation to protect two species of threatened sharks.
(AP, 11/14/02)
2002 Nov 20, Louisiana began offering a $4-a-tail bounty on the swamp-dwelling nutria rodent, due to wetlands damage from devoured plants.
(SFC, 11/20/02, p.A2)
2002 Dec 1, The US federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) began rounding up over 2,650 wild horses in Nevada to prevent starving and rangeland destruction.
(SFC, 11/29/02, p.J7)
2002 Matthew Scully authored "Dominion: The Power of Man, the suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy," in which he pleaded for the humane treatment of animals.
(WSJ, 10/30/02, p.D8)
2002 The snakehead fish was first seen in Maryland, after an 18-inch adult was caught in a local pond. The powerful fish has no natural predators in the region and is also a determined survivalist, surviving for up to four days on land. It has since migrated to the nearby Potomac River and its tributaries. In 2012 the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Inland Fisheries (DNR) offered $200 gift cards through Bass Pro Shops to residents who capture and kill a snakehead.
(www.dnr.state.md.us/dnrnews/infocus/snakehead.asp)
2002 Oklahoma banned cockfighting following a referendum. In 2005 state senator Frank Shurden proposed gamecock boxing with cocks wearing foam-filled muffs and protective vests.
(Econ, 2/5/05, p.27)
2002 The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found 64,700 pounds of shark fins on a single Honolulu-bound vessel they boarded southwest of Mexico. Federal agents estimated that they were taken from 28,000 sharks, most of them blue.
(CW, Winter 04, p.14)
2002 Japan’s Kindai Univ. managed to rear adult tuna from eggs for the first time.
(Econ, 9/24/16, p.39)
2003 Jan 15, The EU Parliament voted to ban the use of animals to test cosmetics by 2009. Imports of cosmetics using animal testing would also be banned.
(WSJ, 1/16/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 12, It was reported that the Congo Ebola outbreak was decimating the gorilla population with up to 800 lost at the Lossi sanctuary.
(WSJ, 3/12/03, p.A1)
2003 Feb 22, In Rome, Italy, some 2,000 cat lovers marched in the city’s 1st Cat Pride march and demanded protection for the many, local stray cats.
(SSFC, 2/23/03, A2)
2003 Feb 23, In Malawi a lion, who escaped from Kasungu National Park and attacked and killed about 7 people, was shot and killed by game hunters.
(AP, 2/24/03)
2003 Mar 12, It was reported that the Congo Ebola outbreak was decimating the gorilla population with up to 800 lost at the Lossi sanctuary. The ape population of west equatorial Africa had fallen 50% since 1983 due to hunting and Ebola.
(WSJ, 3/12/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/7/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 25, The US Navy brought in 2 specially trained bottle-nosed Atlantic dolphins to help ferret out mines in the approaches of the port of Umm Qasr.
(AP, 3/26/03)
2003 Apr 1, A cloned Javan bantang was born by a beef cow in Iowa. Only 3-5,000 cattle-like bantengs remained worldwide.
(SFC, 4/8/03, p.A3)
2003 Apr 9, A large shipment of African rodents, including Gambian rats, dormice and sun squirrels, arrived in Dallas aboard a commercial flight from Ghana. An "unusually large number of sick and dead animals." Some of the larger animals had consumed the smaller ones. African rodents imported as pets caused a monkeypox outbreak in the Midwest that sickened dozens of adults and children with a virus related to smallpox.
(AP, 11/29/06)
2003 Apr 17, The prairie dog population stood at 10-15 million over some 1.5 million acres. A century ago they numbered in the billions over some 100 million acres.
(WSJ, 4/17/03, p.A1)
2003 Apr 18, In the Florida Keys at least 28 pilot whales stranded themselves and 5 were re-ported dead.
(SFC, 4/19/03, p.A4)
2003 Apr 29, California biologists reported that some 92 southern sea otters had died since the beginning of the year between Point Conception and Half Moon Bay. A cat parasite, Toxo-plasma gondii, was cited as one factor weakening the animals.
(SFC, 4/30/03, A1)(SFC, 5/7/03, p.A1)
2003 May 3, It was reported that British researchers had shown that fish feel pain.
(SFC, 5/3/03, p.B8)
2003 May 28, Prometea, the world's 1st cloned horse, was born in Cremona, Italy.
(SFC, 8/7/03, p.A2)
2003 Jun 25, An Australian military spokesman said the army will kill as many as 15,000 kangaroos to keep a southeastern army base from being overgrazed.
(AP, 6/25/03)
2003 Jul 7, It was reported that the night crawler, Lumbricus terristris, was not native to northern American forests and that its introduction was causing problems on the forest floor.
(WSJ, 7/8/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 2, Two South China tigers, the first ever to leave the country, arrived in South Africa as part of a project to save the endangered species.
(AP, 9/3/03)
2003 Sep 29, In Japan a 23-month-old bull tested positive for new strain of mad cow disease. A quarantine of 604 cows followed to prevent the spread of the disease.
(AP, 10/8/03)
2003 Oct 17, A new family of frogs was reported from the western India. The purple, burrowing frog family, named Nasikabatrachus sahydrensis, appeared to date back some 200 million years.
(SFC, 10/17/03, p.A10)
2003 Nov 7, Prof. Donald Griffin (88) of Harvard, leading proponent of animal consciousness, died. "There is now abundant evidence of non-human cognition and consciousness."
(WSJ, 11/28/03, p.B1)
2003 Dec 11, Scientists reported on a partial list of genes that make people human based on comparisons with the chimpanzee genome.
(AP, 12/12/03)
2003 Dec 12, Keiko the killer whale (27), whose early life inspired the film "Free Willy," died in Norway of apparent pneumonia.
(SFC, 12/13/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 16, Taiwan's lawmakers banned the selling of dog meat and introduced heavy fines for killing pets for food or fur.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Dec 23, A cow, slaughtered in Washington state on Dec 9, was reported to have tested positive for mad cow disease, the 1st such US case. The $2.6 billion beef export industry was hit as 7 nations quickly suspended imports of US beef: Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan and Australia. The infected Holstein was imported into the United States from Canada about two years ago. A US beef recall soon spread to 8 states and Guam.
(AP, 12/24/03)(SFC, 12/24/03, p.A1)(AP, 12/27/03)(SFC, 12/29/03, p.A1)
2003 Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson authored "The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals."
(SSFC, 11/30/03, p.M3)
2003 Sharman Apt Russell authored "An Obsession with Butterflies."
(WSJ, 6/20/03, p.W10)
2003 Ted Rheingold (1970-2017) and Steven Reading co-founded Dogster, an online community for dog lovers.
(SFC, 9/7/17 p.C5)
2003 Alaska resumed limited aerial wolf hunting. In 1996 and 2000 Alaska voters turned down proposals to resume aerial predation control.
(Econ, 3/26/05, p.36)
2003 Some 3,951 bears were killed by hunters in Maine. 92% of them were bagged by the use of bait or dogs.
(WSJ, 10/28/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 8, A mountain lion was shot and killed following 2 attacks on people. Mark Jeffrey Reynolds (35) was found dead and partly eaten near his bike in the Whiting Ranch Wilderness in Orange County, Ca.
(SSFC, 1/11/04, p.A23)
2004 Mar 18, Jahari, a 13-year-old lowland gorilla, broke out of the Dallas Zoo and was shot to death after snatching up a toddler with his teeth and attacking 3 people.
(SFC, 3/20/04, p.A2)
2004 Apr 15, It was reported that over 20 sea otters have turned up dead or sick at Morro Bay over the last week. Scientists suspected a natural marine toxin. 62 otters died by the end of the month and the opossum parasite Sarcocystis neurona was later found to be responsible.
(SFC, 4/15/04, p.A1)(SFC, 5/21/04, p.B10)
2004 Apr 28, The Dian Fossey fund reported that the lowland gorilla population in eastern Congo has dropped over 70% since 1994 due to human warfare.
(WSJ, 4/29/04, p.A1)
2004 May 11, In West Virginia it was reported that some 2,000 bats and 200 birds were likely killed by whirling blades at a Tucker County wind farm.
(USAT, 5/11/04, p.10A)
2004 May 18, Kubi, SF Zoo’s 29-year-old gorilla, died, 11 days following his May 7 surgery to remove a diseased lung.
(SFC, 5/19/04, p.A1)
2004 May 20, Detroit Zoo officials said they will stop exhibiting elephants on ethical grounds because elephants can develop arthritis and stress-related ailments in captivity.
(Reuters, 5/20/04)
2004 Jun 10, German researchers reported that a border collie named Rico understands more than 200 words and can learn new ones as quickly as many children.
(AP, 6/10/04)
2004 Jun, In Georgia Chris Griffin reportedly killed a 1,000-pound hog with 9-inch tusks at the River Oak Plantation. Only a photo portrayed the “Hogzilla" kill. In 2005 experts from National Geographic confirmed the kill but reduced the size to about 800 pounds.
(AP, 7/29/04)(SFC, 3/22/05, p.A2)
2004 Jul 16, Peru’s National Agrarian Research Institute launched a new super-cuy (guinea pig), weighing up to 10 pounds, to help improve the Peruvian diet.
(Econ, 7/17/04, p.37)
2004 Jul, In Tanzania over 10,000 flamingos died at the Lake Manyara National Park. Officials were puzzled and no other wildlife appeared affected.
(SFC, 7/24/04, p.B10)
2004 Aug 9, Officials in South Africa prepared to kill some 30,000 ostriches following the deaths of over 1,500 due to avian influenza.
(SFC, 8/10/04, p.A3)
2004 Aug 12, I was reported that a huge ant colony measuring 100 kilometers (62 miles) across had been found under the southern Australian city of Melbourne. The ants were a mutant variety of Argentine ants.
(AP, 8/12/04)
2004 Aug 12, Laboratory monkeys that started out as careless procrastinators became super-efficient workers after injections into their brains that suppressed a gene linked to their ability to anticipate a reward.
(LAT, 8/12/04)
2004 Aug 21, A Chinese official said a lethal strain of avian influenza had been found among pigs at several farms.
(SFC, 8/21/04, p.A9)
2004 Aug 23, Researchers presented results on genetically engineered mice capable of running farther and longer than those bred naturally.
(SFC, 8/24/04, p.A2)
2004 Sep 8, It was reported that some 60 hippos had died of unknown causes over the last 2 months in Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park.
(SFC, 9/8/04, p.A6)
2004 Sep 28, Kenya said it will push for an international ban on trade in lion trophies and skins, expressing concern that the African lion is "under threat."
(AP, 9/28/04)
2004 Jan 1, In Norway a new law went into effect to allow foreign hunters to hunt seals. The legislation raised the seal kill quota to 2,000.
(SFC, 11/27/04, p.A10)
2004 Nov 28, On southern Australia’s King Island about 80 whales and dolphins died after beaching, and about 50 more were still at risk.
(AP, 11/29/04)
2004 Dec 7, In Illinois after Babs the gorilla died at age 30, keepers at Brookfield Zoo, decided to allow surviving gorillas to mourn the most influential female in their social family. One by one, the gorillas filed into the Tropic World building where Babs' body lay, arms outstretched. Curator Melinda Pruett Jones called it a "gorilla wake."
(AP, 12/8/04)
2004 Dec 22, A Texas woman paid $50,000 for a cloned cat, Little Nicky, created by Genetic Savings and Clone of Sausalito, Ca.
(SFC, 12/23/04, p.A1)
2004 Stanley Corem authored “How Dogs Think: Understanding the Canine Mind."
(NH, 2/05, p.48)
2004 Mark Derr authored “A Dog’s History of America."
(SSFC, 10/3/04, p.M3)
2004 M.R. Montgomery authored “A Cow’s Life: The Surprising History of Cattle and How the Black Angus Came to Be Home on the Range."
(NH, 2/05, p.52)
2004 Mark Obmascik authored "The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession." It was about a 1998 competition to see as many birds as possible in one year.
(SSFC, 3/28/04, p.M1)
2004 John Jeremiah Sullivan authored “Blood Horses: Notes of a Sportswriter’s Son," an eloquent tour of the history of men and horses.
(Econ, 6/19/04, p.80)
2005 Feb, Vietnam signed an agreement with the World Society for the Protection of Animals to phase out its bear bile farms, where an estimated 3,000 bears were held for their bile. In China an estimated 7,000 caged bears were milked for their bile.
(SFC, 4/25/05, p.A8)
2005 Mar 10, It was reported that a Texas ranch has implemented a computer-assisted remote hunting website allowing paying hunters to bag big game from their home computers.
(SFC, 3/10/05, p.A1)
2005 Mar 14, Experts said poachers are killing between 6,000 and 12,000 elephants a year to supply illegal ivory markets in Sudan to meet growing Chinese demand. Most of the elephants are killed in southern Sudan, Congo and the Central African Republic, with some ivory also coming from Kenya and Chad.
(AP, 3/14/05)
2005 Apr 11, Some 12,000 Wisconsin citizens took part in an advisory poll on shooting free-roaming domestic cats. 57% voted to allow shooting them. An advisory committee dropped the issue May 13 following an outcry from animal rights groups.
(Econ, 4/16/05, p.27)(SFC, 5/14/05, p.A2)
2005 Apr 26, In Australia, a state official said thousands of wild camels will be shot in the Out-back from helicopters in an effort to reduce their numbers.
(AP, 4/26/05)
2005 May 1, Thai fishermen netted a 646-pound Mekong giant catfish believed to have been the world's largest freshwater fish ever caught in Thailand.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 May 6, An Indian federal probe into disappearing tigers in a state-protected reserve has found the entire population of big cats has been wiped out by poachers. "The special investigation team in its preliminary assessment report has indicated that there was no evidence to prove the presence of tigers in Sariska (national park)."
(AP, 5/6/05)
2005 May 11, The Wildlife Conservation Society announced that the Laotian rock rat, also called khanyou, belonged to a new species with the formal name Laonastes aenigmamus.
(SFC, 5/12/05, p.A2)
2005 May, US airlines were required to begin disclosing the death of dogs being shipped as cargo. By mid 2010 122 dog deaths were reported.
(SFC, 7/17/10, p.A4)
2005 Jun 23, A fast food chain in northern Japan began offering a whale burger, even as anti-whaling nations urged Japan to cut back on its catch at an international conference on whaling.
(AP, 6/23/05)``
2005 Jul 15, It was reported that an estimated 100,000 gamecock breeders operated in the US, where cockfights were only legal in Louisiana and New Mexico. Breeders prepared the birds with injections of testosterone and methamphetamines.
(WSJ, 7/15/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct, Wildlife researchers with the South Florida Natural Resources Center found a dead, headless python after it apparently tried to digest a 6-foot-long (2-meter-long) American alligator. The mostly intact dead gator was found sticking out of a hole in the midsection of the python, and wads of gator skin were found in the snake's gastrointestinal tract.
(http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/10/1006_051006_pythoneatsgator.html)
2005 Richard Adams authored “The Philosopher Fish: Sturgeon, Caviar, and the Geography of Desire."
(Econ, 2/26/05, p.85)
2005 Vilmos Csanyi authored “If Dogs Could Talk: Exploring the Canine Mind."
(NH, 2/05, p.48)
2006 Dec 5, Knut became the first polar bear born to be born in Germany’s Berlin Zoo in 30 years. He was rejected by his mother and spent his first 44 days in an incubator. Zookeeper Thomas Doerflein (d.2008 at 44) raised the cub by hand.
(www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,461624,00.html)(SFC, 9/26/08, p.B9)
2006 William J and Winifred A. Krause authored “The Opossum: Its Amazing Story."
(http://web.missouri.edu/~krausew/Histology/Home_files/opossum.pdf)
2006 Biologist Bill Erickson of the US Environmental Protection Agency wrote a memo de-scribing hundreds of documented wildlife deaths due to poisoning from pesticides aimed at rats. Later studies indicated that new generations of rat poisons were killing a large variety of wild animals including mountain lions, foxes, eagles, owls and vultures.
(SFC, 12/17/10, p.A23)
2007 Mar 6, In western India wildlife officials said poachers had killed three highly endangered Asiatic lions in their only remaining sanctuary, removing their claws and bones and raising fears for the future of these rare cats.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 24, Thieves in Cambodia poisoned a 62-year-old domesticated elephant and sawed off its tusks to sell on the black market. In 2008 2 men were arrested for the killing and faced up to 3 years in prison for the intentional destruction of private property.
(AP, 3/27/07)(AP, 3/26/08)
2007 May 7, Hong Kong newspapers reported that an unidentified animal illness has spread in two southern Chinese cities, infecting at least 1,300 pigs and killing more than 300. The diseased pigs began dying in Gaoyao and Yunfu in Guangdong province following Chinese New Year celebrations in February. The illness was soon identified as a strain of blue ear disease. Blue ear disease, also called porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, was first identified in the United States in 1987. The disease this year killed an estimated 45 million pigs in China.
(AP, 5/8/07)(SFC, 5/8/07, p.A17)(AP, 5/10/07)(Econ, 12/20/14, p.68)
2007 Jun 23, Authorities said an outbreak of distemper has been killing seal pups off the coast of Denmark, warning that thousands of seals could die if the disease spreads to other northern European countries.
(AP, 6/23/07)
2007 Aug 20, In China Jia Youling, chief veterinary officer, said that the Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS), aka as blue-ear pig disease, head been brought under control. He said 257,000 pigs in 26 provinces had been infected. 68,000 had died from the dis-ease and 175,000 were destroyed.
(Econ, 8/25/07, p.41)
2007 Oct 9, In Puerto Rico animal control workers seized dozens of dogs and cats from housing projects in the town of Barceloneta and hurled them to their deaths from a bridge in the neighboring town of Vega Baja. Mayor Sol Luis Fontanez blamed a contractor hired to take the animals to a shelter. In 2008 a Puerto Rican judge found a contractor and two of his workers not guilty of animal cruelty due to lack of evidence. International anger led more than 50,000 people worldwide to sign a petition threatening to boycott travel to the Caribbean island. Tour-ism officials estimated Puerto Rico lost more than $15 million as a result.
(AP, 10/13/07)(AP, 9/10/08)(AP, 9/16/10)
2007 Oct 30, Washoe the chimp (42), who had learned American sign Language, died at Central Washington Univ. in Ellensburg, Wa. Cognitive researchers had adopted the 10-month-old chimp from military researchers in 1966.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.A2)
2007 Nov 11, Animal rights activists attacked as inhumane an Australian state government's plans to shoot more than 10,000 wild horses to protect the environment.
(AP, 11/11/07)
2007 Dec 25, A Siberian tiger named Tatiana (4) escaped its enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo, killing Carlos Sousa (17) of San Jose and mauling two others. The same animal had chewed a keeper’s arm during an attack last December.
(AP, 12/26/07)(SFC, 12/26/07, p.A1)(SFC, 12/27/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 29, Nonja (55), a Sumatran orangutan, was found dead at the Miami Metro Zoo. She had lived in Miami since 1983 and was believed to be the world’s oldest orangutan.
(AP, 12/30/07)
2007 In New York state it was discovered that bats were dying a disease called white-nose syndrome, a fungal diseases. In 2011 the fungus Geomyces destructans was identified as the cause. The fungus responsible was later identified as Pseudogymnoascus destructans.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.36)(SFC, 10/28/11, p.A18)(SSFC, 7/7/19, p.C10)
2008 Jan 3, Sir David Attenborough told the Independent that between a third and half of the world's 6,000 amphibian species could be wiped out in the next few decades by a species chytrid fungus.
(http://tinyurl.com/38tyec)(SFC, 1/5/08, p.B6)
2008 Jan 30, It was reported that bats were dying off by the thousands as they hibernated in caves and mines around New York and Vermont, sending researchers scrambling to find the cause of mysterious condition dubbed "white nose syndrome." Up to 11,000 bats were found dead last winter and many more were showing signs of illness this winter.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Mar 23, It was reported that 1,195 migrating bison had been culled in Montana after leaving Yellowstone in search of food. The culling was expected to continue through April.
(SSFC, 3/23/08, p.A4)
2008 Mar 28, The grey wolf of the northern Rocky Mountains was taken off the federal protection list after reaching a population of some 1,500 in the greater Yellowstone region. Wolves were reintroduced in 1995 after disappearing from the area in 1926. On July 18 a judge re-stored protection for the wolves in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, derailing plans for public wolf hunts this fall. On Sep 29 a federal court overturned the Bush administration’s decision to re-move gray wolves from the endangered species list in the Great lakes region.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.44)(SFC, 7/19/08, p.A4)(WSJ, 9/30/08, p.A1)
2008 Mar, In South Africa tens of thousands of swallows fell dead in Limpopo province as wet weather prevented them from eating properly less than a week before their migration for Europe.
(SFC, 4/12/08, p.B6)
2008 May 1, South Africa lifted a 13-year ban on killing elephants. The country had some 18,000 elephants.
(WSJ, 5/2/08, p.A8)
2008 May 3, Big Brown pulled won the Kentucky Derby 4 3/4 lengths ahead of the filly Eight Belles, who was euthanized by injection on the track with 2 broken ankles.
(AP, 5/4/08)
2008 May 4, In the Cayman Islands 5 captive Grand Cayman Blue Iguanas, critically endangered lizards that resemble miniature turquoise dragons, were found scattered across a breeding park in the British dependency after they apparently were stomped and gouged.
(AP, 5/7/08)
2008 May 13, Timothy Kooyman (24), a homeless man in Rancho Cucamonga, Ca., was arrested on animal cruelty charges. In 2009 additional charges of using scissors to cut off feline tails was added to counts of soaking cats in gas and torching them. Kooyman pleaded insanity.
(www.animalshelter.org/forum/Serial_Cat_Torturer,_Timothy_Kooyman/m_1804/tm.htm) (SFC, 2/27/09, p.B4)
2008 May 14, US Interior Sec. Dirk Kempthorne said the government will list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, making it the 1st animal to win protection due to global warming.
(SFC, 5/15/08, p.A1)
2008 May 19, In Australia the Tasmania state government said the Tasmanian devil will be listed as an endangered species this week as a result of a deadly and disfiguring cancer out-break. Animal rights activists said Australian authorities have started the controversial killing of about 400 kangaroos on the outskirts of Australia's capital of Canberra.
(AFP, 5/19/08)(AP, 5/19/08)
2008 May 22, Several companies agreed to pay a combined $24 million to pet owners to re-solve lawsuits over contaminated pet food linked to the illness and death of animals. The settlement involving Canada-based Menu Foods Income Fund and other pet food manufacturers and suppliers was outlined in documents filed in the US District Court in New Jersey.
(Reuters, 5/23/08)
2008 Mar 28, The grey wolf of the northern Rocky Mountains was taken off the federal protection list after reaching a population of some 1,500 in the greater Yellowstone region. Wolves were reintroduced in 1995 after disappearing from the area in 1926. On July 18 a judge re-stored protection for the wolves in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, derailing plans for public wolf hunts this fall. On Sep 29 a federal court overturned the Bush administration’s decision to re-move gray wolves from the endangered species list in the Great lakes region.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.44)(SFC, 7/19/08, p.A4)(WSJ, 9/30/08, p.A1)
2008 Jun 25, Spain's parliament voiced its support for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has called for such rights for non-humans.
(Reuters, 6/25/08)
2008 Jul 22, California Gov. Schwarzenegger signed SB685 giving state pet owners the right to set up a legally enforceable trust to care for their animals. The bill was sponsored by Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo).
(SFC, 7/26/08, p.C1)(http://tinyurl.com/5uppps)
2008 Aug, Puerto Rico passed an animal protection law, nearly a year after authorities charged the owner and two employees of a private animal control company with taking away dozens of pet dogs and some cats from public housing projects and throwing them off a bridge.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2008 Sep 7, The conservation group WWF said Australian koalas are dying by the thousands as a result of land clearing in the country's northeast, while millions of birds and reptiles are also perishing. Queensland state last week revealed that 375,000 hectares of bush were cleared in 2005-06, a figure WWF said would have resulted in the deaths of two million mammals.
(AP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 9, Morocco said it would start vaccinating all livestock after the outbreak of Peste des Petits Ruminants, a deadly viral disease, ahead of the Eid festival when millions of animals are sacrificed.
(AFP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 22, in Australia 400 sheep died in a road accident, prompting animal rights activists to repeat their call for an end to the long distance transportation of livestock for slaughter.
(AFP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 27, It was reported that the elephant population in Congo’s Virunga National Park had dropped to under 200, mostly due to poaching. In 1964 there were an estimated 2,900. In 2006 the number had dropped to 400.
(Econ, 9/27/08, p.62)
2008 Oct 1, In Australia a major report to the government on global warming suggested that Australians should eat kangaroos instead of cattle and sheep.
(AP, 10/1/08)
2008 Oct 14, Gray wolves in the northern US Rocky Mountains returned to the endangered species list, thanks to a court victory by environmental groups over the US government [see Mar 28, 2008].
(AFP, 10/14/08)
2008 Oct 17, The Bush administration named the beluga whale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet an endangered species, despite opposition from Gov. Palin. Only 375 beluga whales remained there as opposed to some 1,300 in the 1970s. In 2011 a US federal judge upheld the listing.
(SFC, 10/18/08, p.A3)(SFC, 11/22/11, p.A6)
2008 Oct 20, In China, a veterinarian said some 1,500 dogs, bred for their raccoon-like fur, have died after eating feed tainted with the same chemical that contaminated dairy products and sickened tens of thousands of babies nationwide.
(AP, 10/20/08)
2008 Oct 28, Namibia sold more than seven tons of ivory for $1.1 million, in the first legal auction of elephant tusks in nearly a decade, exclusively for Chinese and Japanese buyers.
(AP, 10/28/08)
2008 Oct 30, In Australia 4 teenagers were charged with attacking an almost blind greater flamingo at Adelaide Zoo. The bird is believed to be the oldest of its kind in the world.
(AFP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 31, The Leakey Foundation awarded its Leakey Prize to American primatologist Jane Goodall and Japanese scientist Toshidada Nishida for their work with chimpanzees.
(SFC, 10/30/08, p.B1)
2008 Nov 3, Zimbabwean officials say they have sold almost 4 tons of ivory for over $450,000 and the money will go to the country's cash-strapped wildlife authorities.
(AP, 11/3/08)
2008 Nov 17, The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said a ton of ivory items and 57 suspects were netted in a four-month operation billed Africa's largest-ever crackdown on wildlife crime. Operation Baba also seized cheetah, leopard, serval cat and python skins as well as hippo teeth at several markets, airports and border crossings in Congo Brazzaville, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia.
(AFP, 11/17/08)
2008 Dec 9, A South African man accused of attempting to smuggle hundreds of rare chameleons, snakes, lizards and frogs out of Madagascar inside his jacket and luggage was convicted and sentenced to a year in jail.
(AP, 12/9/08)
2008 James Lever, a book editor, authored “Me Cheetah: My Life in Hollywood," a pseudo-autobiography by Tarzan’s friendly chimpanzee. It was first published in Britain before the author’s name was revealed. The American edition came out in 2009.
(WSJ, 3/13/09, p.W10)
2008 Marion Nestle authored “Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine," which illuminates the connections between the food supplies of humans, farm animals and pets.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.97)
2008 Irene Pepperberg authored “Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Uncovered a Hid-den World of Animal Intelligence – And Formed a Deep bond in the Process.
(Econ, 10/25/08, p.100)
2008 In Nepal a WWF survey found just 121 adult tigers of breeding age in the country.
(AFP, 6/3/11)
2009 Jan 16, In India a herd of nearly 150 hungry elephants rampaged through a village in the remote northeast, trampling to death a young family as they slept in their hut.
(AP, 1/17/09)
2009 Jan 16, South African police and game park rangers said they have arrested 11 suspects in an international rhinoceros poaching ring. Some of the rhinos had their horns hacked from them while they were still alive.
(AP, 1/16/09)
2009 Jan 30, Indian officials said tigers have killed at least three children and four adults in northern Uttar Pradesh in recent weeks, forcing frightened villagers to stay indoors while forest rangers search for the wild cats.
(AP, 1/30/09)
2009 Feb 4, Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe signed into law new animal-cruelty restrictions that make aggravated cruelty to cats, dogs and horses a felony on the first offense. According to the US Humane Society Arkansas became the 46th state to make cruelty to animals a felony.
(AP, 2/5/09)
2009 Feb 16, In Stamford, Connecticut, a 200-pound domesticated chimpanzee was shot dead by police after a violent rampage that left a friend of its owner badly mauled. Travis (15) had once starred in TV commercials for Old Navy and Coca-Cola. The chimp was acting so agitated earlier that afternoon that the owner gave him the anti-anxiety drug Xanax in some tea. Owner Sandra Herold later denied giving Xanax to the chimp. Charla Nash lost her hands, nose, lips and eyelids in the attack. Doctors later said she will be blind for life.
(AP, 2/17/09)(SFC, 2/19/09, p.A5)(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Feb 21, In western Indonesia a Sumatran tiger mauled two illegal loggers to death, bringing to 5 the number of people killed by the critically endangered cats in less than a month.
(AP, 2/22/09)
2009 Mar 9, In Sweden researchers reported that a chimpanzee named Santino had collected a stash of rocks and then hurled them at visitors at the Furuvik Zoo, confirming that apes can plan ahead just like humans.
(SFC, 3/10/09, p.A3)
2009 Mar 14, In Algeria Islamists cut the throat of a shepherd and 300 of his sheep in Chatabia village near the Tunisian border. Three family members and an elected official died in a bomb explosion the following morning as they headed to the site of the killing.
(AFP, 3/16/09)
2009 Mar 18, Russia said it was banning the hunting of baby harp seals, weeks after PM Putin reportedly called the hunt a bloody industry.
(SFC, 3/19/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 19, A report issued by the US Interior Department said one-third of the nation's endangered birds are in Hawaii. 31 Hawaiian bird species were listed as endangered, more than anywhere else in the country. The native birds were threatened by the destruction of their habitats by invasive plant species and feral animals like pigs, goats and sheep, habitat loss and in-sect born diseases. The report also said energy production of all types — wind, ethanol and mountaintop coal mining — was contributing to steep drops in bird populations.
(AP, 3/20/09)
2009 Mar 23, Canadian officials declared the nation’s annual seal hunt open, despite a potential EU ban on the import of seal products.
(SFC, 3/24/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 23, In eastern Indonesia 2 Komodo dragons mauled a fruit-picker to death. An 8-year-old boy was killed in 2007, the first recorded deadly attack on a human by one of the endangered lizards in three decades.
(AP, 3/24/09)
2009 Mar 24, In Indonesia rangers found the bodies of 2 rare Sumatran elephants with gun-shots to the head hours after they were used for a patrol against illegal loggers and several hundred yards from their camp.
(AP, 3/31/09)
2009 Mar 25, Conservation International, a Washington D.C.-based conservation group, announced the discovery of over 50 new animal species in a remote, mountainous region of Papua New Guinea. The group spent the past several months analyzing more than 600 animal species found during its expedition to the South Pacific island nation in July and August.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, China’s state media said forestry officials in far western China have resorted to scattering abortion pills near gerbil burrows in a bid to halt a rodent plague threatening the desert region's fragile ecosystem.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 27, New research suggested that crabs not only suffer pain but also retain a memory of it. In 2021 a British government study said crabs and lobsters have the capacity to feel pain and suffer distress when harmed.
(http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/03/27/crabs.memorypain/)(SSFC, 11/28/21, p.B10)
2009 Mar 29, In Australia thousands of poisonous cane toads met their fate as gleeful hunters gathered for a celebratory mass killing of the hated amphibians, with many of the creatures' corpses being turned into fertilizer for the very farmers they've plagued for years.
(AP, 3/29/09)
2009 Apr 20, In Florida 7 more Venezuelan polo horses sickened just before a tournament died overnight, raising the death toll to 21. Officials said they may have been killed by some type of poison. On April 23 Franck’s Pharmacy admitted to having prepared a generic version of Biodyl, a vitamin supplement banned in the US, which was administered to all the dead horses.
(AP, 4/20/09)(SFC, 4/24/09, p.A7)
2009 Apr 24, In India's remote northeast Assam state wild elephants demolished two thatched-roof huts, killing five villagers in a pre-dawn attack. India's northeast has the world's highest number of wild Asiatic elephants, with 7,000 estimated in the states of Assam and Meghalaya alone.
(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 27, America, Canada, Europe and Japan promised to cooperate on validating alter-natives to using animals in medical research. An estimated 50-100 million animals were used in research annually around the world.
(Econ, 5/9/09, p.18)
2009 Apr 27, In Kenya 2 men pleaded guilty in court to illegally possessing 1,500 pounds (700 kilograms) of elephant tusks in what was believed to be the largest seizure of illegal ivory in re-cent years. Rangers and police arrested the two, a Kenyan and a Tanzanian, on April 25, when the Kenya Wildlife Service acted on a tip about planned ivory smuggling in Amboseli National Park.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 29, Egypt began slaughtering the roughly 300,000 pigs in the country as a precautionary measure against the spread of swine flu even though no cases have been reported here yet.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 30, The Iraqi government decided to kill three wild boars at the Baghdad Zoo amid worldwide fears of swine flu. No date was set for their killing. Two US Marines and a sailor were killed during combat operations in Anbar province.
(AP, 5/1/09)(SFC, 5/2/09, p.A2)
2009 May 2, Mine That Bird, a gelding from New Mexico trained by Bennie Woolley Jr., won the 135th Kentucky Derby. With an inspired ride on the rail from Calvin Borel the 50-to-1 odds win was one of the greatest upsets in America's most famous horse race.
(AP, 5/3/09)(SSFC, 5/3/09, p.C1)
2009 May 2, In Trinidad 4 police officers allegedly hijacked a smuggling boat from Venezuela and stole 1,000 endangered birds and monkeys along with 400 pounds of wild animal meat. Investigators acting on a tip found birds and monkeys in people's homes, in pet shops and even along roads in Port-of-Spain.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, Wolves in parts of the northern Rockies and the Great Lakes region come off the endangered species list, opening them to public hunts in some states for the first time in decades. States such as Idaho and Montana planned to resume hunting the animals this fall, but no hunting has been proposed in the Great Lakes region. About 300 wolves in Wyoming will remain on the list because the US Fish and Wildlife Service rejected the state's plan for a "predator zone" where wolves could be shot on sight. An estimated 4,000 wolves lived in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 5, Australia's army started shooting 6,000 kangaroos to thin their population on an army training ground near the capital, outraging conservationists who have vowed to protest.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 5, The European Parliament voted to update the rules on the use of animals in re-search and to ban imports of seal products, including fur coats and even omega-3 pills, trying to force Canada to end the annual seal hunt that animal rights groups call barbaric.
(AP, 5/5/09)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.84)
2009 May 7, Animal welfare activists said more than 300 stray dogs, dumped on isolated is-lands in Malaysia’s Selangor state, turned to cannibalism after weeks of starvation.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, In northwestern Indonesia 2 rare Sumatran elephants, believed to have been poisoned with cyanide-laced pineapples, were found dead with their tusks removed. Just 3,000 Sumatran elephants are believed to still be living in their natural surroundings.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 14, In Australia a court suspended a government program to kill 7,000 kangaroos on federal land near the Australian capital, halting efforts to thin a mushrooming population of the beloved marsupials that authorities say are threatening endangered species.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 18, A leading animal rights group criticized Egypt for using "shocking and cruel" methods to slaughter the country's pigs over swine flu fears, responding to a YouTube video that showed men skewering squealing piglets with large kitchen knives and hitting others with crowbars.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 19, Scientists in New York unveiled the skeleton of what they said could be the common ancestor to humans, apes and other primates. The tiny creature, officially known as Darwinius masillae, but dubbed Ida, lived 47 million years ago and is unusually well preserved. The monkey-like creature, discovered in 1983, was preserved through the ages in Germany's Messel Pit, a crater rich in Eocene Epoch fossils.
(AFP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, Environmental groups in Indonesia said Singapore-based Asia Pulp & Paper, one of the world's largest paper companies, plans to clear a large swath of unprotected forest in Indonesia being used as a sanctuary for critically endangered orangutans.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 23, It was reported that millions of bats in at least 7 US states (Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia) have died from white-nose syndrome, a fungal diseases. In 2011 the fungus Geomyces destructans was identified as the cause. The fungus responsible was later identified as Pseudogymnoascus destructans.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.36)(SFC, 10/28/11, p.A18)(SSFC, 7/7/19, p.C10)
2009 May 26, In New Zealand an animal keeper was mauled to death by a rare white tiger at a wildlife park in New Zealand while visitors watched in horror. South African national Dalu Mncube was attacked after he and a colleague entered the cage at Zion Wildlife Park on New Zealand's North Island to clean it.
(AP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 30, In South Africa 55 pilot whales beached near Cape Point, prompting a massive rescue operation. The rescue efforts failed and 44 of the whales were shot to end their suffering. The rest died of stress and organ failure.
(AP, 5/30/09)(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Malawi an international organization began moving more than 60 elephants from Phirilongwe village, south of Lake Malawi, to the Majete Wildlife Reserve. Local farmers had used violence to protect their crops from raids by the elephants, and at least 10 people and a number of elephants have recently died in such confrontations.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 12, In Indonesia a male Sumatran elephant was found dead in a pulp plantation in Riau province, Sumatra with its tusks removed. Six other endangered Sumatran elephants had been killed in Riau in the last two months and two were found with missing tusks.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 14, In Florida Tyler Hayes Weinman (18), whose divorced parents live in the neighborhoods where many of the cats were killed, was charged with 19 counts each of animal cruelty and improperly disposing of an animal body. Police said they investigated more than 30 cat deaths since May and were flooded with tips from concerned citizens.
(AP, 6/15/09)(SFC, 6/15/09, p.A6)
2009 Jun 17, The number of Nebraska cattle herds quarantined because of bovine tuberculosis concerns jumped to 42 and Colorado and South Dakota were warned the disease may have already spread there.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 18, Canadian officials said about 70,000 harbor seals were killed in this year’s hunt out of a commercial quota of 273,000 animals. The 7-month hunt had ended earlier this week.
(SFC, 6/19/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 21, Ukrainian border guards seized 250 turtles being smuggled into the country on a train from Uzbekistan, where they had been hidden and strapped down with tape to prevent them from moving.
(AFP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jul 1, Bolivia enacted what animal rights defenders called the world's first law that prohibits the use of animals in circuses. A handful of other countries have banned the use of wild animals in circuses, but the Bolivian ban includes domestic animals as well. The law would be-come effective on July 1, 2010.
(AP, 7/30/09)(AP, 4/16/10)
2009 Jul 1, In Namibia the annual seal hunt opened despite objections by animal welfare groups. Hunters were expected to club over 90,000 seals including 85,000 pups by Nov 15.
(SFC, 7/7/09, p.A2)(AFP, 8/4/09)
2009 Jul 1, In San Sebastian, Spain, a meeting was underway of five regional fisheries management organizations, tasked primarily with protecting tuna populations worldwide. The groups representing 80 countries met for the first time in two years to assess stocks of the fish and determine what more can be done to save the 23 tuna populations, nine of which are under threat.
(AP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jul 1, In southern Thailand a rampaging elephant stomped three rubber tappers to death after it was left to wander freely by its handler.
(AP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jul 14, In Nairobi, Kenya, authorities seized over 660 pounds of illegal ivory and black rhinoceros horn, some of it still bloody, on a Mozambique-to-Asia plane.
(SFC, 7/15/09, p.A2)
2009 Jul 17, In Namibia 2 European journalists were fined $625 (US) by a court for filming the annual seal hunt along the coast of the southern African nation. On July 31 British investigative journalist Jim Wilckens and South African cameraman Bart Smithers were found guilty of violating the Marine Resources Act by entering a restricted area without permission.
(AFP, 7/18/09)(AFP, 8/4/09)
2009 Jul 23, In China female panda You You (pronounced Yo Yo) gave birth to the new cub at the Wolong Giant Panda Research Center in southwestern Sichuan. This was the first successful birth of a panda cub from artificial insemination using frozen sperm, giving a new option for the notoriously poor breeders.
(AP, 7/24/09)
2009 Jul 27, European Union nations gave their final approval to a ban on imports of seal products in an effort to force Canada to end its annual seal hunt.
(AP, 7/27/09)
2009 Aug 12, In Montana a grizzly bear named Maximus, one of the largest in the state, was found shot to death on a ranch near Dupuyer. He had stood 7½ feet tall and weighed 800 lbs.
(SSFC, 8/23/09, p.A7)
2009 Aug 16, In Uruguay some 20 dead Fraser's dolphins turned up this weekend on the Punta Negra beach in Piriapolis outside Montevideo. Experts theorized the tropical dolphins be-came disoriented or were carried there by changing water currents.
(AP, 8/18/09)
2009 Aug 22, In Indonesia a group of thieves killed an endangered Sumatran tiger in a zoo in Jambi province on Sumatra island and stole most of its body. Police suspected the theft was motivated by the animal's valuable fur and bones. The number of Sumatran tigers has dwindled to about 250 from about 1,000 in the 1970s, according to the Washington DC-based World Wildlife Fund.
(AP, 8/23/09)
2009 Aug 22, The West Australian town of Broome, with deep historical ties to Japan, voted to sever its sister city relationship with the Japanese village of Taiji to protest an annual dolphin slaughter near there. At an extraordinary meeting on October 13 Broome rescinded the decision, which it said was made in haste and without wide consultation, and issued an apology to the Japanese community in Broome and Taiji, their families and friends for any disrespect caused by council's resolution. But it noted that it did not condone the harvest of dolphins in Taiji, with which it forged sister-city relations in 1981.
(AP, 8/24/09)(AFP, 10/16/09)
2009 Aug 24, It was reported that Peruvian police expecting to find a shipment of cocaine hidden in a crate holding two live turkeys were surprised to discover the drug surgically implanted inside the birds.
(AP, 8/24/09)
2009 Sep 1, Idaho hunters began stalking gray wolves, following their removal from the federal endangered species a few months earlier. The quota for this season was 220. The quota in Montana was set at 75.
(SFC, 9/2/09, p.A8)
2009 Sep 1, In the Bahamas an amended fisheries laws took effect to give full protection to all sea turtles found in the Atlantic archipelago's waters by banning the harvest, possession, purchase and sale of the endangered reptiles, including their eggs.
(AP, 8/30/09)
2009 Sep 9, Conservationists said poaching and drought-related hunger have killed more than 100 of Kenya's famous elephants in the north of the country so far this year. Around 23,000 elephants live in Kenya but populations can be devastated by poaching within a couple of years. A recent survey in Chad showed its elephant population had declined from 3,800 to just over 600 in the past three years.
(AP, 9/9/09)
2009 Sep 25, An environmental group said a gecko with leopard-like spots on its body and a fanged frog that eats birds are among 163 new species discovered last year in the Mekong River region of Southeast Asia, which included Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.
(AP, 9/25/09)
2009 Sep 25, Palau announced to the UN General Assembly that it is creating a shark and ray sanctuary over some 240,000 square miles around its coastline. Palau had just one boat to patrol the protected waters. Some 20,000 people populated the 190-square mile archipelago.
(SFC, 9/25/09, p.A6)
2009 Sep 29, Ethiopian and Kenyan authorities seized more than 2,600 pounds (1,200 kilo-grams) of ivory from nearly 100 illegally killed elephants. Specially trained dogs sniffed out a consignment of bloodstained tusks at Kenya's national airport. Another shipment of tusks sent by the same individual had been seized a day earlier at the airport in Ethiopia's capital.
(AP, 9/30/09)
2009 Sep 30, Bangladesh awarded a farmer who killed more than 83,000 rats and launched a monthlong campaign nationwide to kill millions more, to protect crops and reduce the need for food imports.
(AP, 9/30/09)
2009 Oct 13, Montana wildlife commissioners shut down gray wolf hunting in backcountry adjacent to Yellowstone National Park after 9 wolves were killed in recent weeks. The statewide quota was kept at 75.
(SFC, 10/14/09, p.A4)
2009 Oct 19, Japan said it has caught 59 whales off Hokkaido, one short of the maximum al-lowed by international guidelines, under a research program that critics say is a cover for commercial whaling.
(AP, 10/19/09)
2009 Oct 22, The Obama administration said it is designating over 200,000 square miles in Alaska and off its coast as critical habitat for polar bears.
(SFC, 10/22/09, p.A7)
2009 Oct 27, In Canada 2 coyotes attacked and killed Taylor Mitchell (19), a singer-songwriter from Toronto, as she hiked alone in Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Nova Scotia.
(SFC, 10/29/09, p.A2)
2009 Oct 30, The BBC said Anton Turner (38), a British guide working on a children's television show in Tanzania, was killed after being charged by an elephant. The show "Serious Explorers" followed David Livingstone's famous 19th-century trek across the African continent.
(AP, 10/31/09)
2009 Nov 2, In Kashmir the bodies of 2 senior rebels, mauled to death by a wild bear, were recovered. Police said they were members of the region's most powerful group, Hizbul Mujahedin and had been active in Indian Kashmir for more than six years.
(AFP, 11/3/09)
2009 Nov 13, India officials said all elephants living in Indian zoos and circuses will be moved to wildlife parks and game sanctuaries where the animals can graze more freely.
(AP, 11/13/09)
2009 Nov 16, Thai police arrested Samart Chokechoyma (36) and Kanokwan Wongsaroj (38) on charges of smuggling African ivory into the country to supply shops that sell jewelry and trinkets, including to customers in the US. DNA tests showed that it was of African origin.
(AP, 11/17/09)
2009 Nov 19, Four whaling ships left Japan for a five-month hunt in the Southern Ocean, using a loophole in an international moratorium that allows their killing for lethal "research."
(AFP, 11/20/09)
2009 Nov 24, In Nepal the 2-day Gadhimai festival, celebrated every five years, was attended by many Hindus from India as well as Nepal. More than 200,000 buffaloes, pigs, goats, chickens and pigeons were expected to be slaughtered this year.
(AP, 11/20/09)(AP, 11/24/09)
2009 Nov 25, Australian Northern Territory officials said some 6,000 feral camels are running wild in the remote outback community of Docker River in search of water, smashing infrastructure and invading the airstrip.
(AFP, 11/25/09)
2009 Nov 27, Bison returned to Mexico for the first time since the 1800s, with Mexican authorities releasing 23 donated US animals in northern Chihuahua state. The donated bison came from the Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota.
(AP, 11/27/09)
2009 Nov 30, Interpol and the Kenya Wildlife Service said African authorities over the last 3 months had raided shops, intercepted vehicles at checkpoints and used sniffer dogs to detect and seize over 3,800 pounds (1,768kg) of illegal elephant ivory in a six-nation operation. This involved the wildlife authorities, police and customs departments of Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
(AP, 11/30/09)
2009 Dec 2, Cambodian police confiscated two tons of live snakes and tortoises and arrested two men trying to smuggle the slithering cargo up a river from Cambodia to Vietnam. Police arrested two Cambodians, aged 17 and 20, who said they were hired to transport the cargo but did not know the identities of their employers.
(AP, 12/3/09)
2009 Dec 5, In Ohio a barn fire killed two workers and 43 horses at a harness racing track in Lebanon.
(AP, 12/7/09)
2009 Dec 7, ITV, the British TV channel behind hit show "I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!", apologized for the death of a rat during filming in Australia, as the stars who killed it faced police charges.
(AFP, 12/7/09)
2009 Dec 11, Australia's PM Kevin Rudd threatened legal action against Japan if it does not stop its research whaling program that kills up to 1,000 whales a year.
(AP, 12/11/09)
2009 Dec 12, In Italy at least 5 sperm whales died after a pod of nine beached on the southern coast. Experts called it a rare and puzzling mass beaching for such a large species. Officials were considering euthanizing the last two whales still trapped in high waves.
(AP, 12/12/09)
2009 Dec 15, Australian scientists reported the discovery of an octopus in Indonesia that collects coconut shells for shelter, unusually sophisticated behavior that the researchers believe is the first evidence of tool use in an invertebrate animal.
(AP, 12/15/09)
2009 Dec 15, Mexican authorities found the decapitated bodies of four men in the border city of Tijuana. A grenade attack on a police station in western Mexico wounded a pregnant woman and her 3-year-old daughter. US officials delivered five helicopters to Mexico to help the country in its fight against drug cartels. 7 vehicles were burned in Mexico City. Investigators found evidence linking an animal rights group to homemade bombs that burned the cars.
(AP, 12/15/09)(AP, 12/16/09)
2009 Dec 17, Malaysian marine police rescued 62 pangolins. 2 days later Malaysian wildlife authorities said they rescued 130 pangolins and arrested two men attempting to smuggle the protected species. They were expected to be illegally exported to China, Japan and Hong Kong, where animal's meat is considered a delicacy with medicinal qualities.
(AFP, 12/20/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangolin)
2009 Dec 20, Four of the world's last known 8 northern white rhinos landed in Kenya and were transported to a game park. No white rhinos are known to remain in the wild, and the animals transported have produced no offspring after nearly 24 years in a Czech zoo. Officials hoped the endangered mammals will reproduce and save their subspecies. Two northern whites remained behind; two others are in San Diego.
(AP, 12/20/09)
2009 Dec 22, Chinese local media reported that a man who killed and ate what may have been the last wild Indochinese tiger in China was sentenced to 12 years in jail. Kang Wannian, a villager from Mengla, Yunnan Province, met the tiger in February while gathering freshwater clams in a nature reserve near China's border with Laos. He claimed to have killed it in self-defense.
(Reuters, 12/22/09)
2009 Dec 23, Japanese whalers and militant conservationists clashed in the Antarctic Ocean over two days, with weapons including water cannon, blinding lasers and bottles of rancid acid.
(AP, 12/23/09)
2009 Dec 26, In New Zealand some 20 pilot whales died on Colville Beach after stranding but holiday-makers and conservation workers managed to coax 43 others back out to sea. Some 105 long-finned pilot whales, stranded on South Island, died.
(AP, 12/27/09)(AP, 12/28/09)
2009 Dec 28, In northern Nevada federal officials began a 2-month roundup of some 2,500 wild horses due to overpopulation. Federal managers on Feb 5 said the roundup was completed with 1,922 mustangs removed from the Calico Mountains Complex. 86 horses died in the government roundup, mostly from stress and trauma.
(SFC, 12/29/09, p.A8)(SFC, 2/6/10, p.A6)(SFC, 4/20/10, p.A6)
2009 Dec 28, In central Kenya poachers killed an endangered southern white rhino in a privately owned ranch and cut off its horns. Wildlife Service rangers tracked down the suspected poachers and suspected buyers on Dec 3 and caught them with two rhino horns weighing more than 7 kg (16 pounds) and 647,000 Kenyan shillings ($8,500) in cash. 12 suspects, all of them Kenyans, were arrested as other suspects escaped.
(AP, 1/4/10)
2009 Dec 31, In St. George, Utah, a trailer at an RV park containing some 19 pet pythons caught fire. 11 of the snakes survived.
(SFC, 1/2/10, p.A4)
2009 Jonathan Safran Foer authored “Eating Animals."
(SSFC, 11/8/09, p.E1)
2009 Brad Kessler authored “Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, A short History of Herding and the Art of Making Cheese."
(Econ, 7/4/09, p.81)
2009 In California an almost completely hairless deer was found dead near Groveland in the western Sierra Nevada. Exotic lice plucked from the deer were identified as Bovicola tibialis, a species that normally feeds on fallow deer native to Europe and Asia. Another exotic louse, Damalinia (Cervicola), documented since 1996 in Oregon, had also spread to deer in northern California.
(SFC, 5/27/13, p.A7)
2009 In Florida the tally of manatee deaths reached a record 429 for the year, surpassing the 2006 record of 417.
(SFC, 1/9/10, p.A4)
2009 British animal rights activist Debbie Vincent became the public face of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) after seven members of the group were jailed for a total of 50 years for their role in an animal rights campaign.
(AFP, 4/17/14)
2009 In southern China the city of Yulin, Guangxi province, introduced an annual dog-eating festival.
(Econ 7/8/17, p.38)
2009 In the Netherlands 6 people died this year from Q-fever. Some 2,300 had become infected by Coxiella burnetti, the infectious bug responsible for the disease. The bug is released into the air during birthing or miscarriages by infected goats. 40,000 pregnant goats were slated to be destroyed in early 2010.
(Econ, 1/9/10, p.52)
2010 Jan 1, It was reported that Australian researchers have cracked the genetic origin of the deadly cancer that is threatening to wipe out Tasmanian devils, raising hopes that the animal's future is safe.
(AFP, 1/1/10)
2010 Jan 4, In Kenya US citizen Sharon Brown (39) and her daughter Margaux (1) were trampled to death when a lone elephant charged out of the brush just outside Mount Kenya National Park.
(AP, 1/6/10)
2010 Jan 8, In Puerto Rico officials said they have killed 800 monkeys blamed for scavenging crops and damaging natural resources in southwest region. Most of those killed were patas monkeys. About 200 rhesus monkeys were sent to the Caribbean Primate Research Center at the University of Puerto Rico and to other countries. The monkeys had escaped from research labs in the 1960s and '70s.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 13, In Florida a 3-day state-coordinated hunt began to track down invasive pythons. It was feared that the African rock python would begin breeding with the Burmese python, which has already gained a foothold in the Everglades, and produce a new “super snake."
(SFC, 1/15/10, p.A8)
2010 Jan 13, In Seattle, Washington Tohru Shigemura (71), a Japanese psychiatrist traveling the world as a big game hunter, was charged in connection with smuggling black bear gall bladders. He had pretended to be a US citizen to buy guns, which he used to kill 6 black bears in and around the Quinault Indian Reservation.
(SFC, 1/14/10, p.A4)
2010 Jan 14, Austrian scientists stopped a 2-week old avalanche experiment that involved burying pigs in snow and monitoring their deaths, following vehement protests by animal rights activists.
(SFC, 1/15/10, p.A2)
2010 Jan 19, The World Wildlife Fund warned that the wild tiger faced extinction in China after having been decimated by poaching and the destruction of its natural habitat.
(AFP, 1/19/10)
2010 Jan 22, In Vietnam 19 rare Asiatic moon bears, found at an illegal Taiwanese-owned operation in southern Vietnam, reached a new home at Tam Dao National Park, joining 29 bears already at the rescue center. Ultrasound tests had found evidence of thickened gall bladders, a telltale sign of gall bladder milking. Some may need to have the organ removed be-cause of extensive damage.
(AP, 1/22/10)
2010 Jan 22, Police in Mexico City rescued 150 ferrets from armed robbers after a high speed chase. 14 boxes of ferrets imported from the US were taken by force by 3 robbers from a truck after it left the Mexico City airport. Two suspects were under arrest and another escaped.
(AP, 1/22/10)
2010 Jan 22, In South Africa the national parks authority said poachers have killed 14 rhinos this year. The parks authority announced military patrols in Kruger National Park, where 7 of the rhinos were killed. The other 7 were killed in the North West province.
(AFP, 1/23/10)
2010 Jan 23, In New Zealand 48 pilot whales stranded at Port Levy on South Island, but scores of volunteers joined Department of Conservation workers to refloat them off the shallow, muddy inlet. By the next day rescuers managed to coax 33 back out into deep waters, but an-other 15 of the pod died.
(AP, 1/24/10)
2010 Jan 27, In Thailand 13 tiger range states attended the first Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation. The aim of the 3-day meeting was to convince countries to pledge to spend more on tiger conservation and set targets for boosting their numbers. The meeting was being organized by Thailand and the Global Tiger Initiative, a coalition formed in 2008 by the World Bank, the Smithsonian Institute and nearly 40 conservation groups. It aimed to double tiger numbers by 2022. The 13 countries attending were Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, In-dia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.
(AP, 1/27/10)
2010 Jan 29, In New Zealand police seized weapons used by two men to slaughter more than 30 dogs owned by a neighbor in what animal welfare authorities said could be the country's worst animal cruelty case.
(AP, 1/29/10)
2010 Jan 29, In Thailand a dozen Asian nations and Russia vowed to double the number of wild tigers by 2022, crack down on poaching that has devastated the big cats and prohibit the building of roads and bridges that could harm their habitats. The 13 countries included Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.
(AP, 1/29/10)
2010 Feb 6, Spanish matador Jairo Miguel Sanchez Alonso (16) killed six bulls in one after-noon, pulling off a feat normally attempted only by seasoned veterans and winning trophies for his skill, ears from animals he had just slain.
(AP, 2/6/10)
2010 Feb 8, The Obama administration said it will spend $78.5 million on efforts to contain the Asian carp, which threatened to endanger the Great Lakes’ $7 billion fishing industry.
(SFC, 2/9/10, p.A4)
2010 Feb 8, In Australia ITV Studios, producer of "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here," was fined 3,000 Australian dollars ($2,615) after pleading guilty of animal cruelty after two reality show contestants skinned, cooked and ate a rat during filming in Australia.
(AP, 2/9/10)
2010 Feb 11, In the Antarctic Ocean Sea Shepherd protesters shot butyric acid, produced from stinking rancid butter, at Japanese whalers to try to disrupt the annual whale hunt. The activists maintained that butyric acid is nontoxic.
(AP, 2/12/10)
2010 Feb 11, Willem Wijnstekers, head of the UN program to protect endangered species, said that Zimbabwe security forces had killed over 200 rhinos over the past 2 years putting that population on the verge of extinction.
(SFC, 2/12/10, p.A2)
2010 Feb 14, In New Zealand Department of Conservation workers found 9 whales dead on Stewart Island's West Ruggedy Beach after they were alerted by a passer-by. Wild seas and strong winds made it impossible to mount a rescue for 19 survivors. Conservation officials were forced to euthanize the animals.
(AP, 2/15/10)
2010 Feb 17, It was reported that a mysterious illness was killing brown pelicans along the northern California coast. Some 100 birds were in for treatment at the Int’l. Bird Rescue Re-search Center in Cordelia. Some 300 others found treatment at the center’s San Pedro branch. Biologists on Feb 22 said stormy weather had caused the disappearance of prey in stirred up waters possible due to El Nino and recent big storms.
(SFC, 2/17/10, p.A1)(SFC, 2/23/10, p.C2)
2010 Feb 23, It was reported that Florida wildlife officials have created a special python hunting season to stop the spread of the nonnative snakes throughout the Everglades. A $26 permit allow hunters to kill the reptiles from March 8 to April 17.
(SFC, 2/23/10, p.A6)
2010 Feb 24, In Orlando, Florida, SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau was killed after Tilikum, a 12,000 pound killer whale, grabbed her hair and pulled her under water. The orca, profiled in the 2013 documentary Blackfish, died at SeaWorld Orlando in early 2017 at an estimated age of 36.
(AP, 2/25/10)(SFC, 1/7/17, p.A7)
2010 Feb 24, Thailand officials seized two tons of elephant tusks from Africa hidden in pallets labeled as mobile phone parts in the country's largest ivory seizure.
(AP, 2/25/10)
2010 Feb 26, Mozambique state media said 2 young men accused of having sex with a goat in central Mozambique are facing criminal charges, and the goat's owner is demanding they make traditional wedding arrangements.
(AFP, 2/26/10)
2010 Feb 27, Militant anti-whalers declared an end to this season's pursuit of Japanese harpoon ships in Antarctic waters, saying it was their most successful and intensely fought campaign so far.
(AFP, 2/27/10)
2010 Mar 5, In Spain the regions of Madrid, Valencia and southern Murcia said they will keep bullfighting legal and give the sport cultural heritage protection.
(SFC, 3/6/10, p.A2)
2010 Mar 7, In the US Academy Awards the film “The Hurt Locker" triumphed with six prizes and made Kathryn Bigelow the first woman ever to win the directing Oscar. Sandra Bullock won as best actress for "The Blind Side"; Jeff Bridges as best actor for "Crazy Heart"; Mo'Nique as supporting actress for "Precious: Based on the Novel `Push' by Sapphire"; and Christoph Waltz as supporting actor for "Inglourious Basterds." The best documentary feature was won by “The Cove," an examination of a bloody dolphin hunt filmed with hidden cameras in Taiji, Japan.
(AP, 3/8/10)(SSFC, 3/14/10, p.A4)
2010 Mar 8, In Alaska the body of rural teacher Candice Berner (32) was found a mile outside of Chignik Lake. Wolf tracks surrounded the body.
(SFC, 3/12/10, p.A8)
2010 Mar 13, In Qatar a two week UN conference opened with a focus on the Atlantic bluefin tuna and other marine life in the world's overfished oceans. The 175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) discussed new proposals on regulating the trade in number of plant and animal species.
(AP, 3/13/10)
2010 Mar 15, At the CITES conference in Qatar a top official with the UN wildlife agency said the world has "failed miserably" at protecting tigers in the wild, bringing an animal that is a symbol for many cultures and religions to "the verge of extinction."
(AP, 3/15/10)
2010 Mar 16, At the CITES meeting in Qatar a marine conservation group, Oceana, said surging demand for shark fin soup among Asia's booming middle classes is driving many species of these big fish to the brink of extinction.
(AP, 3/16/10)
2010 Mar 18, In Qatar the CITES convention said consumer appetite for caviar is pushing sturgeon to the brink of extinction. Fishing nations led by Japan rejected a US backed proposal to ban export of the Atlantic bluefin tuna. A proposal to ban the int’l. sale of polar bear skins also failed to pass.
(SFC, 3/19/10, p.A2,5)
2010 Mar 19, In Las Vegas a fire at the private Gilcrease Nature Sanctuary killed over 250 exotic birds and a dog.
(SFC, 3/20/10, p.A5)
2010 Mar 19, Polish authorities said a herd of some 300 bison in southeastern Poland is at risk from tuberculosis after one recently died of the disease.
(AP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 21, Conservationists at the CITES meeting in Qatar said the Internet has emerged as one of the greatest threats to rare species, fueling the illegal wildlife trade and making it easier to buy everything from live baby lions to wine made from tiger bones.
(AP, 3/21/10)
2010 Mar 21, In Indonesia a rare Sumatran tiger dragged a man, identified as Darmilus (26), from a hut in Seponjen village near the protected Berbak National Park, and broke his neck as friends tried to rescue the victim.
(AP, 3/22/10)
2010 Mar 23, At the CITES convention in Qatar Asian nations blocked US-backed proposals to protect the heavily fished hammerhead and oceanic whitetip sharks on concerns that regulating the booming trade in fins could hurt poor coastal nations.
(AP, 3/23/10)
2010 Mar 24, The UN and Interpol released a joint report saying gorillas in central Africa are in danger from illegal logging, mining and from hunters who are killing great apes for meat.
(AP, 3/24/10)
2010 Mar 25, In Qatar the CITES UN wildlife meeting rejected efforts to regulate the trade in overfished porbeagle sharks, reversing an earlier ruling at the conference and leaving none of the proposed shark species with protection. Asia nations managed to reopen the debate on the final day of the conference and voted to kill the proposal.
(AP, 3/25/10)
2010 Apr 3, It was reported that some 4.5 million animals in Mongolia had perished over the last 3 months. A dry summer in 2009 followed by low temperatures and a heavy snow cover, a phenomenon called the zud, afflicted 19 of the countries 21 provinces.
(Econ, 4/3/10, p.44)
2010 Apr 7, Innovation for the Development and Protection of the Environment (IDPE) said that from March 3-28 Congo government troops killed 7 hippos and 5 elephants as well as five antelopes, four baboons, three chimpanzees and two buffalo in Virunga national Park, a UNESCO world heritage. The soldiers "use their wives and cousins to sell the meat" in villages near the park, the IDPE said in a report that included photos of decomposing elephant carcasses.
(AFP, 4/8/10)
2010 Apr 8, Canada’s annual seal hunt began with this year’s quota raised by 50,000 to 330,000 due to a rising seal herd population estimated at 6.9 million.
(SFC, 4/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 20, The US Supreme Court struck down a federal law aimed at banning videos that show graphic violence against animals, saying it violates the right to free speech.
(AP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 22, The world’s first cloned polo pony was born in the US.
(www.thehorse.com/articles/25447/first-cloned-polo-pony-is-born)
2010 Apr 29, In Vietnam a Javan rhino, one of the world's rarest large mammals, was found shot dead with its horn chopped off in a southern national park, a suspected victim of poachers. There were only three to five Javan rhinos believed left in Vietnam. The animal was first caught on camera at the park in 1999.
(AP, 5/10/10)
2010 Apr, In Canada some 100 dogs appeared to have been "slaughtered" inhumanely, shortly after the end of the Winter Games. The incident became public after an employee of Outdoor Adventures Whistler filed a compensation claim with the province, saying he was suffering from stress after being forced to shoot the animals and bury them.
(Reuters, 1/31/11)
2010 May 13, Scientists reported that 6% of the world’s lizard species will disappear in the next 40 years and up to 20% in the next 70 years if climate change continues unabated.
(SFC, 5/14/10, p.A4)
2010 May 15, In Brazil a fire destroyed what may be the world's largest scientific collection of dead snakes, spiders and scorpions. The Instituto Butantan’s collection of nearly 80,000 specimens was the main source for research on thousands of species.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 26, In Greece a horde of frogs caused a two-hour closure on a major highway near the city of Thessaloniki. The city's traffic police chief said that the "millions" of frogs were probably looking for food.
(AP, 5/26/10)
2010 May 28, Hawaii became the first US state to ban the sale or possession of shark fins, used in the creation of some Chinese delicacies, in an effort to help prevent their overfishing.
(SFC, 5/29/10, p.A4)
2010 May 28, Australia said it will challenge Japan's whale hunting in the Antarctic at the International Court of Justice, a major legal escalation in its campaign to ban the practice despite Tokyo's insistence on the right to so-called scientific whaling.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 28, In South Africa an expert with the country's national parks said poachers killed a record number of rhinos in South Africa last year and are already on track to surpass that number again in 2010.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 28, In Alaska a backpacker shot and killed a grizzly bear with his handgun in Denali National Park. A man and woman reported that they were hiking when the bear emerged from trailside brush and charged the woman.
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 May 31, Australia filed an international lawsuit against Japan arguing that its whale cull does not qualify for a scientific exemption to a 1986 ban. Japan said the next day that it would staunchly defend its research hunt that kills hundreds of whales per year.
(AP, 6/1/10)
2010 May 31, A Malaysian government official, Malacca Chief Minister Mohamad Ali Rustam, defended an Indian company's plans to build an animal testing medicine lab in his state, saying that God created monkeys and rats for experiments to benefit humans.
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 Jun 10, The Zimbabwe state wildlife authority said poachers last week killed 10 elephants in a single attack in southeastern Gonarezhou national park. All the tusks were re-moved, leaving the carcasses on a river bank.
(AP, 6/10/10)
2010 Jun 13, Nepal’s PM Madhav Kumar Nepal and Forest Minister Deepak Bohara summoned conservation officials and the chiefs of police and army ordering them to come up with a strategy to halt the killing of endangered rhinos. 28 of the endangered animals had been killed over the past 11 months.
(AP, 6/14/10)
2010 Jun 21, In Indonesia the discovery of three dead Javan rhinos has intensified efforts to save one of the world's most endangered mammals from extinction, with an electric fence being built around a new sanctuary and breeding ground.
(AP, 6/21/10)
2010 Jun 25, In Morocco a 5-day meeting of the International Whaling Commission ended. Native people of Greenland won a long battle to extend their annual whale hunt to humpbacks, overriding objections from conservation-minded members of the IWC. A 2008 investigation showed about one-fourth of the whales the Greenlanders caught were sold on the market in violation of the commission's rules.
(AP, 6/26/10)
2010 Jun 25, In Venezuela it was reported that fish and birds covered with tar-like oil are washing up on the eastern shores of Lake Maracaibo, angering fishermen who fear their livelihood is at stake because of the country's state-run oil company.
(AP, 6/26/10)
2010 Jul 2, Jakarta's annual month-long flora and fauna expo opened. It included sales of the world's most threatened ploughshare tortoise and the critically endangered radiated tortoises, both from Madagascar. While the government has passed legislation banning such illegal trade, dealers continue to blatantly sell endangered species without fear of arrest or prosecution.
(AP, 7/3o/10)
2010 Jul 4, In Bellevue, Iowa, a pair of runaway horses in harness crashed into a Fourth of July parade float and collapsed, ending a rampage that injured nearly two dozen people and killed one.
(AP, 7/5/10)(SFC, 7/5/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 6, California Gov. Schwarzenegger signed into law a bill extending voter approved mandates for the humane treatment of egg-laying hens in the state.
(SFC, 7/7/10, p.C1)
2010 Jul 9, In California scuba divers began killing invasive Asian clams in Lake Tahoe. Long rubber mats were laid over half an acre in a test effort starve the clams of oxygen.
(SFC, 7/10/10, p.C2)
2010 Jul 10, It was reported that Amazon river dolphins were being killed by fishermen for bait and that the population was dropping 7 percent a year. The gentle and curious dolphins were easy targets for nets and harpoons as they swim fearlessly up to fishing boats.
(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 10, Baghdad officials said 58,000 stray dogs have been killed in and around the Iraqi capital over the past three months as part of a campaign to combat dog attacks.
(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 13, In Malaysia a police raid for stolen vehicles found 42 of them at a warehouse in Malaysia along with and hundreds of birds and other protected wildlife. Officers found some 700 birds and caged leopard cats, albino pygmy monkeys and other animals. They included about 20 protected species.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 15, Australian scientists reported their discovery of bizarre prehistoric sea life hundreds of kilometers below the Great Barrier Reef, in an unprecedented mission to document species under threat from ocean warming.
(AFP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 16, In Mexico Roberto Cabrera (38), with a mysterious bulge under his T-shirt, was stopped, searched and detained at Mexico City's international airport after arriving from Peru. Authorities found 18 tiny endangered monkeys in a girdle he was wearing. Two of the monkeys were dead.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 28, In Spain a bullfighting ban, passed in Catalonia's parliament, provoked passionate reactions throughout the country.
(Reuters, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, South African wildlife authorities said poachers killed 152 endangered rhinoceros in the country so far this year, about 20 more than the number killed in the whole of 2009.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Aug 5, A federal judge in Montana reinstated protections for wolves in Montana and Idaho.
(SFC, 8/6/10, p.A5)
2010 Aug 12, In Zimbabwe a wounded buffalo, known as one of the most aggressive animals in the African bush, gored veteran Zimbabwean conservationist Steve Kok (71) to death, ending his years of dedication to saving wild animals from poachers' traps.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 18, In Spain a bull leapt into the packed grandstands of a bullring at the Tafalla arena in the northern region of Navarra and ran amok, charging and trampling spectators and leaving 40 people injured.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 20, The European Union's high court temporarily exempted Inuit hunters in Canada and Greenland from the bloc's new trade ban on seal products, while asking European Parliament and EU governments to justify the ban.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, Mexican police detained six suspects on the southern Pacific coast with 3,756 illegally harvested eggs from protected sea turtles.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, In northern New Zealand 58 pilot whales died after they washed onto an isolated beach. Rescue volunteers' initial efforts to refloat 15 others that survived failed. A fresh at-tempt to save the beached sea mammals was planned for the next day.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 24, A Kenyan official said wildlife officers have seized two tons of elephant ivory and five rhino horns at the main airport that were to be illegally shipped to Malaysia.
(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 25, Police in northeastern Congo said they have seized 116 elephant tusks and arrested two men following a truck crash.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 26, A Malaysian man was arrested after his bag bursting with 95 live boa constrictors broke open on a luggage conveyer belt at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Keng Liang "Anson" Wong (52), who had been previously convicted of wildlife trafficking in the United States, later pleaded guilty to wildlife smuggling.
(AP, 9/4/10)
2010 Aug 28, In northern Greece break-ins over the last 24 hours at two fur farms near the city of Kastoria set more than 50,000 minks on the loose. The cost to the farm owners could pass euro1 million ($1.27 million).
(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Sep 8, In Australia a kangaroo was beaten to death with a metal pole in the Great Ot-way National Park in the southern state of Victoria. Three 8th grade pupils were later suspended from school as authorities investigated the beating.
(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 14, It was reported that only about 3,500 tigers worldwide were left in the wild, with less than a third of them breeding females. Most of the tigers were in India.
(SFC, 9/15/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 15, In Puerto Rico a man, accused of dragging a stubborn horse last February alongside his truck, became the first person convicted by a local jury under an animal protection law enacted after dogs were thrown to their deaths from a bridge. On Nov 17 Georgenan Lopez (24) received a 12-year prison sentence, becoming the first person convicted by a jury under the animal cruelty law implemented in August 2008.
(AP, 9/16/10)(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Sep 16, Australian scientists said they had made a breakthrough in the fight to save the cancer-hit Tasmanian devil by mapping the species' genome for the first time.
(AFP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 21, A new report, "Mauritius: The trade in primates for research," said wild long-tailed monkeys sustain broken limbs and other injuries when trappers catch the primates and transfer them to breeding farms on the island nation of Mauritius. The report said Mauritius justifies the catching of wild monkeys on the grounds that the long-tailed macaque is not native, is a pest and is not deserving of conservation concerns.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, South African police said 11 suspected members of an alleged rhino poaching syndicate have been arrested, as part of an ongoing investigation. The suspects included 2 veterinarians and a game farmer.
(AFP, 9/21/10)(SFC, 9/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 21, In New Zealand a pod of 74-80 pilot whales stranded themselves on a remote northern beach, the second time in a month that a mass beaching has happened in the region. 25 of the animals were already dead when officials arrived at Spirits Bay beach. Only 24 of the stranded whales survived.
(AP, 9/22/10)(SFC, 9/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 23, In eastern India a speeding freight train struck a herd of elephants overnight in a densely forested region, killing seven. India's wild elephant population was recently estimated at around 26,000.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 24, Investigators of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, who visited an animal reserve near the southern border town of Beit Bridge and the Limpopo river, reported that occupiers slaughtered 300 zebra for their skins in the last two months. 7 African antelope were killed this week.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 29, In northwest Ireland managers at Anderson's Mink Farm said that many of their cages and fences were cut and opened over the weekend, freeing an estimated 5,000 animals into the wilds of County Donegal. About 28,000 others declined to bolt for freedom.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, New Zealand rescuers cut free a humpback whale that had been entangled for at least two days in a heavy nylon rope that officials said would have caused its slow death.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Oct 5, South Africa launched a special wildlife crime unit to tackle a dramatic surge in rhino poaching driven by demand for the animal's horn in Asia for use in traditional medicines.
(AFP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 6, Scientists unveiled a spectacular array of more than 200 new species discovered in the Pacific islands of Papua New Guinea, including a white-tailed mouse and a tiny, long-snouted frog.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Malaysia a newborn baby died after being snatched by a monkey from her family's living room in Negri Sembilan state. Wildlife authorities fatally shot the monkey, which had remained near the house and might have been attracted by a female pet monkey the family kept in a cage.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 9, It was reported that Madeleine Pickens, the wife of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, has acquired a Nevada ranch for use as a wild horse sanctuary, the Mustang Monument Pre-serve. The 14,000 acre property included grazing rights to 540,000 acres of public land. She was also said to be negotiating for and adjoining 4,000-acre ranch with grazing rights to 24,000 acres. She hoped to return all 34,000 in government funded holding facilities and pastures to their natural habitat.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A7)
2010 Oct 12, In Japan residents of Taiji village, notorious for the dolphin hunt documented in the film "The Cove," slaughtered a pod of dolphins but spared the youngest animals.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 13, In Brazil Milton Marcondes of the Humpback Whale Institute said at least 75 humpback whales have died in 2010. The previous high was 41 in 2007.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, In Madagascar conservationists said a new species of carnivorous mammal, likely highly endangered, has been discovered in the wetlands of Lake Alaotra, the largest expanse of fresh water on the Indian Ocean island. It has been baptized Durrell's vontsira (Salanoia durelli) after the late British naturalist Gerald Durrell, who led conservation projects in Madagascar.
(AFP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 22, A shark attack off the coast of Santa Barbara County, Ca., killed surfer Lucas Ransom (19).
(SFC, 10/23/10, p.A12)
2010 Oct 22, In Canada Alberta Provincial Court Judge Ken Tjosvold found Syncrude, one of Canada's largest oil sands producers, guilty in the deaths of the 1,600 ducks in a toxic waste pond last June. Syncrude accepted the C$3 million sentencing proposal.
(Reuters, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, World Wildlife spokeswoman Marie von Zeipel, speaking at a seminar in Sweden, estimated that only 3,200 tigers remain in the wild and that this population would shrink 97% over the next 100 years.
(SFC, 10/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 22, Thai police raided a warehouse where wildlife smugglers were storing thousands of illegally collected reptiles for shipment overseas.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 26, In Belize the body of Bruce Cullerton, an American who also held Belizean citizenship, was found. He had been killed by a 30-pound (59 kilogram) jaguar, that had escaped from its cage last week during Hurricane Richard. Max, the jaguar, was recaptured and euthanized On Oct 27.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, Scientists said a new type of snub-nosed monkey has been found in a remote forested region of northern Myanmar, which is under threat from logging and a Chinese dam project.
(Reuters, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 30, In Japan representatives to a UN conference on biodiversity agreed to expand protected areas on land and at sea in the hopes of slowing the rate of extinction of the world’s animals and plant. Scientists have estimated that the Earth is losing species at 100 to 1,000 times the historical average.
(SFC, 10/30/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 31, In Kenya a suspected elephant poacher was killed on the outskirts of Meru National Park. 2 suspected poachers were killed last week in Tsavo National Park following the poaching deaths of 4 other elephants.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 30, Zimbabwean businessman Peter Evershed (59) was mauled by five lions while showering under a tree at the Chitake Springs bush camp.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 2, Missouri passed the Puppy Mill Cruelty Prevention Act. The state was home to 1,462 licensed commercial dog breeders.
(Econ, 11/6/10, p.36)
2010 Nov 3, A federal judge in Reno ordered 6 months of prison time for 2 men who admitted to shooting wild horses while drinking and leaving them to die.
(SFC, 11/4/10, p.A9)
2011 Nov 10, The Illinois Senate overrode Gov. Pat Quinn’s veto on a roadkill bill, House Bill 3178. The measure requires the scavenger to only harvest the animals during the legal hunting or trapping season, with the required stamps and permits. It allowed anyone with a state furbearer license to salvage pelts or even food from animals killed on the road.
(SSFC, 1/8/12, p.A10)(http://tinyurl.com/73pcrm4)
2010 Nov 13, In Germany a fire at the Karlsruhe zoo killed 26 animals including Shetland ponies, goats, sheep and a llama.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 19, South African officials said wildlife officials found the decomposing bodies of 18 rhinos, dehorned victims of poaching, on a private game preserve near Kruger National Park.
(SFC, 11/20/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 21, A global tiger summit meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, approved a wide-ranging program with the goal of doubling the world's tiger population in the wild by 2022 backed by governments of the 13 countries that still have tiger populations: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam and Russia. Experts said wild tigers could become extinct in 12 years if countries where they still roam fail to take quick action to protect their habitats and step up the fight against poaching.
(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 26, Kenya’s Wildlife Service said its agents shot dead 2 suspected poachers shooting at a herd of elephants in a national park.
(SFC, 11/27/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 27, In France delegates at an Atlantic conservation conference in Paris took measures to protect sea turtles and several types of sharks. ICCAT members agreed to reduce the allowable Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna catch to 12,900 tons from 13,500 tons. The allowable western Atlantic catch was reduced to 1,750 tons from 1,800, a level that American and Canadian fisherman already had been unable to meet due to stock decline.
(AP, 11/27/10)(SSFC, 11/28/10, p.A10)
2010 Nov 26, In Indonesia 5 endangered Sumatran elephants were found dead in Riau province on Sumatra island. Conservationists suspected that farmers poisoned the animals to stop them from damaging crops.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Dec 4, A Nevada panel voted to establish the state’s first-ever bear hunting season. Some 200-300 lived along Nevada’s eastern Sierra.
(SSFC, 12/5/10, p.A14)
2010 Dec 5, A shark tore the arm off an elderly German tourist at an Egyptian Red Sea resort, killing her almost immediately, only days after sharks badly mauled four other European tourists in the waters.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 6, New Zealand officials attackers wielding bats or clubs slaughtered two dozen fur seals, including newborn pups, over several days at the Ohau Point colony, one of the country’s most popular sanctuaries for watching the animals. Oahu Point was only reoccupied for breeding in 1990, and about 600 fur seal pups were born there in 2004.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 7, Hendrik Coetzee (35), an acclaimed South African outdoorsman, was dragged from his craft by a crocodile on the Lukuga River in Congo. 2 Americans watched, horrified, and paddled to safety. Coetzee was leading a kayaking expedition from the source of the White Nile into Congo.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec, The massive B09B iceberg grounded near a penguin colony in East Antarctica, forcing them to make a lengthy trek to find food. By 2013 some 150,000 penguins had died after the penguins were forced to walk more than 60 km (37 miles) to find food, impeding their breeding attempts.
(AFP, 2/14/16)
2010 The Missouri Department of Corrections established a Puppies for Parole program in which inmates train animals with behavioral or other issues that make them difficult to adopt. Inmates managed to train deaf dogs to respond to hand signals.
(Reuters, 2/9/11)(http://doc.mo.gov/documents/dai/PuppiesForParole_flyer.pdf)
2010 South Africa lost 333 rhinos to poaching in 2010, the highest number ever recorded and almost triple the previous year's losses.
(AP, 1/12/11)
2010 Vietnam wiped out its own last known Javan rhinoceros despite efforts to protect it. The last of the population was found dead in a national park, shot through the leg with its horn hacked off. Illegal rhino killings in South Africa skyrocketed, from 122 in 2009 to 333 in 2010 and a record 448 in 2011. By 2012 crushed rhino horn powder fetched up to $55,000 per kg in Asia ($25,000 per pound).
(AFP, 4/4/12)
2010-2012 In Tanzania the number of elephants at the Selous Game Reserve droped from 40,000 to 13,000 during this period. In 2014 it was reported that more than 100,000 African elephants had been killed during this period for their tusks.
(SFC, 8/23/14, p.A2)
2011 Jan 1, In Arkansas some 3,000 red-winged blackbirds died and fell from the sky over a 1-mile area of Beebe. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said that it began receiving reports about the dead birds about 11:30 p.m. the previous night.
(AP, 1/2/11)(AP, 1/2/11)(SFC, 1/4/11, p.A5)
2011 Jan 4, Officials in Louisiana said 500 birds were discovered dead, shortly after thousands of birds were discovered dead in neighboring Arkansas.
(AFP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, In Japan a giant bluefin tuna fetched a record 32.49 million yen, or nearly $396,000, in Tokyo, in the first auction of the year at the world's largest wholesale fish market.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, Swedish officials said 50 to 100 jackdaw birds, a type of crow. were found lying in a snow-covered street in the southwestern town of Falkoeping.
(AFP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 8, An Italian association for bird protection said that over 700 dead birds have been picked up since Jan. 1 from the streets of Faenza, about 30 miles (50 km) southeast of Bologna. They appeared to have overeaten sunflower seeds, which damage their livers and kidneys. The seeds were mostly waste from a nearby oil factory.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 11, German authorities ordered 140 pigs slaughtered after tests showed high levels of cancer-causing dioxin in swine at a farm near Verden that purchased tainted animal feed.
(SFC, 1/12/11, p.A2)
2011 Jan 14, In Tennessee an 8,000-pound elephant named Edie (26) backed Knoxville zoo trainer Stephanie James (33) into a wall and crushed her to death.
(Reuters, 1/16/11)
2011 Jan 17, Japanese researchers said they will launch a project this year to resurrect the long-extinct mammoth by using cloning technology to bring the ancient pachyderm back to life in around five years time.
(AP, 1/17/11)
2011 Jan 20, Dubai media reported that undercover agents have wrapped up a real sting operation, finding devices that delivered electric shocks to camels to make them run faster in races. Small vibrating robot "jockeys" were being used atop camels for racing in the United Arab Emirates.
(AP, 1/20/11)
2011 Jan 20, WWF officials said Gabon has arrested five people, four Nigerians and a woman from Benin. who were found with the heads of 12 chimpanzees and an endangered gorilla. The seizure was the largest of its kind in a decade.
(AP, 1/21/11)
2011 Jan 25, Zimbabwe's wildlife chief said poachers are using aircraft to hunt and kill rhinoceros as demand in Asia for their horns' supposed medicinal benefits grows.
(AP, 1/25/11)
2011 Jan 27, The European Commission launched legal action against Sweden for allowing hunters to shoot 20 wolves this year even though the species is threatened with extinction.
(AFP, 1/27/11)
2011 Jan 31, Pakistan wildlife authorities said they have found the carcasses of six endangered river dolphins in Pakistan over the last month. Sindh Wildlife Department deputy head Ghulam Mohammad accused local fisherman, saying their poison and nets were to blame for the deaths of the blind Indus River Dolphin. A 2006 survey put the number left at 1,300.
(AP, 1/31/11)
2011 Feb 4, In New Zealand rescuers struggled to save scores of pilot whales after 80 beached themselves. 14 died and others were not expected to last the night. 66 survivors of the pod freed themselves and swam back to sea during a late night high tide.
(AP, 2/4/11)(AP, 2/5/11)
2011 Feb 5, In northern Mexico Serengeti Zoo owner Alberto Hernandez said 14 parrots, 13 serpents, five iguanas, two crocodiles and a capuchin monkey died after power failures cut off electrical heating at the zoo in the town of Aldama, Chihuahua state.
(AP, 2/6/11)
2011 Feb 6, In South Africa game park rangers shot and killed 3 suspected rhinoceros poachers in confrontations in Kruger National Park. A 4th poacher was killed a day earlier in a KwaZulu-Natal park.
(AP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 6, Zimbabwe state media reported that the nation’s ivory stockpile has rocketed to 42,000 kilos up from a previous record of 29,000, but the country cannot sell it due to a ban. It reportedly costs Zimbabwe $13 million annually to secure the stockpile, valued at $10 million.
(AFP, 2/6/11)
2011 Feb 9, Indonesia's biggest palm oil producer pledged to follow new standards to protect carbon-rich forests and peatlands, in a move cautiously welcomed by environmentalists including Greenpeace. A suspect was arrested in his Jakarta art shop during a raid carried out by police and forestry officials for allegedly using the Internet to sell hundreds of illegal wildlife parts, from ivory and tiger skins to the teeth of the world's smallest bears.
(AFP, 2/9/11)(AP, 2/17/11)
2011 Feb 11, Canada asked the World Trade Organization to set up a panel to resolve its dispute with the European Union over the EU's ban on trade in seal products.
(Reuters, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 15, Kyrgyzstan officials say budgetary constraints are forcing them to shoot an estimated 10,000 stray dogs in Bishkek rather than build shelters for them.
(AP, 2/15/11)
2011 Feb 16, A government official said Japan, as of Feb 10, has temporarily suspended its annual Antarctic whaling after repeated harassment by a conservationist group.
(AP, 2/16/11)
2011 Feb 17, An Australian diver was killed by sharks in south Australia, in only the second fatal shark attack in Australian waters in more than two years.
(AP, 2/17/11)
2011 Feb 20, In New Zealand a pod of 107 pilot whales were found stranded on a remote New Zealand beach. All members of the pod died, including 48 that were euthanized.
(AP, 2/21/11)
2011 Feb 25, Panama customs director Gloria Moreno de Lopez said that nearly a half ton (421 kilos) shark fins were found at Panama's international airport in a shipment labeled as dried fish. She says the container originated in Ecuador and was bound for New York City.
(AP, 2/26/11)
2011 Feb 25, Thai authorities displayed a ton of illicitly smuggled African elephant ivory and rhino horns seized at Bangkok's airport, a haul described as a victory for better international intelligence sharing among wildlife officials.
(AP, 2/25/11)
2011 Mar 2, The US Fish and Wildlife Service declared the eastern cougar to be extinct, confirming a widely held belief among wildlife biologists that native populations of the big cat were wiped out by man a century ago.
(AP, 3/2/11)
2011 Mar 3, Mexican agricultural officials say they have euthanized 114 peacocks, ostriches and other birds at a zoo due to an avian virus.
(AP, 3/4/11)
2011 Mar 4, Mankind may have unleashed the sixth known mass extinction in Earth's history, according to a paper released by the science journal Nature. In the last five centuries, at least 80 out of 5,570 mammal species have bitten the dust, providing a clear warning of the peril to biodiversity.
(AFP, 3/4/11)
2011 Mar 4, A US Navy training exercise off the coast of San Diego led to the death of at least 3 dolphins and prompted a probe into whether the military violated a federal law protecting marine mammals.
(SSFC, 3/27/11, p.A10)
2011 Mar 8, In southern California hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of sardines floated dead in the King Harbor area of Redondo Beach. Authorities said a storm had chased the sardines toward shore where they died due to a lack of oxygen. The millions of sardines soon tested positive for domoic acid, a powerful neurotoxin. This acid is often found in the stomach of fish that have been feeding on plankton during toxic algae blooms.
(SFC, 3/9/11, p.A9)(AP, 3/12/11)
2011 Mar 9, In Australia Todd Bairstow (28) was fishing with his dog at a creek near the town of Weipa in northern Queensland when a four-meter (13-feet) saltwater crocodile lunged at him and tried to drag him under the water. The crocodile only retreated after Bairstow's friend heard his screams from the nearby pub and helped beat off the predator.
(AP, 3/11/11)
2011 Mar 16, The Malta-registered MS Olivia was grounded on Nightingale Island in the Tristan da Cunha chain. All 22 crew were rescued by 17th March. The ship broke in two and some 20,000 penguins became coated in oil. There was a risk rats from the ship could come ashore and eat the chicks and eggs of native seabirds.
(AP, 3/22/11)(www.tristandc.com/newsmsoliva.php)
2011 Mar 17, In Australia a pod of long-finned pilot whales beached themselves at Bruny Island, south of the Tasmanian state capital Hobart. 21 whales died but 11 were saved.
(AP, 3/18/11)
2011 Mar 18, US wildlife advocates and the Dept. of Interior reached an agreement to lift gray wolf protections in Montana and Idaho and allow hunting of the predators to resume.
(SFC, 3/19/11, p.A5)
2011 Mar 19, In Germany Knut, a four-year-old celebrity bear, died in front of hundreds of visitors, taking keepers, animal experts and fans by surprise.
(AP, 3/20/11)
2011 Mar 23, Scientists warned that up to 45 rare species of wallaby, bandicoot and other Australian animals could become extinct within 20 years unless urgent action is taken to control introduced predators and other threats.
(AP, 3/23/11)
2011 Mar 25, A global network of conservationists said Africa's rhinos face their worst poaching crisis in decades with organized crime syndicates killing more than 800 in the past three years alone.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 28, Australia's annual cane toad cull was declared a success by organizers who said that more than 14,000 of the noxious pests had perished as a result. The number of cane toads across Australia is estimated to have ballooned to more than 200 million since being introduced from Brazil in the 1930s to control scarab beetles infesting the country's sugar cane.
(AFP, 3/28/11)
2011 Mar 29, Thailand police raided secret ivory carving workshops in central in Nakorn Sawan province, seizing an allegedly illegal haul of elephant and walrus tusks.
(AP, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 30, A new study in the journal Conservation Letters by an American and Canadian research team suggested that the discovery of more than 100 dead dolphins on Gulf of Mexico shores likely reflects only a small fraction of the total killed by the BP oil spill last year.
(AFP, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 30, Thailand confiscated two tons of African elephant tusks worth millions of dollars being smuggled through a Bangkok port. This was the country's largest ivory seizure.
(AP, 4/1/11)
2011 Apr 7, Thailand authorities seized 1,800 Bengal monitor lizards being smuggled on pickup trucks to the capital. Their meat could sell for $7.50-$15 per pound ($16-$33 per kg) in China, making them worth more than $60,000.
(AP, 4/8/11)
2011 Apr 14, Russia was reported to have banned the hunting of polar bears this year, thanks to a group with close ties to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a longtime defender of large endangered animals.
(AP, 4/14/11)
2011 Apr 14, In Vietnam authorities in the central Quang Nam province agreed to set up the reserve dedicated to the secretive saola, a relative of antelopes and cattle and one of the world's rarest animals, which was only discovered in 1992. This was the second Sao La conservation zone in Vietnam, after the first one located at the Bach Ma National Park in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue.
(AFP, 4/18/11)(http://tinyurl.com/3u3l889)
2011 Apr 24, In New Mexico Margaret Salcedo (48) was mauled to death by a pack of four pit bulls in the town of Truth or Consequences.
(Reuters, 4/25/11)
2011 Apr 24, Turkmenistan culminated a weekend horse show with opening of the four new lavish race tracks. The country boasted around 3,000 Akhal-Teke horses, of which 500 are owned by the President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov.
(AP, 4/24/11)
2011 Apr, In Chad at least 30 elephants were poached this month.
(Econ, 5/21/11, p.56)
2011 May 4, The US Interior Dept. declared wolves fully recovered in most of the Northern Rockies, opening the door for hunts in the Fall.
(SFC, 5/5/11, p.A7)
2011 May 4, A Gervais beaked whale washed up on the southeastern coast of Puerto Rico. A necropsy of the whale found more than 10 pounds (4.5 kg) of twisted plastic inside its stomach.
(AP, 5/7/11)
2011 May 4, Ukrainian prosecutors said they have opened a criminal investigation against the former head of the Kiev Zoo, where hundreds of animals have died or gone mysteriously missing in recent years. Svitlana Berzina was suspected of embezzling some $47,000 (euro32,000) from the zoo by commissioning projects that weren't fully carried out, if at all. Berzina was fired last year after nearly one-half of the zoo's animals either died or disappeared.
(AP, 5/4/11)
2011 May 5, In Vietnam customs officials intercepted 661 pounds (300 kg) of smuggled African elephant tusks from Tanzania at a northern port city.
(AP, 5/6/11)
2011 May 6, Kenyan authorities said they have seized the tusks of 58 elephants, totaling one ton of ivory, after sniffer dogs led investigators to containers at the country's main airport that were bound for Nigeria.
(AP, 5/6/11)
2011 May 13, In Thailand authorities at Bangkok's international airport arrested a first-class passenger whose suitcases were filled with baby leopards, panthers, a bear and monkeys. The animals had been drugged and were headed for Dubai.
(AP, 5/13/11)
2011 May 15, In China a one dog per family policy went into effect in Beijing.
(SSFC, 5/15/11, p.A5)
2011 May 21, It was reported that a mutated form of equine herpes virus-1 has killed at least 7 horses and sickened another 37 in 8 states including 14 in California.
(SFC, 5/21/11, p.D1)
2011 May 21, Thailand police arrested a man suspected of being a key player in one of Thailand's largest tiger trafficking rings.
(AP, 5/22/11)
2011 May 24, In India representatives of eight countries with large wild elephant populations pledged to eradicate poaching of the animals and smuggling of ivory to ensure their survival for future generations. The "Elephant 8 Ministerial Meet" included officials from Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, Botswana, Congo, Kenya and Tanzania.
(AP, 5/24/11)
2011 May, Ecuador banned bullfighting in which bull dies after five centuries of tradition.
(SSFC, 7/3/11, p.A4)
2011 Jun 1, In Thailand customs authorities found 431 turtles and other rare reptiles stuffed into four suitcases and smuggled into the Bangkok airport.
(AP, 6/2/11)
2011 Jun 7, Authorities in Uruguay remained puzzled by the fact that more than 600 dead penguins had washed up on the shores at La Paloma and Piriapolils since the weekend. Marine biologists were trying to determine why such a large number of penguins were found dead.
(AP, 6/7/11)
2011 Jun 9, California officials reported that giant Central Valley water pumps killed 6 million young splittail fish last month and tens of thousands of imperiled chinook salmon since October.
(SFC, 6/9/11, p.A1)
2011 Jun 9, It was announced that the world’s wealthiest dog has died. Trouble, the pet of billionaire hotel tycoon Leona Helmsley, died at age 12. Helmsley provoked controversy when she cut several of her grandchildren from her will and left the money for the care and maintenance of her pet Maltese. The money will now go into the Helmsley Charitable Trust.
(NYT, 6/9/11)
2011 Jun 9, Indian news reported that 2 wild elephants killed a man and injured other people in Myysore.
(SFC, 6/9/11, p.A2)
2011 Jun 10, Officials from NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) were trying to find the person who has been shooting and killing gray seals. In the past month, five adult seals, all with gunshot wounds to the head, have been found dead on Cape Cod (MA) beaches.
(Boston Globe, 6/10/11)(New Bedford MA Standard-Times, 6/10/11)
2011 Jun 11, A 140 lb. male mountain lion was struck by an SUV on a highway in Milford, CT. The driver was unhurt but the mountain lion died from its injuries. Since mountain lions are not native to Connecticut, officials from the Department of Environmental Protection believed the animal had been held in captivity and then escaped from its owner.
(Hartford Courant, 6/11/11)(Reuters, 6/12/11)
2011 Jun 28, The Dutch parliament agreed with the Dutch Party for the Animals (pvdD) and passed a bill banning the slaughter of livestock without stunning it first, removing an exemption that has allowed Jews and Muslims to butcher animals according to centuries old dietary rules.
(SFC, 6/28/11, p.A2)(Econ, 12/21/13, p.80)
2011 Jun 28, The UN officially declared that the rinderpest disease has been wiped off the face of the Earth. The UN program to eradicate the animal disease began in 1945 and cost some $5 billion.
(SFC, 6/28/11, p.A4)
2011 Jun, Scientists from the Philippines and the California Academy of Sciences completed a 6-week study of the island of Luzon and discovered over 3000 new species of land animals, plants and deep sea creatures.
(SFC, 6/25/11, p.A8)
2011 Jul 1, In Indonesia an 18-month-old Sumatran tiger died seven days after it fell into a trap and within three hours of being tranquilized by local conservation officials. The trap was on the border of an acacia forest and an APP logging concession. Estimates of the number of Sumatran tigers remaining in the world range from 300 to 400.
(AP, 7/26/11)
2011 Jul 1, In Italy a horse smashed into a barrier and died during training for a famed race around Sienna’s cobblestone piazza, leading to calls from animal rights groups for a suspension of the risky bareback contest. Some 50 horses have died since 1970.
(AP, 7/2/11)
2011 Jul 4, The WWF said South Africa lost 193 rhinos in the first six months of the year, with 126 of them killed in Kruger National Park.
(AFP, 7/4/11)
2011 Jul 5, The Bahamas banned commercial fishing of sharks, awarding protection to the more than 40 species circling the island chain that touts itself as the shark diving capital of the world. The ban applies to an estimated 243,000 square miles (630,000 square km) of water surrounding the archipelago.
(AP, 7/6/11)
2011 Jul 6, In Wyoming a female grizzly bear attacked and killed a man who encountered the bruin and her cubs while he was hiking with his wife in Yellowstone National Park.
(Reuters, 7/6/11)
2011 Jul 7, The journal Current Biology reported that all polar bears today have descended from one female brown bear in Ireland between 20,000 and 50,000 years ago.
(SFC, 7/8/11, p.A6)
2011 Jul 9, An Indian wildlife official said 3 wild elephants were electrocuted after they toppled a high-tension electricity line near Dudhwa National Park, Uttar Pradesh state.
(AFP, 7/9/11)
2011 Jul 20, Kenyan authorities burned five tons of contraband elephant ivory in hopes of raising awareness about rising levels of poaching. Africa had 1.3 million elephants in the 1970s but only 500,000 remained today.
(AP, 7/20/11)
2011 Jul 21, Ecuadoran authorities said they have seized 357 dead sharks from a boat fishing illegally in the protected waters off the Galapagos Islands.
(SFC, 7/22/11, p.A2)
2011 Jul 23, Rescuers in Scotland said they have guided 44 pilot whales stranded in an estuary back to sea, but 25 other whales from the pod did not survive the incident and died.
(AP, 7/23/11)
2011 Aug 3, Conservationists urged Malaysia to impose a national ban on the trade and consumption of turtle eggs to ensure the survival of the marine creatures. Turtles once arrived in their thousands to lay eggs on Malaysian beaches but are now increasingly rare due to poaching and coastal development.
(AFP, 8/3/11)
2011 Aug 5, In the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard a polar bear mauled one person to death and left four other members of a British youth expeditions group seriously injured.
(AFP, 8/5/11)
2011 Aug 9, In Sri Lanka wildlife groups announced they were withdrawing their support for an elephant count after Wildlife Minister S.M. Chandransena was quoted as saying 300 young elephants will be captured and handed over to Buddhist temples after the census. The groups had agreed to deploy about 200 volunteers to help the Wildlife Department count the animals.
(AP, 8/9/11)
2011 Aug 11, Brazilian police arrested seven people and seized more than 2,600 animals in a 2-day crackdown on the illegal trafficking of wild animals. The watchdog group Renctas says about 15% of the $10 billion to $20 billion global illegal animal trade takes place in Brazil.
(AP, 8/11/11)
2011 Aug 11, Sri Lanka closed all its national parks to tourists for a 3-day census of elephants. Officials believed the Sri Lanka elephant population to be 5,000 to 6,000, down from an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 in the early 1900s.
(AP, 8/12/11)
2011 Aug 26, The UN wildlife trade regulator said it was lifting its 2005 suspension on wildlife commerce with Nigeria, citing the country's improved efforts to combat illegal trade.
(AFP, 8/26/11)
2011 Sep 2, In Zimbabwe an independent conservation group said a new influx of settlers at a nature preserve in the southeast is destroying the sanctuary of at least 70 elephants.
(AP, 9/2/11)
2011 Sep 3, In the Philippines villagers and veteran hunters in Bunawan township in Agusan del Sur province captured a one-ton saltwater crocodile which they plan to make the star of a planned ecotourism park.
(AP, 9/5/11)
2011 Sep 6, Indian PM Manmohan Singh arrived in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka on an official visit aimed at boosting the sometimes fraught relations between India and its smaller Muslim-majority neighbor. Bangladesh and India signed two deals to tackle poaching of critically-endangered Bengal tigers from the world's largest mangrove forest.
(AFP, 9/6/11)(AFP, 9/7/11)
2011 Sep 6, Thailand authorities arrested two men in the northeast for trying to smuggle more 120 dogs into Vietnam to be sold for human consumption. 31 of the dogs were dead.
(AP, 9/6/11)
2011 Sep 13, A Sri Lankan minister led a protest march that forced organizers to abandon an annual Hindu sacrifice ritual in which hundreds of goats were due to slaughtered. The grisly ritual, in which goats are decapitated in public using a large hatchet, was first banned in the 1980s but was revived as locals believe the animals' blood grants favors from the gods.
(AFP, 9/13/11)
2011 Sep 15, Japan's Fisheries Agency said that its fleet has harvested 49 minke, 95 sei and 50 Bryde's whales and one sperm whale during its three-month Pacific expedition.
(AP, 9/15/11)
2011 Sep 16, The US National Marine Fisheries Service moved the loggerhead turtle population of in the North Pacific from threatened to endangered.
(SFC, 9/17/11, p.C2)
2011 Sep 16, In Montana Ty Bell and Steve Stevenson were on a black bear hunting trip with two other people along the Montana-Idaho border when they were attacked by a grizzly bear they had wounded. Stevenson died of a single gunshot to the chest as Bell tried to kill the bear.
(AP, 9/23/11)
2011 Sep 19, Zimbabwe's wildlife authority said poachers have begun poisoning watering holes, killing nine elephants and at least five lions in recent weeks.
(AP, 9/19/11)
2011 Sep 25, Spain's powerful northeastern region of Catalonia bid farewell to the country's emblematic tradition of bullfighting with a final bash at the Barcelona bullring. A regional ban on the bloody pastime takes effect Jan. 1, 2012.
(AP, 9/25/11)
2011 Sep 25, Thailand authorities rescued nearly 100 endangered pangolins, scaly anteaters worth about $32,000, that they say were to be sold and eaten outside the country.
(AP, 9/26/11)
2011 Sep 28, Officials said South Africa and Vietnam have launched talks toward an agreement to curb rhino poaching, which has soared in recent years driven by booming demand in Asia.
(AFP, 9/28/11)
2011 Sep 30, In Connecticut a 20-month-old girl died after being attacked by as many as three pit bulls inside an apartment house in West Haven. The dogs were euthanized.
(Reuters, 10/1/11)
2011 Sep, A Florida homeowner first spotted a giant African land snail. By 2013 more than 1,000 of the mollusks were being caught each week in Miami-Dade and 117,000 in total since the first spotting. A typical snail can produce about 1,200 eggs a year and the creatures are a particular pest in homes because of their fondness for stucco, devoured for the calcium content they need for their shells.
(Reuters, 4/14/13)
2011 Sep, A mammoth was excavated from the Siberian permafrost after it was found by a Russian boy named Jenya (11). In 2012 scientists suggested that the mammoth might have been killed by human hunters 20-30 thousand years ago.
(SFC, 10/6/12, p.A4)
2011 Oct 7, California’s Gov. Jerry Brown signed measures to ban the importation, possession and sale of shark fins. The importation ban begins in January, but sale and use will continue to July 2013.
(SFC, 10/8/11, p.A1)
2011 Oct 7, Spanish bullfighter Juan Jose Padilla (39) was pinned to the ground and gored by a bull in Zaragoza. He is likely to suffer facial paralysis and lose the sight in one eye after a terrifying goring.
(AP, 10/8/11)
2011 Oct 10, In Australia Bryn Martin (64) disappeared while swimming toward a buoy off Perth city's central Cottesloe Beach. Officials suspected that a shark attack killed Martin.
(AP, 10/10/11)
2011 Oct 18, In Ohio sheriff's deputies shot 48 animals, including 18 rare Bengal tigers and 17 lions, after Terry Thompson, owner of the private Muskingum County Animal Farm near Zanesville, threw their cages open and then committed suicide.
(AP, 10/20/11)
2011 Oct 22, Off southwest Australia a great white shark killed an American recreational diver in a third fatality in recent weeks.
(AP, 10/22/11)
2011 Oct 26, A high-end jewelry manufacturer in the US Virgin Islands was ordered to forfeit thousands of pounds (kg) of protected black coral and pay a $1.8 million fine for trading in it. Gem Manufacturing Inc. pleaded guilty to seven counts of violating the Endangered Species Act and the Lacey Act.
(AP, 10/26/11)
2011 Oct 31, Bangladesh wildlife officials said Bangladesh will declare three river areas in its southwest as dolphin sanctuaries, in a bid to protect the country's population of endangered freshwater cetaceans.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2011 Nov 3, Wildlife group WWF said rhino poaching in South Africa has hit a new record high, with 341 of the animals lost to poachers so far this year as black-market demand for rhino horn soars.
(AFP, 11/3/11)
2011 Nov 3, In Vietnam an Interpol meeting in Hanoi unveiled a campaign to help save the world's last wild tigers in the 13 Asian countries where they still exist, winning praise from conservationists.
(AP, 11/3/11)
2011 Nov 10, The International Union for Conservation of Nature said the Western Black Rhino of Africa has been declared officially extinct. The Javan Rhino was said to be "probably extinct" in Vietnam, after poachers killed the last animal there in 2010. A small but declining population of the Javan Rhino still survived on the Indonesian island of Java.
(AP, 11/10/11)
2011 Nov 12, In Australia 22 sperm whales and 2 minke whales died after getting stranded near Ocean Beach, Tasmania. Rescuers over the next 2 days saved two huge sperm whales stranded at Macquarie Harbor. Another died and a 4th remained stranded as weather worsened.
(AFP, 11/14/11)(AP, 11/15/11)
2011 Nov 14, It was reported that villagers living on the Indonesian side of Borneo killed at least 750 endangered orangutans in a year, some to protect crops from being raided and others for their meat, a new survey shows. The information was based on interviews with 6983 people between April 2008 and September 2009.
(AP, 11/14/11)
2011 Nov 15, Hong Kong customs officers intercepted a record haul of 33 rhino horns, 758 ivory chopsticks and 127 bracelets hidden inside a container shipped from South Africa.
(AFP, 11/16/11)
2011 Nov 15, New Zealand conservation officials euthanized 18 beached pilot whales following a mass stranding on a South Island beach that left a total of 65 whales dead.
(SFC, 11/16/11, p.A2)
2011 Nov 18, US Congress lifted a 5-year-old ban on funding horse meat inspections in a spending bill Pres. Obama signed into law to keep the government afloat until mid-December. The last US slaughterhouse that butchered horses closed in 2007 in Illinois. Animal welfare activists have warned of massive public outcry in any town where a slaughterhouse may open.
(AP, 11/30/11)
2011 Nov 19, In Turkey delegates at an international conservation meeting agreed on a measure mandating that silky sharks accidentally caught in fishing gear be released back into the sea alive. The 48-member International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) failed to reach consensus on other threatened shark species. To fight illegal fishing, ICCAT members decided that vessels measuring 12 meters or more, instead of the previous 20 meters or more, would be inspected on arrival to port.
(AP, 11/19/11)
2011 Nov 22, Romanian lawmakers voted to make it legal to euthanize the thousands of stray dogs that roam the country's streets, angering animal rights activists who have lobbied for months to stop the measure. The law will allow officials to round up homeless dogs from the street, hold them in shelters for 30 days and then have them killed. President Traian Basescu was expected to sign the law.
(AP, 11/22/11)
2011 Nov 23, Indonesian police said they have arrested two plantation workers for killing 20 endangered orangutans and other apes as pest control for palm oil companies. They were paid one million rupiah ($111) for each dead orangutan and 200,000 rupiah for every monkey killed.
(AFP, 11/23/11)
2011 Nov 23, Zimbabwe wildlife authorities said at least 77 elephants have died in a three-month heat wave in western Hwange National Park that has dried up watering holes.
(AP, 11/23/11)
2011 Nov, Maria Assunta (94) left a $13 million fortune to her beloved kitty Tommaso when she died two weeks ago. The feline's newfound riches include cash, as well as properties in Rome, Milan and land in Calabria.
(ABCNews, 12/12/11)
2011 Dec 6, Animal Asia, an animal protection group, said 14 Asiatic black bears have been rescued from a bear bile farm in Vietnam after their owner decided to renounce the illegal trade.
(AFP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, The South African national Parks authority said rhino poaching has climbed to a record for a 2nd year. As many as 405 rhinos have been killed so far this year, 22% more than in 2010.
(SFC, 12/7/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 7, In Argentina Czech national Karel Abelovsky (51) was nabbed for trying to board a transatlantic flight with 247 live animals including poisonous snakes and endangered reptiles packed in a bulging suitcase.
(AFP, 12/26/11)
2011 Dec 8, Researchers at the Univ. of Chicago reported experiments demonstrating that a rat would free a fellow rat trapped in a restrictive cage even without a payoff, indicating empathy and selfless behavior.
(SFC, 12/9/11, p.A16)
2011 Dec 12, In Utah some 4000-5000 migratory birds, eared grebes, were killed or injured after apparently mistaking a Wal-Mart parking lot, football fields and other snow-covered areas of southern Utah for bodies of water and plummeting to the ground in what one state wildlife expert called the worst mass bird crash she'd ever seen. A high-profile crash in Arkansas in January killed about 4,500 birds, mainly red-winged blackbirds.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 22, Kenyan authorities said they have seized 727 pieces of ivory in a container at the main port of Mombasa in one of the largest hauls of tusks in recent years. The items were wrapped in plastic bags in a container which documents said was destined for Dubai.
(AFP, 12/22/11)
2011 Dec 24, In Indonesia a rampaging wild elephant trampled a farmer to death on Sumatra island. Only 3,000 Sumatran elephants are believed to remain in the wild.
(AP, 12/25/11)
2011 Dec 25, Anti-whaling activists intercepted Japan's harpoon fleet far north of Antarctic waters, with the help of a military-style drone.
(AFP, 12/25/11)
2011 Dec 31, Police in Beebe, Arkansas, said dozens of blackbirds had fallen dead, prompting officers to ban residents from shooting fireworks. Thousands of dead blackbirds rained down on the town in central Arkansas last New Year's Eve after revelers set off fireworks.
(AP, 1/1/12)
2011 West Virginia began field trails on a vaccine to stop the spread of rabies. Marshmallow-flavored packets of ONRAB, designed to be eaten by raccoons, skunks and other furry creatures, were dropped from aircraft.
(Econ, 9/14/13, p.32)
2011 The group Stop Rhino Poaching estimated that 446 rhinos were killed in South Africa this year, a sharp jump from the 13 lost in 2007, 83 in 2008, 122 in 2009 and 333 in 2010.
(AFP, 1/3/12)
2011-2016 Nearly all of 150,000 Adelie penguins on the shores of Antarctica’s Commonwealth Bay have starved or disappeared over this five-year period after a giant iceberg blocked access to their main food source.
(SSFC, 1/1/17, p.C14)
2012 Jan 4, Anti-whaling activists claimed a small victory in their Antarctic campaign with the discovery of a Japanese harpoon ship.
(AFP, 1/4/12)
2012 Jan 5, In Japan a deep-pocketed restaurateur shelled out nearly $750,000 for a tuna at the Tsukiji fish market, smashing the record price for a single bluefin.
(AFP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 5, Thai wildlife officials said body parts from a dead wild elephant, found on Jan 2 without its tusks, tail and penis, were likely destined for restaurants in tourist areas. The creature, which was discovered in Kaeng Krachan National Park near the Myanmar border.
(AFP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 6, In New Zealand 7 long-finned pilot whales died after being beached. Rescuers the next day were confident they had saved 18 others.
(AP, 1/7/12)
2012 Jan 7, Sri Lanka media said a moratorium on killing stray dogs has been lifted as the government attempts to cut down on the 2,000 people that are hospitalized every day after being bitten.
(AFP, 1/7/12)
2012 Jan 8, In California animal rights arsonists destroyed 14 cattle trucks at the Harris Ranch of I-5.
(SFC, 1/11/12, p.C3)
2012 Jan 8, Wildlife officials said white-tailed deer populations in parts of eastern Montana and elsewhere in the Northern Plains could take years to recover from a devastating disease that killed thousands of the animals in recent months. The deaths were attributed to an outbreak of epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD), transmitted by biting midges.
(AP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 10, South African rangers found eight dead rhinos that had been stripped of their horns, an unprecedented one-day toll, in Kruger National Park.
(AP, 1/11/12)
2012 Jan 11, In South Africa 2 suspected rhino poachers were shot dead by rangers in Kruger National Park, a day after eight dehorned carcasses were found there.
(AFP, 1/11/12)
2012 Jan 11, In Zimbabwe 3 suspects appeared in court in Harare accused of murder and of possessing rhino horn worth $120,000 found in a vehicle still registered to Sessel Zvidzai, deputy local government minister in the former opposition party. The next day Zvidzai expressed surprise and said that he sold the truck two years ago.
(AP, 1/12/12)
2012 Jan 12, A Thai navy patrol caught a gang of dog smugglers on the shore of the Mekong River in Nakhon Phanom province. At least 750 dogs were to be transported through Laos to Vietnam, where dog meat is a delicacy.
(AP, 1/12/12)
2012 Jan 19, In eastern Indonesia a crocodile swallowed a 10-year-old girl while she played in the Wailolong river with her father, the second death in the same place in two months.
(AFP, 1/19/12)
2012 Jan 20, US federal regulators designated nearly 42,000 square miles of ocean along the West Coast as critical habitat for the endangered Pacific leatherback turtle.
(SFC, 1/21/12, p.A1)
2012 Jan 21, In New Jersey a fire destroyed a barn in Lafayette killing 22 valuable show horses.
(SSFC, 1/22/12, p.A7)
2012 Jan 21, In eastern Spain a flaming-horned bull trampled and fatally gored a man during a festival in Navajas. Catalonia had legislation protecting flaming bulls, despite a ban that took effect on Jan 1.
(AP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 24, In New Zealand a mass-stranding of whales left 36 of the creatures dead and threatened 40 more. 99 pilot whales had stranded themselves a day earlier on Farewell Spit on the South Island.
(AP, 1/24/12)
2012 Jan 26, A Thailand wildlife official said a worrisome new practice of Thais consuming elephant meat could threaten the national animal with extinction. Thailand's elephant population was under 3,000 wild elephants, plus some 4,000 domesticated.
(AP, 1/26/12)
2012 Jan 27, In India a leopard badly mauled two people including a pregnant woman after straying into Guwahati, the largest city in northeast Assam state. It was the third such attack there in as many weeks.
(AFP, 1/27/12)
2012 Jan 27, The Rwandan government said it will increase the cost of a permit to track the endangered mountain gorillas, the country's main tourist attraction, to $750 from $500 starting June 1. The permit allows visitors to spend around one hour observing the primates, estimated to total just 790 worldwide.
(AP, 1/27/12)
2012 Jan 28, Bird enthusiasts were reporting rising numbers of snowy owls from the Arctic winging into the lower 48 states this winter in a mass southern migration.
(Reuters, 1/28/12)
2012 Jan 30, A new study said a burgeoning population of huge pythons, many of them pets that were turned loose by their owners when they got too big, appears to be wiping out large numbers of raccoons, opossums, bobcats and other mammals in the Florida Everglades.
(AP, 1/31/12)
2012 Jan, In Peru dolphins began dying after they were stranded on an 84-mile stretch of coastline. By April as many as 2,800 dolphins were reported dead. Scientists remained puzzled.
(SFC, 4/7/12, p.A3)
2012 Feb 1, South Africa’s national parks agency said 3 young Mozambican poachers will spend 25 years behind bars after they were found with two fresh rhino horns in Kruger Park.
(AFP, 2/2/12)
2012 Feb 3, Puerto Rico's government announced plans to kill as many iguanas as possible and export their meat in hopes of eradicating an imported species that has long vexed residents and entertained tourists. The reptiles were first seen in the wild in Puerto Rico in the 1970s when owners began to release them, and their numbers have since exploded. The US territory estimated it has 4 million iguanas, which is a little more than the island's human population.
(AP, 2/4/12)
2012 Feb 4, In eastern China a group of tourists visiting the Jinan Wildlife World had a narrow escape after up to 8 Bengal tigers attacked their bus, puncturing its tires and destroying the windscreen in Shandong province.
(AFP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 11, Canada set the seal on improving ties with China by agreeing to a 10-year loan for two giant pandas, traditionally an indication of official approval from Beijing.
(Reuters, 2/11/12)
2012 Feb 12, DogTV went live on Time Warner Cable and Cox Media. It was produced by Jasmine Group, an Israeli company, which hoped to charge a premium of $4.99 per month for the channel designed to keep dogs company.
(SFC, 3/5/12, p.D3)
2012 Feb 14, In Massachusetts 11 more dolphins beached themselves at Cape Cod. Ten were rescued. Over the last month some 178 have stranded in the area and 125 died.
(SFC, 2/17/12, p.A7)
2012 Feb 14, Uganda officials said they have seized nearly 360 pounds (162 kg) of ivory and other animal parts and products that were being smuggled in and out of the country. Officials said Chinese demand is behind the illegal trade in endangered species and animal products.
(AP, 2/14/12)
2012 Feb 16, Wildlife activists said poachers in Cameroon have slaughtered at least 200 elephants in the past five weeks, where they are more dangerously endangered than anywhere else on Earth.
(AP, 2/16/12)
2012 Feb 16, An animal protection group said 4 Chinese nationals have been arrested in Zimbabwe on cruelty charges after they cut up and ate rare tortoises. The 4 men were found to have entered Zimbabwe illegally and worked without permits in the small scale mining district of Bikita. They awaited deportation.
(AP, 2/16/12)
2012 Feb 22, Anti-whaling campaigners Sea Shepherd attacked a Japanese whaling ship in the Antarctic Ocean by firing paint bombs at it and trying to jam its propeller with ropes.
(AP, 2/23/12)
2012 Feb 22, Researchers in northeast India released a report on the discovery of a new family of legless amphibians, named Chikilidae, in a rare scientific breakthrough.
(AFP, 2/22/12)
2012 Feb 23, California officials said about a third of an estimated 50,000 hens at A&L Poultry, west of Turlock, died after about two weeks without feed, and most of the rest are being euthanized because of their weak condition.
(www.modbee.com/2012/02/23/2083371/turlock-poultry-farm-owner-likely.html)
2012 Feb 23, A Cameroon park official said nearly 500 elephants have been killed in Bouba Ndjida National Park in less than two months by poachers from Sudan and Chad.
(AFP, 2/24/12)
2012 Mar 5, In Brazil 30 beached dolphins were rescued by beachgoers. The rescue was captured on video and became an internet sensation.
(http://news.yahoo.com/mass-dolphin-rescue-witnessed-off-rio-coast-035714671.html)
2012 Mar 9, Japan said its Antarctic whaling fleet has killed less than a third of the animals it planned to because of sabotage by activists, as it announced the end of the season's hunt. Whalers killed 266 minke whales and one fin whale, well below the approximately 900 they had been aiming for when they left Japan in December.
(AFP, 3/9/12)
2012 Mar 13, It was reported that the chytrid fungus has spread to nearly 600 species of frog and has probably driven over 200 species to extinction. SF State Univ. biologist Vance T. Vredenburg called it the “worst population crash of animals in history."
(SFC, 3/13/12, p.A10)
2012 Mar 13, Russian and South Korean scientists signed a deal on joint research intended to recreate a woolly mammoth, an animal which last walked the earth some 10,000 years ago.
(AFP, 3/13/12)
2012 Mar 13, South African wildlife dealer Jacques Els (39) was sentenced to eight years in jail over 38 horns cut off sedated rhinos. Els was arrested in 2010 after buying the horns for 760,000 rands ($100,000, 77,000 euros) from game farm manager Tommie Fourie who drugged the animals and cut off their trademark spikes. Els claimed the horns were removed from the animals "to protect them from poaching."
(AFP, 3/14/12)
2012 Mar 14, British scientists warned that research into debilitating diseases is under threat from a refusal by ferry operators and airlines to transport laboratory animals into the country.
(AFP, 3/14/12)
2012 Mar 15, Kashmir scientists at Sher-i-Kashmir University said they have cloned a rare Himalayan goat, hoping to help increase the number of animals famed for their silky soft undercoats used to make pashmina wool, or cashmere.
(AP, 3/15/12)
2012 Mar 19, EU nations backed a complete ban on removing shark’s fins before throwing them into the sea to die. 75 million sharks were said to be killed annually for their fins, with the EU being the biggest exporter.
(SFC, 3/20/12, p.A3)
2012 Mar 19, South African officials said 135 endangered rhinoceros have been killed by poachers so far this year, about a third of the number killed during all of 2011.
(AP, 3/19/12)
2012 Mar 20, Kenya wildlife officials said fires raging across Mount Kenya may have been set by poachers trying to create a diversion from their illegal attacks on animals.
(SFC, 3/21/12, p.A2)
2012 Mar 21, Australian zoo officials said 4 rare white rhinoceroses have died in recent weeks at the Taronga Western Plains Zoo in New South Wales after displaying mysterious neurological problems such as stumbling.
(AP, 3/21/12)
2012 Mar 21, Vietnamese police seized five tons of frozen pangolins and iguanas that were destined for the cooking pot in China.
(AFP, 3/23/12)
2012 Mar 28, A coalition of environmental groups warned that some 200 critically-endangered orangutans in a protected area of Indonesia’s Aceh province will be wiped out by the end of the year if land clearing in Tripa Swamp is not stopped.
(AFP, 3/28/12)
2012 Mar 30, Philippine police rescued 300 badly injured pitbulls and arrested seven South Koreans after busting a massive online dog fighting syndicate at a two-hectare farm in the city of San Pablo. 20 of the dogs needed to be euthanized.
(AFP, 4/1/12)
2012 Mar 31, In southwestern Australia a shark attack killed Peter Kurmann (33) as he was diving from a boat off Stratham Beach.
(SSFC, 4/1/12, p.A4)
2012 Apr 13, Spain's King Juan Carlos (74) was injured while on an expensive elephant hunting trip in Botswana amid the nation's deep financial woes. The accident required a hip replacement and led to scathing criticism amid the nation's deep financial woes.
(AP, 4/15/12)
2012 Apr 17, Bangladesh customs agents seized more than 400 tortoises being smuggled in three suitcases through the country's main airport on their way to Bangkok. Two Indian citizens were arrested in connection with the seizure.
(AFP, 4/17/12)
2012 Apr 18, Mozambique state-run newspaper Noticias reported that rampaging elephants are terrorizing villages near the Zimbabwe border, attacking people, trampling crops and scaring children.
(AFP, 4/18/12)
2012 Apr 19, In South Africa a man was killed by a shark while body boarding at a bay in Cape Town in the country’s second deadly mauling this year.
(AFP, 4/19/12)
2012 Apr 21, Kenyan rangers shot dead five suspected elephant poachers overnight in a firefight at Chepareria in West Pokot County.
(AFP, 4/21/12)
2012 Apr 23, Philippine coast guard and fisheries bureau operatives arrested 12 Vietnamese fishermen for poaching endangered marine turtles, black corals and reef fishes in southern Philippines waters. Other foreign fishing boats spotted in the same area managed to flee toward Malaysia.
(AP, 4/25/12)
2012 Apr 25, In New Zealand an African elephant killed a zookeeper caring for her at the Franklin Zoo near Auckland where the animal was retired after performing in circuses for decades.
(AP, 4/25/12)
2012 Apr 30, A rare white buffalo, a male calf named Lightning Medicine Cloud, was found slaughtered and skinned on Lakota Ranch near Greenville, Texas, just shy of its first birthday. Its mother died the next day of suspected poisoning. The ranch and its supporters soon offered $45,000 for information leading to the killer.
(AFP, 5/9/12)
2012 May 9, In Australia 27 protected Little Penguins were found mauled in the Phillip Island Nature Park in Victoria state, a popular tourist attraction. The penguins were believed killed by a dog or a pack of dogs, ironically at Cat Bay.
(AFP, 5/10/12)
2012 May 9, South African authorities seized assets worth almost $7 million from game farm owner Dawie Groenewald and veterinary surgeons, Karel Toet and Manie Du Plessis, accused of rhino poaching. They were charged with 1,872 counts of racketeering.
(AFP, 5/9/12)
2012 May 15, Australian researchers said a mystery liver disease, thought to be caused by introduced weeds, is causing hairy-nosed wombats in southern Australia to go bald and die.
(AFP, 5/15/12)
2012 May 15, In Indonesia a critically-endangered Sumatran elephant was found dead in Aceh province, the second death from suspected poisoning within a month.
(AFP, 5/16/12)
2012 May 15, South African police officers, tipped off by an anonymous informer, forced their way into a Johannesburg apartment where they found 10 rhinoceros horns and an elephant tusk and arrested a Vietnamese man.
(AP, 5/16/12)
2012 May 21, Guinea police seized over 800 pieces of ivory, including sculptures and elephant tusks, in the capital Conakry during raids beginning May 19 that led to six arrests.
(AFP, 5/25/12)
2012 May 22, In India the government of Maharashtra state says injuring or killing suspected poachers will no longer be considered a crime. Maharashtra Forest Minister Patangrao Kadam said the state will send more rangers and jeeps into the forest, and will offer secret payments to informers who give tips about poachers and animal smugglers.
(AP, 5/23/12)
2012 May 22, Sri Lankan authorities seized 1.5 tons of African ivory marked as plastic waste and addressed to a buyer in Dubai. They informed the authorities in the United Arab Emirates and Kenya to take action against the shipper and the consignee.
(AFP, 5/23/12)
2012 May 23, In the first case brought under the Philippines 2001 wildlife act, farmer Bryan Balaon (26) was fined 100,000 pesos ($2,300), for shooting and eating one of the world's rarest eagles. The Philippine eagle, or Pithecophaga jefferyi, found only in the country's vanishing forests, is the world's largest eagle and is "critically endangered" with just 90-250 pairs left in the wild.
(AFP, 5/24/12)
2012 May 30, Mozambican police arrested a Vietnamese man at the main airport in Maputo as he tried to smuggle rhino horns out of the country. Doan Minh (41) had already made it past airport security screening when he was caught.
(AFP, 5/31/12)
2012 May 31, In southern Australia a truck carrying around 400 sheep overturned on a highway overpass outside Melbourne, causing the animals to rain onto the freeway below resulting in "a large number" of dead and injured sheep.
(AP, 6/1/12)
2012 May 31, In western Indonesia 3 critically-endangered Sumatran elephants were found dead in an oil palm plantation. They were believed to have been poisoned.
(AFP, 6/3/12)
2012 Jun 12, South African authorities said the slaughter of rhinos driven by the soaring illegal trade in their horns continues at a record pace with 245 killed since January. Police have arrested 161 suspects, including 138 poachers, since the start of the year.
(AFP, 6/12/12)
2012 Jun 20, In Kenya 6 lions were speared to death overnight on the outskirts of Nairobi after they strayed from the city's national park and killed four goats. Kenya has been losing 100 lions a year for the best part of the past decade, leaving the country with just 2,000 of its famous big cats. On June 22 an official said Maasai warriors who speared to death the six lions will be arrested for killing wildlife.
(AFP, 6/20/12)(AP, 6/22/12)
2012 Jun 24, In Ecuador’s Galapagos National Park the only remaining Pinta Island tortoise and celebrated conservation icon, passed away. Lonesome George, estimated to be more than 100 years old, was discovered in 1972 at a time when tortoises of his type were already believed to be extinct.
(AFP, 6/25/12)
2012 Jun 27, Gabonese President Ali Bongo set fire to five tons of ivory worth around 10 million euros ($14 million) to mark his government's commitment to battling poachers and saving elephants. The stockpile and would have required the killing of some 850 elephants.
(AFP, 6/27/12)
2012 Jun 27, Spanish scientists reported evidence that dinosaurs were warm-blooded, despite being reptiles.
(SFC, 6/28/12, p.A1)
2012 Jun 28, In South Africa chimpanzees at the Jane Goodall Institute Chimpanzee Eden near Nelspruit pulled an American working there into their enclosure, bit him and dragged him nearly a half mile.
(AP, 6/29/12)
2012 Jul 1, Nigerian hunters killed a hippopotamus in the town of Shelleng on the bank of the Benue river. The hippo had killed two fishermen a day earlier.
(AP, 7/3/12)
2012 Jul 5, In Panama the International Whaling Commission rejected a request from Denmark for a whaling quota for indigenous groups in Greenland. Two days earlier it approved the renewal of bowhead whale quotas for indigenous subsistence whaling in Alaska and Russia and for St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean. The United States says it doesn't support a South Korean plan to restart whale hunting for purportedly scientific purposes.
(AP, 7/6/12)
2012 Jul 6, Japan, Norway and their allies blocked a bid to give the UN a greater role in protecting whales, as sought by conservationists frustrated by deep polarization over whaling as the International Whaling Commission closed its latest annual meeting in Panama marred by intense divisions.
(AFP, 7/6/12)
2012 Jul 9, Indian officials said devastating floods in the northeast have killed around 600 animals in Kaziranga National Park, Assam state, including 14 threatened one-horned rhinos.
(AFP, 7/9/12)
2012 Jul 10, A Trinidad and Tobago conservation group called for a prompt investigation into how government work crews crushed leatherback turtle eggs and hatchlings on a remote beach that experts say is the globe's densest nesting site for the endangered marine species. Thousands of leatherback eggs were crushed by heavy machinery over the weekend as workers redirected a shifting river that was eroding the nesting sites and threatening a hotel.
(AP, 7/11/12)
2012 Jul 12, In Canada 3 horses were killed and a 4th seriously injured during a chuckwagon race at the Calgary Stampede.
(Reuters, 7/14/12)
2012 Jul 13, Thailand customs officials discovered a half ton of ivory hidden in crates aboard a flight from Kenya. One official estimated that the 158 pieces of ivory were from the tusks of around 50 elephants.
(AP, 7/17/12)
2012 Jul 14, In western Australia a surfer was bitten in half in a savage shark attack near Wedge Island, north of Perth, the fifth such fatality in the region in less than a year.
(AFP, 7/14/12)
2012 Jul 15, Namibia's annual seal hunt, which will see some 86,000 Cape fur seals slaughtered by end November, began amid outcry from conservation groups that brand it a massacre for trade purposes. The animals are harvested for their pelts, fat, which is used in beauty products and male sexual organs, believed to have aphrodisiac properties in Asia.
(AFP, 7/14/12)
2012 Jul 23, The WWF conservation group ranked Vietnam the worst country for wildlife crime in its first-ever report on how well 23 Asian and African countries protect rhinos, tigers and elephants.
(AP, 7/23/12)
2012 Jul 24, India's top court banned tourism in tiger reserves across the country in a ruling that aims to protect the endangered big cats but may disrupt travel plans for droves of tourists who booked stays at the hundreds of hotels that have sprung up deep inside the forests.
(AP, 7/24/12)
2012 Jul 27, In South Africa Germany-born conservationist Rita Miljo (81) died in a fire that destroyed much of her Center for Animal Rehabilitation and Education in the bush of Limpopo province. Sha had cared for and reintroduced packs of baboons into the wilds of South Africa.
(SSFC, 7/29/12, p.A2)
2012 Aug 1, Vietnam’s state media said a soldier has been thrown out of the army after posting graphic photographs on Facebook of the torture and killing of 2 rare wild monkeys.
(AFP, 8/1/12)
2012 Aug 2, It was reported that France planned to offer financial incentives to French fishermen for hunting bull sharks, a threatened shark species, following recent attacks on people off the coast of Reunion.
(SFC, 8/2/12, p.A4)
2012 Aug 3, In Australia Tasmania Zoo owner Dick Warren said 9 birds, including an endangered swift parrot, had their heads smashed in or ripped off and more than 60 animals were missing after vandals went on the rampage.
(AFP, 8/4/12)
2012 Aug 6, Thousands of fish were reported dying in the Midwest as the hot, dry summer dries up rivers and causes water temperatures to climb in some spots to nearly 100 degrees. About 40,000 shovelnose sturgeon were killed in Iowa last week as water temperatures reached 97 degrees. Nebraska fishery officials said they've seen thousands of dead sturgeon, catfish, carp, and other species in the Lower Platte River. Illinois biologists said the hot weather has killed tens of thousands of large- and smallmouth bass and channel catfish. Kansas has seen declining water levels that pulled younger, smaller game fish away from the vegetation-rich shore lines and forced them to cluster, making them easier targets for predators. In South Dakota there have been reports of isolated fish kills in its manmade lakes on the Missouri River.
(AP, 8/6/12)
2012 Aug 16, In Italy 6 of 10 horses crashed during the latest Palio bareback horse race in Siena. One horse broke a front leg. Some 50 horses have died during the race since 1970.
(SFC, 8/18/12, p.A2)
2012 Aug 16, It was reported that lion bones have become a hot commodity for their use in Asian traditional medicine, driving up exports from South Africa to the East and creating new fears of the survival of the species.
(AFP, 8/16/12)
2012 Aug 24, In Alaska a hiker in Denali National Park photographed a grizzly bear for at least eight minutes before the bear mauled and killed him in the first fatal attack in the park's history.
(AP, 8/25/12)
2012 Aug 25, In Germany a tiger escaped its enclosure at the Cologne Zoo and killed a female keeper (43) before being shot dead.
(SSFC, 8/26/12, p.A5)
2012 Aug 26, In Zimbabwe a consortium of wildlife ranchers said tens of thousands of animals face annihilation in a wave of land takeovers in the southeast after hunting permits and land were granted to 25 leaders of the ZANU-PF party in a black empowerment program.
(AP, 8/26/12)
2012 Aug 29, It was reported that Argentine authorities are planning to shoot seagulls in hopes of reducing their population following seagull attacks on southern right whales. Seagulls around the city of Puerto Madryn discovered about a decade ago that by pecking at the whales as they come up for air, they can create open wounds and feed on them.
(AP, 8/29/12)
2012 Sep 2, A wildlife rescue organization said 13 whales have died following a mass stranding off the Scottish coast. British Divers and Marine Life Rescue said that the mammals were among a group of 26 pilot whales stranded at Pittenweem in eastern Scotland.
(AP, 9/2/12)
2012 Sep 4, Spain’s government lifted a 6-year ban on televising live bullfights.
(SFC, 9/5/12, p.A2)
2012 Sep 4, Vietnamese police seized four tiger cubs and 118 endangered pangolins from suspected wildlife smugglers.
(AFP, 9/4/12)
2012 Sep 5, In Zimbabwe an independent animal welfare group said it is filing cruelty charges against the veterinary teaching department at the Univ. of Zimbabwe after three emaciated, ailing and distressed horses were killed using an ax and a knife.
(AP, 9/5/12)
2012 Sep 11, Scientists reported the discovery of well-preserved wooly mammoth fragments some 328 feet underground in Yakutia, Siberia.
(SFC, 9/12/12, p.A2)
2012 Sep 16, It was reported that a $300,000 project by the Nature Conservancy has created an artificial bat cave deep in the Tennessee woods. Conservationists hoped to help save bats dying from a fungus that causes white-nose syndrome.
(SSFC, 9/16/12, p.A22)
2012 Sep 19, An int’l. team of researchers published the full genome of the Pacific oyster, Crassostrea gigas, making it the first mollusk fully sequenced.
(SFC, 9/20/12, p.A7)
2012 Sep 26, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill banning the use of dogs for hunting bears and bobcats.
(SFC, 9/27/12, p.C1)
2012 Sep 26, In Oregon hog farmer Terry Vance Garner (69) never returned after he set out to feed his animals on his farm in Coos County. A family member found Garner's dentures and pieces of his body in the hog enclosure several hours later, but most of his remains had been consumed.
(AP, 10/1/12)
2012 Oct 12, UC Berkeley law students Justin Teixeira and Eric Cuellar were seen laughing and throwing around the body of a dead helmeted guinea fowl at the Flamingo casino in Las Vegas. On Dec 28 prosecutors filed animal cruelty charges against both men. In 2013 Cuellar pleaded guilty and was fined $200 and sentenced to 48 hours of community service. A 3rd defendant Hazhir Kargaran (26) pleaded no contest to 3 misdemeanors and was sentenced to 2 days in jail and 48 hours of community service. Teixeira pleaded guilty to a felony animal killing was sentenced to 6 months in boot camp and then probation.
(SFC, 12/28/12, p.A5)(SFC, 6/14/13, p.C8)
2012 Oct 12, It was reported that Britain planned to shoot badgers for six consecutive weeks in each of the next four years in parts of Gloucestershire and the neighboring county of Somerset. The aim was to reduce the badger population by 70 percent. At issue was how to stem the spread of bovine tuberculosis, which many farmers blamed on roaming badgers.
(Reuters, 10/12/12)
2012 Oct 20, Hong Kong officials said customs officers have confiscated 4 tons of ivory valued at $3.4 million in containers shipped from Tanzania and Kenya.
(SSFC, 10/21/12, p.A4)
2012 Oct 23, In California surfer Francisco Javier Solorio Jr. was killed in a shark attack off the coast of Surf Beach in Lompoc.
(SFC, 10/24/12, p.A6)
2012 Oct 23, Britain’s Environment Secretary Owen Paterson said a plan to shoot thousands of badgers to stop the spread of tuberculosis in cattle has been delayed in the face of overwhelming public opposition to the cull.
(AP, 10/24/12)
2012 Oct 27, An Indonesia conservationist said that and orangutan, recently shot with an air rifle, has been rescued in the Indonesian part of Borneo. Rescuers worked to remove 104 pellets from her body. In 2011 conservationists found that villagers living on the Indonesian side of Borneo killed at least 750 endangered orangutans in a year, some to protect crops from being raided and others for their meat.
(AP, 10/27/12)
2012 Oct 29, Berlin authorities shot and killed a 120 kg (265-pound) wild boar after it attacked and injured 4 people including a police officer in a residential neighborhood.
(AP, 10/30/12)
2012 Nov 2, In South Korea an international team of scientists confirmed that a 5.5-ton elephant named Koshik at the Everland Zoo can reproduce five Korean words by tucking his trunk inside his mouth to modulate sound. Koshik emerged as a star among animal enthusiasts and children in South Korea after Everland Zoo claimed in 2006 that he could imitate words, two years after his trainers noticed the phenomenon.
(AP, 11/2/12)
2012 Nov 4, South African police said 14 rhinos in provinces have been found illegally dehorned in the past week. Three of them died. At least 458 of the country's endangered rhinos have been illegally hunted and killed this year.
(AP, 11/5/12)
2012 Nov 9, A South Africa court sentenced a Thai national to 40 years in prison for selling rhino horns. Chumlong Lemtongthai had pleaded guilty to 59 charges on Nov 5. At least 458 of South Africa's endangered rhinos have been illegally killed this year.
(AP, 11/9/12)
2012 Nov 15, An Ecuadoran helicopter began dropping nearly 22 tons of specially designed poison bait on the Galapagos island of Pinzon, launching the second phase of a campaign to clear out some 180 million non-native rodents.
(AP, 11/15/12)
2012 Nov 16, The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a "heads up" directive putting officials on alert for an increase in human interaction with dolphins in the waters across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Authorities were investigating several attacks on dolphins in the northern Gulf of Mexico after some were found with gunshot wounds, cuts and missing jaws.
(AP, 11/17/12)
2012 Nov 17, In Idaho a break-in at Zoo Boise left a Patas monkey dead from blunt force trauma to the head and neck and police were analyzing blood found at the scene to determine if it came from the monkey or one of two human intruders. Michael J. Watkins (22) was soon arrested.
(AP, 11/17/12)(SFC, 11/21/12, p.A6)
2012 Nov 19, In Morocco the 48-member int’l. organization of fishing countries voted to keep strict limits on catching Atlantic blue fin tuna.
(SFC, 11/20/12, p.A7)
2012 Nov 20, Police in South Africa arrested three men, including a game ranger, they suspect shot 7 rhinoceros to death and dehorned them. South Africa's Department of Environmental Affairs said 570 rhinos had been hunted illegally and killed this year alone.
(AP, 11/20/12)
2012 Nov 29, Botswana said it will ban hunting by 2014 because of fears that the nation is losing its wildlife. Hunts by local communities and with special hunting licenses would still be allowed.
(AP, 11/29/12)
2012 Dec 4, Researchers at Duke University reported that the lions of Africa's savannahs have lost as much as 75% of their habitat in the last 50 years as humans overtake their land and the lion population dwindles.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, A top official of the World Wide Fund for Nature said that despite armed guards, Cameroon's dwindling elephant population is being decimated by heavily armed gangs of international poachers.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 5, Kenya’s Lewa Wildlife Conservancy said that two male black rhinos and two female black rhinos were killed over the weekend. The four deaths brought Lewa's rhino population to 71. Kenya had about 600 rhinos in total.
(AP, 12/5/12)
2012 Dec 6, A US District Judge ruled that snakes, frogs and fairways can coexist at the San Francisco-owned Sharp Park Golf Course in Pacifica.
(SFC, 12/8/12, p.C6)
2012 Dec 6, French Polynesia created a 1.5 million square mile shark sanctuary.
(SFC, 12/19/12, p.A5)
2012 Dec 10, South Africa said its diplomats have signed an agreement with Vietnam to try and halt the trade of horns taken from poached rhinoceros.
(AP, 12/11/12)
2012 Dec 19, The Cook Islands designated a 756,000 square mile shark sanctuary.
(SFC, 12/19/12, p.A5)
2012 Dec 19, South Africa said at least 633 rhinoceros have been killed this year alone as a poaching epidemic continues to threaten the animals.
(AP, 12/19/12)
2012 Dec 21, The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that ringed seals and bearded seals will be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Loss of sea ice due to climate warning was blamed.
(SFC, 12/22/12, p.A6)
2012 Dec 28, Mexico City lawmakers approved prison terms for animal cruelty, previously considered a civil offense sanctioned with fines and detentions.
(AP, 12/29/12)
2012 Dec 30, In eastern India a passenger train struck and killed 5 elephants in a herd crossing railroad tracks in the Rambha forest area.
(SFC, 12/31/12, p.A2)
2012 Alan Root authored “Ivory, Apes & Peacocks: Animals, Adventure and Discovery in the Wild Places of Africa.
(Econ, 8/18/12, p.76)
2012 The value of American eels grew to more than $40 million this year as Asian and European eel stocks dried up and because of demand in China, South Korea and other Asian countries. By 2017 the big demand and big prices spawned a black market that wildlife officials said is jeopardizing the species.
(AP, 8/7/17)
2012 An estimated 22,000 elephants were killed by illegal poachers across Africa this year.
(SFC, 12/3/13, p.A2)
2012 In Australia 28 Tasmanian devils were relocated to Maria Island off Tasmania in an effort to save the carnivorous marsupial from extinction due to a deadly mouth cancer. By 2021 the population had grown to 100 and wiped out native penguins and other seabirds on the island.
(SSFC, 6/26/21, p.B8)
2012 Panama banned bullfighting.
(Econ., 4/4/15, p.33)
2012 In Thailand Blake Dinkin (42), a Canadian, began producing coffee made from beans plucked out of elephant dung. The coffee sold for $1,100 per kg ($500 per pound), making it among the world's priciest.
(AP, 12/7/12)
2013 Jan 3, Officials said a smuggling ring brought narwhal tusks from the Canadian Arctic into Maine in a trailer with a secret compartment and then illegally sold them to American buyers. In 2015 Andrew Zarauskas (61) was sentenced to nearly three years for buying more than 30 tusks over six years from two Canadians.
(SFC, 1/4/13, p.A6)(SFC, 1/13/15, p.A6)
2013 Jan 3, It was reported that Paraguayan police have rescued 211 blue-fronted Amazon parrots, which were taken from remote forests. More than 400,000 of the birds have been caught and sold.
(SFC, 1/3/13, p.A2)
2013 Jan 4, Hong Kong customs officials said they have intercepted a container with 779 elephant tusks weighing 2,900 pounds from Kenya.
(SFC, 1/5/13, p.A2)
2013 Jan 5, In Kenya a poaching gang used gunfire to kill an entire family of 11 elephants in Tsavo National Park for their ivory tusks.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 7, Mexican authorities said wild dogs mauled and killed four people whose bodies were found over the past two weeks in a park on the edge of Mexico City.
(AP, 1/7/13)
2013 Jan 12, In Florida nearely 800 people began month-long "Python Challenge" to deal with an infestation of Burmese pythons that were eating their way through a fragile ecosystem. Roughly 2,050 pythons have been harvested in Florida since 2000.
(AP, 1/12/13)
2013 Jan 15, Kenyan custom officials in Mombasa seized 638 pieces of illegal elephant ivory estimated to be worth $1.2 million. The ivory was in a container destined for Indonesia. The tusks were said to be from Tanzania.
(AP, 1/16/13)
2013 Jan 16, British PM David Cameron condemned horse meat found in beef burgers sold by Tesco and said this was likely to prove both embarrassing and costly for the firm.
(AP, 1/16/13)
2013 Jan 21, In Nigeria 18 people were killed in an attack on a local market in Dambao, Borno state. The violence started after the local market banned a group of hunters from selling "bush meat" from slaughtered monkeys and other creatures.
(AP, 1/22/13)
2013 Jan 24, Guyana signed an agreement with NY conservation group Panthera, which is trying to establish a jaguar corridor from northern Argentina to Mexico.
(SFC, 1/25/13, p.A2)
2013 Jan 24, South Africa reported that some 15 thousand crocodiles escaped the Rakwena Crocodile Farm on the Limpopo River border with Botswana when the farm gates were opened earlier this week to alleviate pressure from rising flood waters.
(SFC, 1/26/13, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/adlfxrl)
2013 Jan 25, Brazil’s government announced that it is undertaking a 4-year, $33 million study of its Amazon rain forest to compile a detailed inventory of the plants, animals and people that live there.
(SFC, 1/26/13, p.A2)
2013 Jan 28, In eastern Indonesia a mob of wild monkeys has gone on a rampage in a village in South Sulawesi province, entering houses and attacking residents. Seven people were injured.
(AP, 1/30/13)
2013 Jan 29, Malaysian wildlife officials said 10 endangered Borneo pygmy elephants have been found dead at the Gunung Rara Forest Reserve under mysterious circumstances. Officials said that they probably were poisoned over the past 3 weeks. The remains of 3 more were found the next day bringing the total to 13.
(AP, 1/29/13)(AP, 1/30/13)
2013 Jan 31, South African officials said that 57 rhinos have been killed by poachers across the country so far this year. A record 668 rhinos were killed in South Africa in 2012, an increase of nearly 50 percent over the previous year.
(AP, 1/31/13)
2013 Jan, California researchers published findings of a brain tumor in raccoons associated with a newly discovered virus called RacPyV, or raccoon polyomavirus.
(SFC, 1/15/13, p.C2)
2013 Feb 6, US wildlife conservation group Int’l. Fund for Animal Welfare said Japan has been propping up its whaling industry with nearly $400 million in tax money in recent years.
(SFC, 2/7/13, p.A2)
2013 Feb 6, Researchers in Iceland blamed low oxygen levels in a shallow fjord for the deaths of tens of thousands of tons of herring.
(AP, 2/6/13)
2013 Feb 9, In the SF Bay Area dead fish began surfacing after thousands of gallons of chlorinated water flowed into the San Mateo Creek a half-mile below Crystal Springs Reservoir.
(SFC, 2/12/13, p.C1)
2013 Feb 12, Scientists in Zimbabwe said a fresh water crayfish brought from Australia is breeding out of control in the northern Lake Kariba, devouring the food sources of other fish and putting the nation's entire aquatic ecosystem at risk. The red claw crayfish was introduced a decade ago for a fish farming project.
(AP, 2/12/13)
2013 Feb 13, South African authorities said at least 96 rhinoceros have been killed so far this year, as rampant poaching for their horns to sell to buyers in Asia continues. From the 1990s to 2007, rhino killings in South Africa by poachers averaged about 15 a year.
(AP, 2/13/13)
2013 Feb 22, American scientists prepared to drop dead mice laced with painkillers on Guam's jungle canopy as a prescription for the brown tree snake, a headache that has caused Guam misery for more than 60 years.
(AP, 2/22/13)
2013 Mar 5, In Zimbabwe a man escaped from a lion attack on the shores of Lake Kariba, but the woman with him was savaged to death. An arm and remains of a second corpse were found by rangers hunting for the lions.
(AP, 3/6/13)
2013 Mar 6, In California a lion attacked and killed Dianna Hanson (24), a sanctuary worker at Project Survival’s Cat Haven in Dunlap.
(SFC, 3/7/13, p.A1)(SFC, 3/8/13, p.A1)
2013 Mar 7, Zimbabwe wildlife rangers caught put down three lions that killed two people near a suburb in the northern resort town of Kariba. A lioness and two "sub-adult" cubs between two and three years old were baited into traps and given lethal injections using darts.
(AP, 3/8/13)
2013 Mar 11, CITES conservationists in Bangkok voted to regulate the trade of shark species threatened because their fins are used for expensive delicacies in Asia.
(SFC, 3/12/13, p.A2)
2013 Mar 11, In China Shanghai officials said the number of dumped adult and piglet carcasses retrieved in tributaries of the Huangpu river had reached 2,813. The city government, citing monitoring authorities, said the drinking water quality has not been affected. Authorities have been pulling out swollen and rotting pigs since March 8. By March 21 the dead pig count reached over 16,000.
(AP, 3/11/13)(SFC, 3/23/13, p.A2)(Econ, 12/20/14, p.70)
2013 Mar 15, In southwestern Chad over the last 24 hours at least 86 elephants, including 33 pregnant females, were killed by poachers for the ivory of their tusks.
(Econ, 4/20/13, p.47)
2013 Mar 14, In Thailand the Convention on Int’l. Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) ended its meeting in Bangkok with final decisions to expand protection to for dozens of animal and plant species including 5 types of sharks.
(SFC, 3/15/13, p.A4)
2013 Mar 24, In South Africa 6 of 19 stranded pilot whales on a beach in Cape Town died and authorities said they planned to euthanize some of the surviving whales.
(AP, 3/24/13)
2013 Mar 26, The US Supreme Court ruled that police cannot bring drug-sniffing police dogs onto a suspect's property to look for evidence without first getting a warrant for a search.
(AP, 3/26/13)
2013 Mar 30, In Mississippi nearly 50 people were arrested at a dogfight in Benton County following a months-long investigation.
(SFC, 4/2/13, p.A4)
2013 Mar, Chinese-led criminal gangs conspired with corrupt Tanzanian officials to traffic huge amounts of ivory, some of which was loaded in diplomatic bags on Pres. Xi's plane during a presidential visit.
(AP, 11/6/14)
2013 Apr 6, Florida state oficials said an annual toxic red algae bloom has killed 241 of the state’s roughly 5,000 endangered manatees.
(SSFC, 4/7/13, p.A13)
2013 Apr 8, India’s wildlife authorities began using aerial drones to oversee a sprawling natural game park in the northeast to protect the one-horned rhinoceros from armed poachers.
(AP, 4/8/13)
2013 Apr 8, A Chinese steel-hulled vessel hit an atoll at the Tubbataha National Marine Park, a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site on Palawan island. On April 13 Philippine authorities found inside the ship more than 10,000 kg (22,000 pounds) of meat from a protected species, the pangolin or scaly anteater. On April 19 the ship was extricated and towed to Puerto Princesa.
(AP, 4/15/13)(SSFC, 4/21/13, p.A4)
2013 Apr 10, Researchers reported a new species of tree-dwelling porcupine in Brazil’s Northeastern Atlantic Forest. With just 2% of the original forest habitat still standing, the newly discovered creature was already considered endangered.
(SFC, 4/11/13, p.A2)
2013 Apr 15, In South Africa a handler at the Elephant Sanctuary near Hartbeespoort Dam was trampled to death while taking elephants out for exercise. The handler got caught in the midst of an altercation between two of the animals.
(AP, 4/16/13)
2013 Apr 18, South Africa said 232 rhino had been illegally killed so far this year, 70% of them in Kruger National Park. Poachers killed 668 rhinos in South Africa in 2012, a 50% increase over the previous year.
(AP, 4/24/13)
2013 Apr 25, Central African Republic (CAR) local residents said at least 40 elephants have been slain at Dzanga-Sangha since the rebels took power on March 24.
(AP, 4/26/13)
2013 Apr 28, It was reported that the number of feral pigs in the US has risen to some 6 million with sightings in 47 states, up from 2 million in 1990 in 20 states.
(SSFC, 4/28/13, p.A11)
2013 Apr, Colorado and 14 other US states began reporting cases of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus. Up till now the virus was thought to exist only in Europe and China.
(SFC, 7/11/13, p.A4)
2013 May 2, It was reported that the last rhino in Mozambique has been killed. The warden in charge of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park — the only place where the horned behemoths lived in Mozambique — also said poachers have wiped out the last of the rhinos. Mozambique's conservation director believed a few may remain.
(AP, 5/2/13)
2013 May 6, In New York 30 horses being taken to slaughter in Canada were burned alive when the tractor-trailer transporting them caught fire on an upstate highway.
(Reuters, 5/7/13)
2013 May 8, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed a bill to schedule the state’s first gray wolf hunting season.
(SFC, 5/9/13, p.A6)
2013 May 9, In southern California Pamela Marie Devitt (63) was fatally mauled by a pack of pit bulls while walking near her home near Palmdale. Authorities were still searching for the dogs as darkness fell. On May 30 Alex Jackson (29), the owner of the dogs, was charged with murder. On Oct 4, 2014, Jackson was sentenced to 15 years to life. The dogs had guarded his pot-growing operation.
(Reuters, 5/9/13)(SFC, 5/11/13, p.A5)(SFC, 5/31/13, p.A12)(SFC, 10/5/14, p.A5)
2013 May 19, A Russian capsule carrying mice, lizards and other small animals returned to Earth after spending a month in space for what scientists said was the longest experiment of its kind. Fewer than half of the 53 mice and other rodents who blasted off on April 19 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome survived the flight.
(AP, 5/20/13)
2013 May 24, In England Sarah McClay (24) was mauled by a Sumatran tiger in an enclosure at South Lakes Wild Animal Park in Cumbria. She soon died from her injuries.
(AP, 5/25/13)
2013 May 30, Russian scientists said a perfectly preserved woolly mammoth carcass with liquid blood has been found on a remote Arctic island, fueling hopes of cloning the Ice Age animal.
(AP, 5/30/13)
2013 Jun 1, Protesters dressed as badgers and led by Queen guitarist Brian May marched through central London demanding that the government scrap a plan to cull badgers, aimed at slowing the spread of a cattle disease.
(Reuters, 6/1/13)
2013 Jun 3, The Enough Project, the Satellite Sentinel Project and two other groups said in a new report that members of Joseph Kony’s LRA have turned to elephant poaching in CongoDRC and the CAR and that the militia trades illegal ivory to acquire food and other supplies. The report also said elephants of Garamba National Park also are being targeted by "members of the armed forces of (Congo), South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda," citing the concerns of park rangers there.
(AP, 6/3/13)
2013 Jun 4, In New Mexico a 400-lb black bear attacked a bedridden woman (82) in Cimarron. Wildlife officers caught and killed the bear the next day.
(SFC, 6/6/13, p.A8)
2013 Jun 4, WWF Indonesia said killings of Sumatran elephants are on the rise, with 29 either shot or poisoned last year, including 14 in Aceh province. The report came 3 days after 2 dead Sumatran elephants were found near a paper plantation in Riau, allegedly poisoned by poachers.
(AP, 6/4/13)
2013 Jun 10, Thai police said they found 14 albino lions imported from Africa and hundreds of other protected animals in a warehouse near Bangkok. Pet shop owner Montri Boonprom-on (41) was arrested and faced up to four years in jail and a fine of 40,000 baht ($1,300).
(AP, 6/10/13)
2013 Jun 22, In southern England four-year-old colt Thomas Chippendale collapsed and died shortly after winning the Hardwicke Stakes at Royal Ascot.
(Reuters, 6/22/13)
2013 Jun 26, Scientists from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups announced that a previously unknown bird species has been discovered in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The wren-sized Cambodian tailorbird, Orthotomus chaktomuk, is one of two species unique to Cambodia.
(AP, 6/26/13)
2013 Jun 26, In the Czech Rep. 11 people branded themselves in Prague in support of animal rights. A public branding in Tel Aviv last year launched the movement, called 269Life. The group's name derives from a number branded on a calf that activists encountered at an Israeli dairy farm last year. They chose its number, 269, as a way to individualize the calf.
(AP, 6/27/13)
2013 Jun 28, It was reported that a pneumonia outbreak has killed at least 20 bighorn sheep on Old Dad Mountain in California’s Mohave National Preserve. Nevada numbered some 10,000 adult animals in at least 60 mountain ranges.
(SFC, 6/28/13, p.D5)
2013 Jul 12, The Oregon Fish and Wildlife commission adopted provisions of a lawsuit settlement that will make the state the only one in the West where killing wolves that attack livestock must be a last resort.
(SFC, 7/13/13, p.A4)
2013 Jul 12, In Spain an American and two Spaniards were gored during a danger-filled sixth bull run of the San Fermin festival, with one loose bull causing panic in the packed streets of the city of Pamplona.
(AP, 7/12/13)
2013 Jul 13, In Spain the penultimate bull run of the San Fermin festival left at least 23 people injured. Two of the injuries were gorings.
(AP, 7/13/13)
2013 Jul 14, In Spain a bull gored an Australian woman (23) and left her seriously injured during the final run of this year's annual San Fermin festival. 4 other runners were hospitalized with cuts and bruises.
(AP, 7/14/13)
2013 Jul 27, In Spain a youth (16) was gored in the back while celebrating the Apostle James feast at Isso, 322 km (200 miles) southeast of Madrid.
(AP, 7/28/13)
2013 Jul 29, In Peru the annual Andean Yawar Fiesta (Blood Festival) featured the strapping of a female condor to the back of a black bull. The legs of the condor were bandaged and the after 7 minutes the bull was roped and condor was cut loose.
(SSFC, 8/11/13, p.A7)
2013 Aug 5, In Canada brothers Noah and Connor Barthe, agers 4 and 6, were killed by an African rock python as they slept in their home in Campbellton, New Brunswick. The 100-pound snake had escaped from its enclosure, slithered through a ventilator and fell through the ceiling of their room.
(SSFC, 8/11/13, p.A4)
2013 Aug 7, Togo’s environment minister said Emile N'Bouke, a high-profile ivory trafficker, has been arrested. Activists said his work has fueled the slaughter of more than 10,000 elephants dating back to the 1970s.
(AP, 8/8/13)
2013 Aug 11, In Kenya a white rhino was found shot and killed by poachers who cut off its horn in Nairobi National Park, the first poaching death of a rhino in the urban park in six years. The killing brings to 35 the number of rhinos killed in Kenya so far this year, a sharp rise from the 29 killed in total in 2012.
(AP, 8/13/13)
2013 Aug 27, British farm union officials said a cull of badgers has begun in a bid to halt the spread of cattle tuberculosis. Plans called for about 5,000 badgers to be killed during the six-week program.
(AP, 8/27/13)
2013 Sep 5, South Africa’s department of environmental affairs said poachers have killed more than 600 rhinos in South Africa so far this year, with losses close to the total number of animals slaughtered in 2012.
(AFP, 9/5/13)
2013 Sep 10, Romanian lawmakers voted overwhelmingly for a law allowing stray dogs to be put down after a four-year-old boy was mauled to death by a pack of strays last week.
(AFP, 9/10/13)
2013 Sep 22, In South Africa poachers have killed a record 688 rhinos so far this year, more than the entire number slaughtered in 2012, according to figures issued on today’s World Rhino Day.
(AFP, 9/22/13)
2013 Sep 24, Zimbabwean authorities said at least 81 elephants have been killed for their ivory tusks by poachers using cyanide poison in water holes in Hwange National Park. The elephant toll soon rose to 91.
(AP, 9/24/13)(AP, 10/1/13)
2013 Sep 25, Romania's constitutional court ruled that a bill allowing stray dogs to be euthanized is legal, prompting hundreds of dog lovers to block a main road outside Parliament in protest.
(AP, 9/25/13)
2013 Sep 29, In Sweden wave of jellyfish forced the shut down of Oskarshamn nuclear reactor number 3. By Oct 1 the pipes were cleaned of the jellyfish and engineers prepared to restart the reactor.
(AP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 3, Hong Kong officials said customs agents have seized 189 elephant tusks, valued at about $1.5 million, in the city’s 3rd biggest bust of endangered species products in three months.
(SFC, 10/4/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 7, A record-breaking storm dropped 4 feet of snow in parts of South Dakota and left over 22,000 homes and businesses without electricity. Tens of thousands of cattle died in South Dakota. The storm also buried parts of Wyoming and Colorado and spawned tornadoes in Nebraska and Iowa. At least 4 people died due to the storm.
(SFC, 10/8/13, p.A5)(SFC, 10/14/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 8, Kenyan customs officers seized 2 tons of elephant ivory in a shipments bound for Turkey. This followed a similar seizure on Oct 4.
(AFP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 16, Kenya wildlife officials said they will place microchips in the horn of every rhino in the country in a bid to stamp out a surge in poaching the threatened animals.
(AFP, 10/16/13)
2013 Oct 18, The Netherlands Supreme Court said municipalities are entitled to to tax dog ownership because they have to pick up the bill for keeping public parks and streets clean.
(SFC, 10/18/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 19, In southeastern Brazil animal rights activist clashed with police in front of a laboratory in Sao Roque that used dogs for drug tests.
(AP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 21, The Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force said more than 300 elephants and other animals died in July of cyanide poisoning by poachers in Hwange, Zimbabwe's largest game park. Three elephants attacked a park ranger and trampled him to death during an anti-poaching patrol in the Hwange nature reserve.
(AFP, 10/21/13)(AP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 24, Indonesian police probing the murder of a young woman at a luxury villa stumbled upon a secret collection of exotic animals, including a cross-breed of a lion and tiger. The woman (23) had allegedly had her throat slit by a maintenance worker at the property south of the capital Jakarta after she refused his sexual advances.
(AFP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 25, South African official figures showed poachers have killed more than 100 rhinos over the past four weeks, pushing the death toll so far this year towards 800.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Nov 1, Tanzania’s parliament suspended an anti-poaching campaign, amid a surge of killings of elephant and rhino, to allow investigation of reported seizure of property, torture and killing of suspects.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, It was reported that scientists are struggling to find the trigger for a disease that appears to be ravaging starfish in record numbers along the US West Coast. The deadly syndrome, known as "star wasting disease," caused the sea creatures to lose their limbs and turn to slime in a matter of days. The disease was first detected in tide pools this summer along the coast of Monterey, Ca.
(Reuters, 11/4/13)(SFC, 12/9/13, p.A13)
2013 Nov 6, It was reported that a total of 20 dead whales have been discovered along Ghana's coastline in the last four years, including at least eight since September. Environmental groups said they are concerned, given the proximity of the discoveries to the country's new offshore petroleum industry.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 14, US officials in Colorado destroyed over six tons of confiscated ivory tusks, carvings and jewelry, accumulated over the last 25 years at the National Wildlife Property Repository.
(SFC, 11/15/13, p.A7)
2013 Nov 15, In Ohio six horses were killed on rural roads after over three dozen escaped from a farm near Covington. Three people injured in the road accidents.
(SFC, 11/16/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 17, In Kenya poachers infiltrated the privately owned Lewa Wildlife Conservancy during the full moon and killed Meluaya," a 17-year-old black rhino suspected to have been heavily pregnant and with a two-year-old calf.
(AFP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 20, Animal rights group PETA urged shoppers to boycott products made from angora rabbit fur, after it released footage of fur being plucked from the skins of live rabbits on Chinese farms.
(AFP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Australia a shark attack killed Zach Young (19) as he body boarded near the northern New South Wales city of Coffs Harbor in the nation's second deadly attack this month.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov, Chinese officials signed two agreements to import 500,000 cattle and three million pigs from Romania over the next few years.
(AP, 11/31/13)
2013 Dec 2, In Hawaii a shark attack killed a kayak fisherman off Maui.
(SFC, 12/3/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 3, In Florida a number of pilot whales were spotted in extremely shallow water in the Everglades park south of Naples. 22 whales died after a pod of 51 was first spotted.
(SFC, 12/6/13, p.A12)(SFC, 12/9/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 4, In Botswana the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said key states, where the illegal ivory trade flourishes, have pledged to take urgent measures to try to halt the illicit trade and secure elephant populations across Africa.
(AFP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 7, Two Japanese whaling ships and a surveillance vessel left for the annual hunt in the Antarctic Sea. The three ships departed from the western port of Shimonoseki to join other ships to hunt up to 935 Antarctic minke whales and up to 50 fin whales through March.
(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 11, The US FDA said it will begin curbing the use of some medically important antibiotics commonly fed to animals to fatten them up for market. A 3-year plan to implement this was called the Veterinary Feed Directive.
(SFC, 12/12/13, p.A1)
2013 Dec 16, Environmentalists filed a lawsuit against the US National Marines Fisheries Service to demand that it force the Navy to consider alternatives to its 5-year plan that will intensify sonar use off southern California and Hawaii. The Navy had already estimated that its activitescould kill hundreds of whales and dolphins.
(SFC, 12/17/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 19, In New Jersey a Chinese citizen, the admitted ringleader of an international smuggling operation that trafficked in $4.5 million worth of rhinoceros horns, ivory cups and trinkets, pleaded guilty in federal court.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 19, South Africa’s environmental ministry said the country has lost nearly 1,000 rhinos this year in a poaching surge to feed the black-market demand for their horns.
(AFP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 20, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete sacked four ministers following accusations of abuses committed by security forces during a huge operation against wildlife poaching.
(Reuters, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute said annual manatee deaths topped 800 for the first time since record-keeping began in the 1970s.
(SSFC, 12/22/13, p.A9)
2013 Dec 24, The Zambia Wildlife Authority said it has arrested two people in possession of more than 115 kg (250 pounds) of ivory.
(AP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Indonesia Ambar Arianto Mulyo (59), a Bali Hyatt hotel security employee, was strangled to death after he tried to capture a 15-foot python.
(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 29, A Tanzanian official said the country has been hit by a sharp upsurge in poaching, with at least 60 elephants killed in the two months since the government was forced to halt a controversial crackdown.
(AFP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 31, Utah officials said an unprecedented wintertime outbreak of West Nile virus has killed more than two dozen bald eagles in the state and thousands of water birds around the Great Salt Lake.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 The American government offered $1 million for information that would help dismantle a wildlife trafficking network, which it believed was headed by Vixay Keosavang, a former soldier in the Lao People’s Army. Keosavang operated from a walled compound in the Laos province of Bolikhamxay.
(Econ, 4/16/15, p.49)
2013 Mexico’s state of Sonora banned bullfighting.
(Econ., 4/4/15, p.33)
2013 In South Africa 1,004 rhinos were poached in the country this year, a 50 percent increase from 2012.
(AFP, 1/17/14)
2014 Jan 6, China destroyed about 6 tons of illegal ivory from its stockpile in an unprecedented move wildlife groups say shows growing concern about the black market trade by authorities in the world's biggest market for elephant tusks.
(AP, 1/6/14)
2014 Jan 10, Namibia wildlife authorities defended the auction of permits to hunt black rhino, saying the kill was aimed at conserving the endangered species.
(AFP, 1/10/14)
2014 Jan 11, A permit to hunt a black rhino in Namibia sold for $350,000 at an auction in Dallas with proceeds going to protect the endangered animals despite protests from animal rights groups that saw the sale as immoral conservation.
(Reuters, 1/11/14)
2014 Jan 11, Tanzania said its elephant population, beset by poaching for ivory, has plummeted by two-thirds in the past three-and-a-half decades.
(AFP, 1/11/14)
2014 Jan 13, In Thailand an American woman went missing in Kaeng Krachan National Park. Her body was found five days later, apparently trampled by elephants.
(SFC, 1/24/14, p.A2)
2014 Jan 14, It was reported that canine distemper virus has killed four tigers and several other animals across northern and eastern India.
(SFC, 1/14/14, p.A5)
2014 Jan 14, In India the body of a woman, killed by a tiger prowling for food, was found Uttar Pradesh state. She was the animal’s 7th victim.
(SFC, 1/16/14, p.A2)
2014 Jan 14, In New Zealand at least 13 pilot whales were beached on a remote coastline and conservation officials desperately battled to prevent another 50 from reaching the shore.
(AFP, 1/14/14)
2014 Jan 17, South Africa said 1,004 rhinos were poached in the country last year, a 50 percent increase from 2012. This January saw at least 40 rhinos killed by poachers in Krueger National Park. Rangers and defense forces killed at least 11 poachers this month.
(AFP, 1/17/14)(SSFC, 1/26/14, p.A4)
2014 Jan 21, Australia’s federal government granted an exemption from environmental laws to approve a Western Australian shark mitigation plan, which is aimed at reducing the risks to water users after six fatal attacks in the past two years.
(AFP, 1/21/14)
2014 Jan 21, Fishermen in Japan began slaughtering dozens of bottlenose dolphins in Taiji, ignoring protesters’ calls to spare the animals and a rare public show of concern by the US government.
(AP, 1/21/14)
2014 Jan 22, In southern India forest officials in Tamil Nadu state shot dead a tiger suspected of killing three people, ending its three-week reign of terror which forced dozens of schools to close.
(AFP, 1/23/14)
2014 Jan 23, A group of dead pilot whales, 16 females and 9 males, were spotted by boaters near Kice Island, Florida. Earlier this week, eight other whales were found dead after they swam into shallow waters near Fort Myers. Necropsies began the next day.
(Reuters, 1/25/14)(SFC, 1/25/14, p.A5)
2014 Jan 23, Japanese fishermen in Taiji killed more than two dozen striped dolphins, as global outrage over the slaughter grew.
(AFP, 1/23/14)
2014 Jan 26, In northern Australia a crocodile was suspected to have taken a boy (12) after attacking his friend as they swam in a water hole in at Mudginberri Billabong in World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park.
(AP, 1/26/14)
2014 Jan 26, A shark was shot and killed in Western Australian under a new strategy to protect swimmers.
(Econ, 2/1/14, p.35)
2014 Jan 26, Kenya officials said poachers have slaughtered a rhino in the capital's Nairobi National Park, a brazen attack flouting tough new laws designed to stem a surge of such killings.
(AFP, 1/26/14)
2014 Jan 27, In Las Vegas the Prince and Princess pet store was torched. Firefighters rescued 27 puppies alive. Videos showed Gloria Eun Hye Lee, a US citizen originally from South Korea, and a man torching the store. Lee was arrested on Feb 7 and accomplice Kirk Bills was arrested in Indiana.
(AP, 2/8/14)
2014 Jan 28, A Kenyan court ordered a Chinese man to pay $230,000 in fines or be jailed seven years for ivory smuggling in the first of what will likely be many cases as authorities implement a stringent new law to deter illegal trading in wildlife products.
(AP, 1/28/14)
2014 Jan 28, Togo police said they have arrested 3 men after discovering nearly two tons of ivory in a container marked for shipping to Vietnam.
(AP, 1/28/14)
2014 Jan 29, In San Francisco Michael Kwong (42) was cited for being in violation of a 2011 state ban on shark fins. Authorities seized 2,138 pounds of shark for sale at his Kwong Yip Inc. business.
(SFC, 2/15/14, p.C2)
2014 Feb 3, Peruvian officials said more than 400 dead dolphins were found last month on its northern Pacific coast.
(SFC, 2/4/14, p.A2)
2014 Feb 3, A pest control company which has been killing stray dogs in Sochi for years said that it has a contract to exterminate more of the animals throughout the Olympics.
(AP, 2/3/14)
2014 Feb 6, In France more than 3 tons of illegal ivory seized by customs agents was pulverized into dust in Europe's first destruction of a stockpile of the banned elephant tusks.
(AP, 2/6/14)
2014 Feb 8, A Russian animal rights activist was detained in Moscow after he and two others protested the country's policy of killing stray dogs in Sochi.
(AP, 2/8/14)
2014 Feb 9, Denmark’s Copenhagen Zoo killed a 2-year-old giraffe and fed its remains to lions as visitors watched, ignoring a petition signed by thousands and offers from other zoos and a private individual to save the animal.
(AP, 2/9/14)
2014 Feb 9, In northern India a tiger prowling near villages killed its 10th person in six weeks, a day after eluding a trap set by hunters with a live calf as bait.
(AP, 2/10/14)
2014 Feb 11, Brazil’s Environment Minsitry said it will begin a program to save the endangered three-banded armadillo, the mascot for this year’s World Cup.
(SFC, 2/12/14, p.A2)
2014 Feb 17, Cambodian police arrested two Vietnamese men who were trying to smuggle almost 80 kg (176 pounds) of illegal ivory from Angola.
(AP, 2/17/14)
2014 Feb, The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System began operating in the Mohave Desert on the California-Nevada border. Birds began to immediately catch fire and burn in flight from the intense radiation of the heliostat mirrors. Trials in September, 2013, counted 34 bird deaths.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility)(SSFC, 8/24/14, p.C10)
2014 Feb, A declaration against the trade in illegal wildlife products was signed by 41 countries including, China, the EU and Japan.
(Econ, 7/19/14, p.54)
2014 Mar 3, The UN Environmental Program marked its first ever World Wildlife Day to raise awareness about an illicit global trade in illegal timber, elephant ivory and rhino horns worth an estimated $19 billion.
(AP, 3/3/14)
2014 Mar 14, Howard Buffett, son of investor Warren Buffett, pledged nearly $24 million for protecting rhinos in South Africa, earmarking the money for ranger teams, sniffer dogs and other security measures in what he hopes can be a robust model for fighting what he calls the "overwhelming" problem of poaching in parts of Africa.
(AP, 3/15/14)
2014 Mar 19, In Kenya scientist Richard Leakey and Paula Kahumbu, the founding former chairman of the Kenya Wildlife Service, urged Kenya's Pres. Uhuru Kenyatta to invoke emergency measures to protect the country's elephants and rhinos from a poaching crisis sweeping Africa.
(AP, 3/19/14)
2014 Mar 25, Kenya’s wildlife authority said it needs help to curb the killings of elephants and rhinos for their tusks and horns. Poachers this year have killed 18 rhinos and 51 elephants.
(SFC, 3/26/14, p.A2)
2014 Mar 25, Singapore authorities intercepted about one ton of ivory worth $1.6 million in a shipping container from Africa marked as carrying coffee berries.
(AFP, 4/3/14)
2014 Mar 31, The International Court of Justice ordered a temporary halt to Japan's Antarctic whaling program, ruling that it is not for scientific purposes as the Japanese government had claimed.
(AP, 3/31/14)
2014 Apr 1, In northern Myanmar illegal Chinese logging and demand for monkey bones threatened the rare snub-nosed monkey according to British-based Fauna & Flora International. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimated that only 260 to 330 survive in the wild.
(AP, 4/1/14)
2014 Apr 3, In Australia a large shark killed Christine Armstrong (63) near her terrified husband and friends as they took their daily morning swim off a popular east coast beach near the village of Tathra.
(AP, 4/3/14)
2014 Apr 9, It was reported that a virus, never before seen in the US, has killed millions of baby pigs since porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) first showed up in May, 2013.
(SFC, 4/9/14, p.A5)
2014 Apr 9, Belgian authorities destroyed over 1,500 kilos (3,300 pounds) of ivory that had been seized by customs over the past three decades to serve as a warning to international smugglers who kill elephants daily for their tusks.
(AP, 4/9/14)
2014 Apr 10, US wildlife agencies in Michigan and Wisconsin said they have confirmed diagnoses of white-nose syndrome in tested bats. The fungal disease has killed millions on North American bats since 2006 and has now been detected in half of the US.
(SFC, 4/11/14, p.A6)
2014 Apr 10, In Utah Iron County workers accompanied by a US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) staffer set up the first in a series of metal corrals designed to trap and hold the horses on private land abutting the federal range until they can be moved to BLM facilities for adoption. Cattle ranchers blamed the protected wild horses for destroying vegetation crucial to ranchers who pay to graze their cattle on the land.
(Reuters, 4/12/14)
2014 Apr 11, Kenya's Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources said the central government will oversee the running of the country's wildlife authority for the next three months in a bid to stop poaching of the country's elephants and rhinos.
(AP, 4/11/14)
2014 Apr 12, US officials ended a stand-off with hundreds of armed protesters in the Nevada desert, calling off the government's roundup of cattle it said were illegally grazing on federal land and giving about 300 animals back to the rancher who owned them.
(Reuters, 4/13/14)
2014 Apr 12, In Florida a bear attacked Terri Frana (45) in the driveway of her home in Lake Mary. Wildlife officials soon killed 5 bears, but were unsure if they included the bear that attacked Frana.
(SFC, 4/15/14, p.A6)
2014 Apr 15, In China a government owned company that bred bears for traditional medicines agreed to convert itself in to a sanctuary. Some 70 bear farms, with bears caged for their bile, were believed to be still operating in the country.
(SFC, 4/16/14, p.A4)
2014 Apr 15, Hundreds of pro-whaling Japanese officials, lawmakers and lobby group members vowed to continue whale hunts despite a world court ruling that ordered the country to halt its Antarctic whaling program.
(AP, 4/15/14)
2014 Apr 17, Debbie Vincent (52), a former soldier who underwent a sex change, was jailed for six years for her part in a Europe-wide campaign of intimidation targeting a leading animal testing company. The British animal rights activist was found guilty last month for her part in a conspiracy to blackmail British-based Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS).
(AP, 4/17/14)
2014 Apr 18, In South Africa a rhino was found killed in the Dinokeng Game Reserve with a single bullet from a high-powered rifle. Poachers cut off its horns in the first such incident since the reserve officially opened in 2011. About 300 have been killed so far this year in South Africa.
(AP, 5/2/14)
2014 Apr 19, In South Africa robbers broke into a provincial parks office in Nelspruit and used a machine tool called a grinder to break into a safe holding several dozen rhino horns worth a fortune on the illegal market in parts of Asia. On June 9 police said two men have been arrested in connection with the theft, worth about $5.2 million.
(AP, 4/22/14)(Reuters, 6/9/14)
2014 Apr 26, A Japanese whaling fleet of four ships left port under tight security in the first hunt since the UN's top court last month ordered Tokyo to stop killing whales in the Antarctic.
(AFP, 4/26/14)
2014 May 1, The Navajo Nation and a group led by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and actor Robert Redford said they have agreed on a plan to manage thousands of wild horses on the navajo reservation and keep the animals from being slaughtered.
(SFC, 5/2/14, p.A7)
2014 May 2, Kenya wildlife authorities caught two police officers with six pieces of ivory at a road block while travelling from the central town of Meru to Nairobi.
(AP, 5/3/14)
2014 May 6, The Philippines seized a Chinese fishing boat and its 11 crewmen on charges of catching endangered sea turtles in disputed South China Sea waters, prompting China to demand their release and accuse Manila of being provocative.
(AP, 5/7/14)
2014 May 8, Indian scientists reported the discovery of 14 new species of so-called dancing frogs in the jungle mountains of southern India — just in time, they fear, to watch them fade away.
(AP, 5/8/14)
2014 May 9, Cambodian authorities intercepted 3 tons of illegal ivory that was stashed in shipping containers, its largest such seizure.
(AP, 5/9/14)
2014 May 15, Hong Kong started incinerating its nearly 30-ton stockpile of confiscated ivory to show it's serious about cracking down on an illegal wildlife trade that is devastating Africa's elephant population.
(AP, 5/15/14)
2014 May 16, German authorities said they have arrested a Mexican man (44) at the Frankfurt Airport after finding his suitcase full of snakes, turtles and lizards, including endangered species.
(AP, 5/16/14)
2014 May 16, South Africa said it has suffered its first elephant poaching incident in 10 years this week at the country's largest game reserve.
(Reuters, 5/16/14)
2014 Jun 1, The crown prince of Abu Dhabi and other international donors said they are committing a combined $80 million to fund the conservation of lions, tigers and other wild cats.
(AP, 6/1/14)
2014 Jun 5, Utah’s Wildlife Board voted 3-2 to hold its first ever crow hunt this fall as authorities try to contain the noise and mess from a population of the big, black birds that officials say has tripled over the last 12 years. Crows are protected by the US Fish and Wildlife Service under the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty, but about 45 states allow them to be hunted.
(Reuters, 6/6/14)
2014 Jun 5, Kenyan authorities said they have seized 228 whole elephant tusks and 74 others in pieces as they were being packed for export in the port city of Mombasa.
(Reuters, 6/5/14)
2014 Jun 8, Australian police found human remains inside a large crocodile that is believed to have snatched a man from a boat in a popular national park. Police found the remains inside a 4.7-meter (15-foot, 5-inch) saltwater crocodile that park rangers shot while searching for a 62-year-old man who was attacked a day earlier in Kakadu National Park.
(AP, 6/8/14)
2014 Jun 13, In South Africa’s Johannesburg-based African Parks group said that since mid-May at least 68 elephants have been slaughtered by poachers over the last two months using chain saws and helicopters in the 5,000 square km (1,900 square mile) Garamba National Park in Congo.
(AP, 6/13/14)
2014 Jun 26, In India a Bengal tiger snatched Sushil Manzhi as he was crab fishing with his son and daughter off a boat in a mangrove swamp in Sunderbans National Park, West Bengal state.
(SFC, 6/28/14, p.A2)
2014 Jul 2, The wildlife group TRAFFIC said the number of ivory products on sale in Bangkok nearly trebled from 5,865 in January last year to 14,512 in May 2014.
(AFP, 7/2/14)
2014 Jul 11, In Thailand the manager of the conservation center said poachers have killed and sawed the tusks off Klao, a 50-year-old elephant that performed in Thai royal processions and was featured in Oliver Stone's 2004 movie "Alexander."
(AP, 7/11/14)
2014 Jul 18, The Obama administration approved the use of sonic cannons to discover oil deposits under the ocean floor of the Eastern seaboard. The sounds posed real dangers for whales, fish and sea turtles.
(SFC, 7/19/14, p.A4)
2014 Jul 23, A South African court jailed a rhino poacher for 77 years, one of the heaviest sentences handed out for the crime as poaching continues to escalate. Mandla Chauke was arrested in the iconic Kruger National Park in 2011 after he killed three rhino calves. This month two Mozambicans were each jailed 16 years for killing and dehorning rhino.
(AFP, 7/23/14)
2014 Jul 29, Japan announced that it had wrapped up a whale hunt in the Pacific, the second campaign since the UN's top court ordered Tokyo to halt a separate slaughter in the Antarctic. The country's fisheries agency said 115 whales were killed during the two-and-a-half month campaign.
(AFP, 7/29/14)
2014 Aug 1, In Kenya journalist Godwin Chepkurgor was attacked and killed while on assignment for a magazine by a bull elephant that scooped him up with its trunk and threw him in the air. In 2005 Chepkurgor made headlines after revealing that he had written Clinton to ask for daughter Chelsea's hand in 2000 during the then-president's visit to Kenya.
(AP, 8/6/14)
2014 Aug 1, It was reported that the New Zealand government has approved a massive airdrop of biodegradable poison 1080 over 4,000 square miles to kill some 30 million rats and 25,000 weasels, that threaten the native wildlife population.
(www.earthweek.com/2014/ew140801/ew140801b.html)
2014 Aug 12, Kenya Wildlife Direct chief executive Paula Kahumbu delivered a petition on this World Elephant Day calling for the arrest of Feizal Ali Mohamed, whom Wildlife Direct alleges is a Mombasa-based businessman evading an arrest warrant in relation to a massive ivory seizure in June.
(AP, 8/12/14)
2014 Aug 20, New Zealand said it will ban the practice of shark finning.
(SFC, 8/21/14, p.A2)
2014 Aug 27, Muslims for Human Rights alleged that corrupt Kenyan wildlife rangers have been killing poachers to cover up the officers' collusion with the criminals slaughtering the country's elephants. The group has documented the disappearances of 18 suspected poachers over the last three years.
(AP, 8/27/14)
2014 Sep 7, China’s Xinhua News Agency reported that authorities have killed some 4,900 dogs in Baoshan, Yunnan province, after blaming five human deaths on rabies. The city of vaccinated another 100,000 in its anti-rabies campaign and issued an urgent order calling for authorities to tightly regulate dogs and kill stray ones.
(AP, 9/7/14)
2014 Sep 7, Four Japanese ships left the northern island of Hokkaido to start the seasonal "research" whaling hunt in Pacific coastal waters.
(AFP, 9/7/14)
2014 Sep 7, In Mozambique six suspected poachers were arrested in the Niassa National Reserve wildlife reserve, home to about two-thirds of the country’s elephants.
(AP, 9/14/14)
2014 Sep 16, In Japan the first dolphins of the season were slaughtered in the small town of Taiji.
(AFP, 9/16/14)
2014 Sep 17, Japan agreed to cut purchases of eel fry from neighboring countries by 20 percent as part of moves to protect the endangered species. The agreement with China, South Korea and Taiwan called for reducing eel hauls by 20 percent for one year, beginning in November.
(AP, 9/18/14)
2014 Sep 18, In Slovenia an international whaling conference voted against Japan's highly criticized plans to resume whaling in the Antarctic next year, but Japan vowed to go ahead anyway.
(AP, 9/18/14)
2014 Sep 21, In South Africa a ranger and two other employees of the country’s parks service were arrested on suspicion of rhino poaching in Kruger National Park, the country's flagship wildlife reserve.
(AP, 9/22/14)
2014 Sep 30, The Swiss-based WWF issued a report saying about 3,000 species of wildlife around the world have seen their numbers plummet far worse than previously thought.
(AP, 9/30/14)
2014 Oct 4, Thousands marched in Africa and around the world to pressure governments to do more to stop the poaching industry that many fear is driving rhinos and elephants to the brink of extinction. The Global March for Elephants and Rhinos, took place in 136 cities and towns across six continents.
(AFP, 10/5/14)
2014 Oct 29, Australian scientists said they have successfully tested a vaccine against chlamydia in wild koalas, in what they believe is a breakthrough in combating the sexually-transmitted disease ravaging the native marsupial.
(AFP, 10/29/14)
2014 Nov 2, Indian authorities set fire to a stockpile of tiger skins, elephant tusks, rhino horns and other illegal animal parts in an effort to discourage wildlife smuggling in South Asia.
(AP, 11/2/14)
2014 Nov 17, US researchers said they have identified a virus that has been wiping out starfish along the US Pacific coast. It was identified as a densovirus, a type of parvovirus, and was said to have also been found in museum specimans dating back to 1942.
(SFC, 11/18/14, p.A1)
2014 Nov 17, A Ugandan official said local police are investigating the disappearance more than a ton of ivory, valued at $1.1 million, from a government vault.
(AP, 11/17/14)
2014 Nov 18, A South Dakota a girl (8) was attacked and killed by a pack of dogs on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Oglala Sioux officials rounded up a horse trailer full of dogs and killed them on Nov 20.
(SFC, 11/22/14, p.A5)
2014 Nov 18, Japan slashed its whale catch target in the Antarctic by two-thirds in a bid to resume its annual whale hunt, which an international court ruled must stop.
(AP, 11/18/14)
2014 Nov 19, Indonesian authorities said two endangered Sumatran elephants were found dead this week near a palm oil plantation in the Tebo district of Jambi province on Sumatra island. Authorities believed they were killed by poachers.
(AP, 11/20/14)
2014 Nov 26, China's official Xinhua News Agency said that a tiger, named Ustin, bit and killed 15 goats and left another three missing On Nov 23-24. Russian experts rescued five tiger cubs two years ago. Ustin was one of three released by Pres. Putin in May in a remote part of the Amur region.
(AP, 11/26/14)
2014 Nov 28, In southern Nepal a two-day festival, believed to be the largest animal sacrifice ritual in the world, began. More than 5,000 buffaloes were ritually killed during the day. Devotees of the festival, held every five years, believe the sacrifices bring good luck and a Hindu goddess will grant their wishes.
(AP, 11/28/14)
2014 Dec 3, The California Fish and Game Commission voted 4-1 to ban predator killing contests.
(SFC, 12/6/14, p.C1)
2014 Dec 3, In South Africa golfer Jacques van der Sandt (29) was grabbed and killed by a crocodile while retrieving gold balls from Lake Panic dam in Kruger National Park. Rangers killed the crocodile after a two-hour search.
(SFC, 12/5/14, p.A2)
2014 Dec 8, US federal authorities said a dolphin was lethally shot by a hunting arrow in the northern Gulf of Mexico, the second violent killing of the protected animal in recent weeks. Harming, harassing or feeding a wild dolphin is prohibited under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.
(Reuters, 12/10/14)
2014 Dec 9, The Save the Elephants group reported that street prices for illegal ivory are soaring in China, where newly wealthy middle and upper class citizens are buying carved ivory and whole tusks as a status symbol of their riches.
(AP, 12/9/14)
2014 Dec 10, Poland's constitutional court overturned a ban on the ritual slaughter of animals which had affected the Jewish and Muslim communities.
(AP, 12/10/14)
2014 Dec 13, South African authgorities said rangers killed 3 rhino poachers in the past week in a flurry of shootouts in Kruger National Park.
(AP, 12/13/14)
2014 Dec 19, A federal judge restored US Endangered Species Act protections to gray wolves in the western Great Lakes. Federal wildlife biologists counted nearly 4,400 wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin when the animals were removed from the federal endangered and threatened species list in 2012. Estimates this year suggest the region is home to 3,748 wolves, a decline mostly due to hunting and trapping.
(AP, 12/20/14)
2014 Dec 22, A grand jury in Baltimore returned indictments against 22 people involved in a multi-state dog-fighting ring. 225 dogs and at least 20 weapons were recovered following raids in Baltimore and West Virginia.
(SFC, 12/23/14, p.A5)
2014 Dec 22, Kenyan police arrested Feisal Mohammed Ali, an alleged ivory trafficker, at a rental house in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. On Dec 24 a Kenyan court charged him with smuggling tusks.
(AP, 12/23/14)(AFP, 12/24/14)
2014 Dec 24, Zimbabwe wildlife authorities announced plans to export at least 62 elephants to top up scant state funding and curb a ballooning pachyderm population.
(AFP, 12/24/14)
2014 Dec 30, Chinese state media reported that a man, identified as a rich businessmen surnamed Xu, has been jailed for 13 years for buying and eating endangered tigers and making wine made out of their blood.
(Reuters, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, Hong Kong authorities began destroying 15,000 chickens at a poultry market and suspended imports from mainland China after some birds were found to be infected with bird flu.
(AP, 12/31/14)
2014 Noah Strycker, American field biologist, authored “The Thing with feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human."
(Econ, 4/5/14, p.74)
2014 In Australia scientists began using a solution made of salts from cattle bile to kill the crown-of-thorns starfish, which have been chomping their way through the Great Barrier Reef.
(Econ., 4/11/15, p.38)
2014 In Cyprus more than two million migratory songbirds were indiscriminately slaughtered this year to be served as delicacies in local restaurants. Although trapping is illegal, authorities had yet to introduce a comprehensive action plan against bird trapping.
(Reuters, 3/9/15)
2014 In Indonesia the number of Asian elephants on Sumatra Island fell to an estimated 1,700 from an estimated 2,800 in 2007.
(SFC, 1/12/18, p.A6)
2014 In Niger 12 schoolchildren aged between 12 and 13 were killed this year when a hippo attacked their boat on the Niger at Libore, a village near Niamey.
(AFP, 7/13/17)
2014 In Russia a 40-foot-wide, circular structure made from the skulls, skeletons and tusks of more than 60 woolly mammoths was discovered at a site called Kostenki 11, 300 miles south of Moscow. The site was dated back 25,000 years.
(NY Times, 3/18/20)
2014 The slaughter of rhinos in South Africa hit a new record this year with poachers killing 1,215 of the iconic savannah animals as Asian-led demand for their horn showed no sign of abating.
(AFP, 1/22/15)
2015 Jan 1, In Tanzania six lions were killed overnight by angry Maasai herders following an attack on livestock.
(AFP, 1/1/15)
2015 Jan 4, In eastern India 14 langur monkeys died after snatching and then eating biscuits laced with rat poison being sold by a hawker in West Bengal state. The hawker who fled in the aftermath of the deaths.
(AFP, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 5, In South Africa 2 suspected rhino poachers were shot dead after they opened fire on rangers in South Africa's Kruger National Park.
(Reuters, 1/5/15)
2015 Jan 10, A male camel in rut trampled two people to death at the Camel Kisses farm in north Texas.
(Reuters, 1/11/15)
2015 Jan 14, In India wildlife rangers shot 3 suspected poachers dead in a gunbattle in remote northeastern Kaziranga National Park, Assam state.
(AP, 1/14/15)
2015 Jan 16, Zimbabwe's government says it must export elephants to raise funds for wildlife management. About 60 elephants will be sold for between $40,000 and $60,000 each to China, France and the United Arab Emirates.
(AP, 1/16/15)
2015 Jan 20, Animal rescuers said some 100 birds have been found dead and more than 300 others coated with an unidentified glue-like compound mostly along the eastern shoreline of SF Bay.
(SFC, 1/21/15, p.A1)(SFC, 1/22/15, p.A8)
2015 Jan 20, Indian officials said a 2014 census found at least 2,226 tigers in forests across the country, up from 1,707 count3ed in 2010.
(SFC, 1/21/15, p.A2)
2015 Jan 23, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said about 10 brown pelicans have died, and another four injured after a culprit apparently used a knife to slit the large gullets beneath their beaks. Officials issued an alert last week about the deaths.
(Reuters, 1/23/15)
2015 Jan 31, Mexican investigators said 150 green sea turtles have been found dead in the Ojo de Liebre lagoon, on the Pacific side of Baja California Sur state. The federal environmental protection agency suspected that that lowered temperatures in the region may have caused the deaths. Earlier this month the bodies of 14 gray whales were found in the lagoon.
(AP, 2/1/15)(SFC, 2/2/15, p.A2)
2015 Feb 1, In Pakistan an advance party arrived in a C-130 transport plane for Saudi Prince Fahd bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz to visit the southwestern desert region to hunt the Houbara bustard, a bird supposedly protected by law. He led a hunting party to Baluchistan last year that officials said killed more than 2,000 bustards.
(AFP, 2/2/15)
2015 Feb 4, A Vietnamese police officer said authorities have buried thousands of cats, many apparently still alive, that were seized last week after being smuggled in a truck from China for restaurants. The truck driver to whom the cargo belonged, was fined 7.5 million dong ($360).
(AP, 2/4/15)
2015 Feb 9, In Australia a Japanese citizen died after a shark tore off his legs while he was surfing off the coast of New South Wales.
(SFC, 2/10/15, p.A2)
2015 Feb 11, The Obama administration introduced an aggressive plan to stem illegal wildlife trafficking.
(SFC, 2/12/15, p.A9)
2015 Feb 11, Mali officials said motorcycle-riding poachers have killed at least 19 elephants over the past month, marking a significant blow to a rare grouping that lives in central Mali. It is believed there are only 350 to 700 elephants left in Mali.
(AP, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 13, In New Zealand 198 pilot whales stranded themselves on South Island. Hordes of rescuers rushed to the remote area in a bid to guide them back to sea. Some 140 died as rescuers refloated about 60.
(AP, 2/13/15)(AP, 2/14/15)
2015 Feb 7, Residents in Montana began finding dead horses. Somebody had shot up to two dozen horses and dumped their bodies in a hay field about a mile west of Lodge Grass on the Crow Indian Reservation.
(http://tinyurl.com/ors58py)(SFC, 2/17/15, p.A5)
2015 Feb 26, China imposed a one-year ban on ivory imports with immediate effect amid criticism that its citizens' huge appetite for ivory has fueled poaching that threatens the existence of African elephants.
(AP, 2/26/15)
2015 Feb 26, Egyptian police arrested three men suspected of torturing and killing a chained dog with knives, after horrific footage of the incident sparked outrage in the country. On March 11 a court convicted four men over the grisly killing and sentenced them to three years in prison.
(AFP, 2/26/15)(AP, 3/11/15)
2015 Mar 2, In India a law banning the possession and sale of beef went into effect in the state of Maharashtra. The ban on the slaughter of cattle put thousands out of work and created problems for struggling farmers. The ban would not apply to buffaloes India was the world’s 2nd largest exporter of beef behind Brazil.
(SFC, 3/6/15, p.A5)(SFC, 3/27/15, p.A2)(Econ., 4/11/15, p.37)
2015 Mar 4, In California a reporter for the Sacramento Bee found a bag of headless chickens along railroad tracks near 19th and W streets. Over the last three months batches of headless animals have been found on 11 occasions around the city in apparent ritualistic killings. By March 17 the number of discoveries rose to 13.
(SFC, 3/5/15, p.D6)(SFC, 3/17/15, p.A4)
2015 Mar 5, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, owned by Florida-based Feld Entertainment, announced that it will remove its traveling cadre of elephants from the Big Top over the next three years.
(SFC, 3/6/15, p.A1)
2015 Mar 20, Ethiopian officials set fire to6.1 tons of illegal elephant tusks, ivory trinkets, carvings and various forms of jewelry on a wooden pyre in Addis Ababa to discourage poaching and the ivory trade.
(AP, 3/20/15)
2015 Mar 30, In southern Nepal a wild rhino charged into the outskirts of Hetauda city, killing a woman (61), injuring several others and chasing panicked people through the main market and a hospital.
(AP, 3/30/15)
2015 Mar 31, In Australia 55 dead greyhounds were found dumped and spent rifle cartridges seen nearby in near Bundaberg, Queensland state. The grisly discovery came on the heels of a live baiting scandal rocking the dog racing industry.
(AFP, 4/1/15)
2015 Apr 1, The US federal government said it is listing the northern long-eared bat as threatened. The species has been nearly wiped out by the spread of a fungal disease called the white nose syndrome, first identified near Albany, NY, in 2006.
(SFC, 4/2/15, p.A5)
2015 Apr 2, It was reported that somebody was systematically poisoning the dogs of Hermosillo, an industrial city in northern Mexico, and not just strays: At least 64 dogs, all with owners, have died of a similar poison since mid-March.
(AP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 10, In Japan frantic rescue efforts saved just 3 dolphins after about 150 mostly melon-headed whales, or blackfish beached themselves and became stranded on a northeastern coast in Hokota.
(AP, 4/10/15)
2015 Apr 11, Malta voted in a referendum to decide whether to overturn a law that allows the hunting of breeding birds in spring, a centuries-old tradition that is not allowed anywhere else in the European Union.
(Reuters, 4/11/15)
2015 Apr 13, The Pacific Fishery Management Council agreed to close the sardine fishery from Mexico to the Canadian border starting July 1. Sardine numbers had declined 91% along the West Coast since 2007.
(SFC, 4/14/15, p.A1)
2015 Apr 13, In Indonesia a Sumatran elephant was found dead in Aceh province with its tusks cut off, raising suspicion it was killed by poachers. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has listed the animals as "critically endangered" after their numbers dropped to between 2,400 and 2,800 from an estimated 5,000 in 1985.
(AP, 4/14/15)
2015 Apr 15, It was reported that a canine flu outbreak has sickened many dogs in the Midwest USA.
(SFC, 4/16/15, p.A8)
2015 Apr 18, Thailand customs officials seized 4 tons of ivory hidden in bean sacks, tracked from Congo and bound for Laos, in what authorities said was the biggest bust in the country's history. 739 elephant tusks, were seized upon arrival in Bangkok.
(AP, 4/20/15)
2015 Apr 19, In Iran some 500 people protested the killings of dogs and called for an investigation. A short film showing several stray dogs dying after apparently being injected with burning acid in Shiraz had gone viral and prompted protests with celebrities joining animal lovers in condemning the cruelty.
(AFP, 4/20/15)
2015 Apr 21, Danish lawmakers in a 91-75 vote approved banning sex with animals.
(AP, 4/22/15)
2015 Apr 21, In Norway five wolf hunters were sentenced to jail in an unprecedented environmental crackdown to protect a tiny stock of about 35 of the predators living in eastern pine forests despite widespread local opposition.
(Reuters, 4/21/15)
2015 Apr 25, The EU's judicial agency Eurojust said police from seven European countries have detained 26 people and seized hundreds of horse passports in a crackdown against a Europe-wide horsemeat trafficking ring.
(AP, 4/25/15)
2015 Apr 25, Thailand officials seized three tons of ivory hidden in tea leaf sacks from Kenya and destine for Laos.
(SFC, 4/28/15, p.A2)
2015 Apr 29, The United Arab Emirates pulverized a mound of confiscated elephant tusks and ivory carvings to send a message against poaching and ivory trafficking.
(SFC, 4/30/15, p.A2)
2015 Apr 30, In southern Greece 23 wild horses were found killed with shotguns on a remote mountainside. 3 injured horses soon died. The motive for the attack remained unclear.
(AP, 5/4/15)
2015 May 4, Indonesian police arrested a suspected wildlife smuggler after discovering nearly 22 rare live birds, mostly yellow-crested cockatoos, jammed inside plastic water bottles in his luggage.
(AFP, 5/6/15)
2015 May 4, A series of raids, codenamed "COBRA III" and organized by Thailand, began across Asia, Africa and Europe. By May 27 they resulted in more than 300 arrests and over 600 seizures of assorted wildlife contraband — from several tons of ivory and rhino horns to whale ribs and sea horses.
(AP, 6/18/15)
2015 May 10, The South African government said that more rhinos had been poached in 2015 than in the previous year with 393 poached by the end of April.
(AFP, 5/10/15)
2015 May 12, Mozambican police seized 340 elephant tusks and 65 rhino horns from a house in the city of Matola. Two Chinese citizens were arrested. Mozambique's elephant population has dropped from just over 20,000 to about 10,300 since 2009.
(AP, 5/28/15)
2015 May 13, Chinese state media said forest police in Yunnan province have arrested 10 people for killing a female wild giant panda, buying and selling its parts.
(AP, 5/13/15)
2015 May 19, The American Bird Conservancy estimated that 140,000 to 328,000 birds were being killed annually by electricity generating wind turbines.
(SFC, 5/20/15, p.A8)
2015 May 20, Japan's association of zoos and aquariums said it will stop buying dolphins taken in the controversial hunt at Taiji, possibly raising pressure to halt the annual event said to be a tradition.
(Reuters, 5/20/15)
2015 May 21, In Japan the mayor of the fishing town of Taiji said dolphin hunts will not stop, even after Japan's aquariums decided to stop buying captured dolphins under international pressure sparked by cruelty concerns.
(AP, 5/21/15)
2015 May 27, In Kazakhstan international experts investigated the sudden deaths of some 134,000 endangered saiga antelope, raising fears that a species that has been around since the Ice Age may be at risk of dying out. Around 40 percent of the nation's population of the endangered saiga antelope have died in the past two weeks. The deaths were later believed to have been caused by two naturally occurring bacteria.
(Reuters, 5/27/15)(SSFC, 6/21/15, p.C14)
2015 May 27, Mozambican police said six police officers officials have been arrested after 50 kg (110 pounds) of rhino horn were stolen from a huge cache seized from poachers only two weeks ago.
(AFP, 5/27/15)(AP, 5/28/15)
2015 May 29, Chinese authorities destroyed 662 kg of ivory that was seized after being smuggled into the country. Zhao Shucong, head of the State Forestry Administration, said China will strictly control ivory processing and trade until the commercial processing and sale of ivory products are eventually halted.
(AP, 5/29/15)(SFC, 6/26/15, p.A3)
2015 May, In eastern Central African Republic two groups of some 200 poachers from Sudan were active, killing elephants and other wild animals, according to a UN report made public in September.
(AP, 9/2/15)
2015 May, A North Korean diplomat was arrested in Mozambique on charges related to rhino horn smuggling.
(AP, 12/23/15)
2015 Jun 1, In South Africa a lion leapt through an open car window and mauled to death an American tourist at a privately-run game park just outside Johannesburg.
(AFP, 6/1/15)
2015 Jun 1, In Tanzania elephant census figures showed a "catastrophic decline" of around 60 percent over the last five years.
(AFP, 6/2/15)
2015 Jun 2, Polish authorities said they will cull about 5,800 pigs to prevent the spread of African swine fever.
(AP, 6/2/15)
2015 Jun 9, US traders said Cuba has suspended imports of US chicken citing a bird flu epidemic ravaging the US poultry industry. More than 44 million chickens, turkeys and other birds have been culled since last December.
(Reuters, 6/9/15)
2015 Jun 11, Mozambique news reported that authorities have arrested five police officers for colluding with a poacher in the illegal sale of a rhino horn.
(AP, 6/11/15)
2015 Jun 14, In Georgia lions, tigers and even a hippopotamus escaped from a zoo in Tbilisi, adding to chaos caused by flooding after the River Vere burst its banks after hours of torrential rain. 20 wolves, 8 lions and an unspecified number of tigers, jackals and jaguars were shot dead by special forces or were missing. By June 19 at least 19 people were dead with some still missing.
(AFP, 6/14/15)(SFC, 6/16/15, p.A2)(SSFC, 6/21/15, p.A4)
2015 Jun 17, In Georgia a rare white tiger that escaped from Tbilisi zoo in a freak flood mauled a man to death before being shot dead by police. Another young tiger and a hyena were still unaccounted for.
(AFP, 6/17/15)
2015 Jun 18, A Tanzanian government minister described elephant poaching on as a national disaster, and urged China to curb its appetite for ivory.
(Reuters, 6/18/15)
2015 Jun 19, Scientists warned the world is embarking on its sixth mass extinction with animals disappearing about 100 times faster than they used to, and that humans could be among the first victims.
(AFP, 6/20/15)
2015 Jun 22, In China restaurateurs in Yulin, in the largely rural and poor Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, held an annual dog meat festival despite international criticism of the event as cruel and unhygienic. At least 10,000 dogs were expected to be slaughtered.
(AP, 6/22/15)(Econ, 6/20/15, p.46)
2015 Jun 27, In Sacramento, Ca., a couple searching for a dog found a headless goat, dead chickens, a headless rat and a decapitated catfish, adding to the number of decapitated animals found in recent months.
(SFC, 6/29/15, p.A9)
2015 Jun, In southern Chile an aerial survey found 337 dead whales in a remote fjord in Patagonia.
(SSFC, 12/6/15, p.C12)
2015 Jul 1, In Zimbabwe Cecil the lion was believed killed in the western Hwange region. His carcass was discovered days later by trackers. On July 29 two men, arrested for illegally hunting the protected lion, were in court. They were reportedly paid $50,000 by American dentist James Palmer to hunt a lion for Palmer to kill with a crossbow.
(AP, 7/29/15)(SFC, 7/29/15, p.A4)
2015 Jul 6, Mozambique authorities burned more than 2.6 tons of ivory and rhino horns confiscated during various anti-poaching busts, demonstrating a tough stance on wildlife trafficking.
(AFP, 7/6/15)
2015 Jul 6, Customs officials at Zurich airport seized 262 kg (578 pounds) of ivory that three Chinese men had dispatched from Tanzania, contraband that may have come from up to 50 elephants. The tusks had been sawed into 172 pieces to fit into luggage.
(AP, 8/4/15)
2015 Jul 12, An Indian government report said 10 endangered Asiatic lions, 1670 blue bulls and 87 spotted deer were amongst hundreds of wild animals killed in the recent floods to hit west India's Gujarat. At least 81 people died in mudslides collapsed homes or high waters in Gujarat state last month.
(AFP, 7/12/15)(SFC, 7/13/15, p.A2)
2015 Jul 13, Indonesian authorities said an orangutan trader has been jailed for two years after he was caught trying to sell a baby ape from a backpack, a rare conviction for wildlife crime in the country. A court in Medan also ordered Vast Haris Nasution to pay a 10 million rupiah ($750) fine after he was found guilty last week under laws that ban the trade in orangutans.
(AFP, 7/13/15)
2015 Jul 24, Animal rights activists Joseph Buddenberg (31) and Nicole Kissane (28) of Oakland, Ca., were arrested for allegedly driving more than 40,000 miles across the country to save hides of 5,000 mink destined to become furs.
(SFC, 7/25/15, p.C1)
2015 Jul 28, Kenyan rangers found the carcasses of 5 elephants killed overnight with their tusks hacked off in Tsavo West National Park.
(SFC, 7/31/15, p.A4)
2015 Jul 31, France’s Constitutional Council confirmed the ban on the creation of new cockfighting rings — called cockpits. The law, dating back to 1964, aims to gradually get rid of all cockpits and therefore, cockfighting.
(AP, 7/31/15)
2015 Aug 3, US airlines Delta and American banned the shipment of big game trophies on flights, in the wake of outrage over the killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe.
(AFP, 8/4/15)
2015 Aug 5, The California Fish and Game Commission voted 3 to 2 in favor of ending the commercial and recreational trapping of bobcats in California, becoming the first state in the nation to do so.
(http://tinyurl.com/phplrmo)
2015 Aug 9, Bangladesh police said 6 suspected wildlife poachers were killed in a clash with law enforcement in the Khulna district Sundarbans forest. Officers seized five guns and three tiger skins. Only about 100 Bengal tigers were left in the Bangladeshi part of the Sundarbans.
(SFC, 8/10/15, p.A2)
2015 Aug 12, Estonia’s Agriculture ministry spokeswoman Karin Volmer said a total of 15,700 pigs have been killed to prevent the spread of African swine fever since the first case was reported there on July 21.
(AP, 8/12/15)
2015 Aug 14, A US court hearing on the fate of 18 beluga whales captured in Russia pitted federal regulators against the Georgia aquarium seeking to bring them to the US.
(Reuters, 8/14/15)
2015 Aug 16, In Spain an animal rights activist was beaten with a duck by a woman defending one of the country's most bizarre and controversial festival traditions in the Catalonian seaside town of Roses. Every year since 1918 about 50 ducks are thrown into the sea in the town north of Barcelona, with swimmers then racing in to catch them and bringing them ashore however they can.
(AFP, 8/20/15)
2015 Aug 21, A court in Kenya granted bail to Feisal Mohammed Ali, the suspected ringleader of an ivory smuggling gang. Government prosecutors said they would appeal. On August 24 his bail was suspended.
(AFP, 8/20/15)(AFP, 8/24/15)
2015 Aug 24, Chinese border patrol officials seized 620 wild turtles and tortoises, 510 of them considered endangered, that were found alive in a shipment of frozen seafood from Vietnam.
(AP, 8/30/15)
2015 Aug 26, Thailand destroyed over two tons of ivory, a victory for animal rights groups fighting against the trade in a country renowned for being a hub for illegal tusks.
(AFP, 8/26/15)
2015 Aug, Uganda wildlife officials were stumped by a mysterious illness among the lions of Kidepo Valley National Park that has left the big cats emaciated and docile.
(SSFC, 8/23/15, p.C12)
2015 Sep 8, European lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to strengthen an EU ban on seal products, narrowing exceptions made for Canada's indigenous Inuits.
(AFP, 9/8/15)
2015 Sep 14, In Hawaii a federal judge signed an agreement between the US Navy and environmental groups that will limit the navy’s use of sonar and other training that inadvertently harms marine mammals.
(SFC, 9/15/15, p.A7)
2015 Sep 15, In Kenya Google launched its Street View service in Samburu park, in a move conservationists said could help protect endangered elephants.
(AFP, 9/15/15)
2015 Sep 15, In Spain a fighting bull was stabbed to death with lances as the town of Tordesillas held its controversial annual festival to a background of clashes between animal rights activists and participants.
(Reuters, 9/15/15)
2015 Sep 16, The WWF conservation group said the amount of fish in the oceans has halved since 1970, in a plunge to the "brink of collapse" caused by over-fishing and other threats.
(Reuters, 9/16/15)
2015 Sep 28, Madagascar’s customs officials found 771 endangered tortoises hidden in socks and baby diapers in unaccompanied freight due to be flown to Malaysia.
(SFC, 10/1/15, p.A2)
2015 Sep, In Britain Tony Jenkins, the co-founder of Snarl, a local animal rescue and rehabilitation shelter, began investigating reports of suspicious deaths and mutilations of cats in the south London area. After two years Snarl identified more than 400 suspected victims: mostly cats, but also some foxes and rabbits.
(AP, 12/16/17)
2015 Oct 3, In South Africa hundreds of people demonstrated in Johannesburg in defense of rhinos, elephants and lions against poaching and to demand authorities take more radical action.
(AFP, 10/3/15)
2015 Oct 5, In Congo DRC poachers killed 3 rangers and one military colonel who were part of a 10-man patrol that tracked the satellite collar of a killed elephant to the poacher’s camp in Garamba National Park. The anti-poaching patrol was outnumbered and forced to disperse.
(SFC, 10/10/15, p.A2)
2015 Oct 7, A Zimbabwean wildlife official said five people are in police custody and being questioned over the killing of 11 elephants poisoned by cyanide at Hwange National Park in the west of the country.
(AP, 10/7/15)
2015 Oct 7, In Tanzania Yang Feng Clan (66), a Chinese woman, was charged in Dar es Salaam alongside two Tanzanians with smuggling 1.9 tons of ivory between Jan. 1, 2000 and May 22, 2014.
(AP, 10/9/15)
2015 Oct 9, A US judge approved a deal between conservationists and Montana officials to restrict road-building and logging in roughly 22,000 acres (8,900 hectares) of state forest lands that make up core habitat for federally protected grizzlies.
(Reuters, 10/9/15)
2015 Oct 12, Chinese authorities announced the arrests of 16 suspected members of a smuggling ring and the seizure of hundreds of kilograms (pounds) of ivory along with rhino horns and bear paws.
(AP, 10/12/15)
2015 Oct 14, In India villagers fled after an attack on a truck loaded with five cows and 10 bulls in Sarahan, a village in Himachal Pradesh state. Five occupants of the truck hid in the forest until police found them and took them to the hospital, where one of them died. The survivors were arrested for alleged animal cruelty.
(AP, 10/16/15)
2015 Oct 14, In Indonesia 2 endangered Sumatran elephants were found dead in Aceh province and were believed to have been poisoned a few days earlier.
(AP, 10/15/15)
2015 Oct 14, Zimbabwe officials said rangers in Hwange National Park have discovered the carcasses of 26 elephants at two locations, dead of cyanide poisoning along with 14 other elephants who were found last week.
(AP, 10/14/15)
2015 Oct 15, China announced a one-year ban on the import of ivory hunting trophies from Africa.
(Econ, 11/21/15, p.44)
2015 Oct 22, South African officials said 19 elephants have been poached this year in Kruger National Park. Record levels of rhinos have also been poached.
(SFC, 10/23/15, p.A2)
2015 Oct 25, Florida called an early end to the state’s black bear hunt saying 298 bears were taken nearing the set limit.
(SFC, 10/27/15, p.A5)
2015 Nov 2, In Zimbabwe Sunday Mail editor Mabasa Sasa, investigations editor Brian Chitemba and reporter Tinashe Farawo were arrested after allegedly implicating an unnamed top police officer and other officials in recent fatal cyanide poisonings of more than 60 elephants by poachers.
(AP, 11/3/15)
2015 Nov 18, The National Institutes of Health quietly ended the federal government’s long history of using chimpanzees for biomedical research.
(SFC, 11/19/15, p.A6)
2015 Nov 20, In California regulations banning the commercial and recreational trapping of bobcat went into effect.
(SFC, 11/21/15, p.A6)
2015 Nov 24, China’s Xinhua news agency reported that the world's largest animal cloning factory is under construction in in the northern port of Tianjin, with plans to churn out dogs, horses and up to a million beef cattle a year.
(AFP, 11/24/15)
2015 Nov 24, Int’l. experts meeting in Singapore said more than half the world's primates, including apes, lemurs and monkeys, are facing extinction.
(AFP, 11/24/15)
2015 Nov 24, A Tanzanian court charged four Chinese nationals for smuggling rhino horns.
(Reuters, 11/25/15)
2015 Nov 26, A South African court opened the way to allowing local trade in rhino horns, alarming some conservationists who warned the ruling leaves rhinos even more vulnerable to poachers who are slaughtering them in record numbers.
(AP, 11/26/15)
2015 Nov 29, Environmental activist group Sea Shepherd warned Japan against resuming "research" whaling in the Antarctic and called on the Australian government to intervene.
(AFP, 11/29/15)
2015 Dec 1, Japan's whaling fleet set out for the Antarctic to resume a hunt for the mammals after a year-long hiatus.
(Reuters, 12/1/15)
2015 Dec 6, In Cambodia 6 people died after eating the barbequed carcass of a dog that had died for unknown reasons. 4 others died on Dec 8 after drinking rice wine.
(AP, 12/11/15)
2015 Dec 10, Gabon, home to half of Africa's endangered forest elephants, said it has impounded more than 200 kg (440 lbs.) of ivory in what may be its largest seizure ever.
(Reuters, 12/10/15)
2015 Dec 11, South Africa expelled a North Korean diplomat. He was arrested in neighboring Mozambique in May on charges related to rhino horn smuggling.
(AP, 12/23/15)
2015 Dec 15, In Romania thousands of angry shepherds engaged in a tense standoff with riot police outside the parliament building in protest at a law that restricts the number of sheepdogs they can use and bans them from grazing sheep during the winter. The law was introduced by supporters of hunting, a popular pastime among Romania's elite.
(AP, 12/15/15)
2015 Dec 17, Tanzania sentenced four Chinese men to 20 years in jail each after they were convicted of smuggling rhino horns.
(Reuters, 12/18/15)
2015 Dec 21, The Obama administration announced a move to make it harder for American big-game hunters to bring a lion head or hide into the country.
(SFC, 12/22/15, p.A7)
2015 Dec 22, Tanzanian authorities said they have seized tusks from about 45 elephants and arrested two suspects at their home in Dar es Salaam.
(Reuters, 12/23/15)
2015 Mark Essig authored “Lesser Beasts: A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig."
(Econ, 5/2/15, p.75)
2015 Henry Holt authored “Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel."
(Econ, 7/18/15, p.72)
2015 Scientists counted 65 Chinese White dolphins (sousa chinensis) around Lantau Island in Hong Kong. This was a drop from 188 surveyed in 2003.
(Econ 5/27/17, p.40)
2015 In South Africa 1,175 rhinos were killed by poachers this year, a slight decrease on 2014, but another year of carnage fueled by Asian-led demand for their horn.
(AFP, 1/21/16)
2015 In Zimbabwe at least 50 rhinos were poached this year, up from 20 a year earlier.
(SFC, 1/13/16, p.A2)
2016 Jan 8, The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said seven employees of an Oregon zoo contracted tuberculosis from three elephants in their care in 2013. Human-to-elephant transmission was first identified in 1996 and there have been a handful of cases in recent years in Tennessee and elsewhere.
(Reuters, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 11, Feld Entertainment, parent company of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, said the elephant acts that have been part of their circus shows for more than a century will end in May, earlier than their previously announcement retirement.
(Reuters, 1/11/16)
2016 Jan 11, In southeastern India short-finned pilot whales began washing up on beaches in the port town of Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu state. Records showed that the last time whales washed up on the beaches of Tuticorin in large numbers was in 1973.
(AP, 1/12/16)
2016 Jan 12, In the Netherlands five sperm whales beached on Texel Island. All 5 died before anyone could attempt a rescue operation. Sperm whales began to wash up on German, Dutch, French and British shores. Over the next two months 29 beached whales surprised scientists after only 82 previous beaching of sperm whales had been documented since the 1990s. In 2017 German scientists said the mass beachings could have been due to solar storms.
(AP, 1/13/16) (Reuters, 9/5/17)
2016 Jan 18, Zimbabwe's wildlife rangers recovered 22 elephant tusks after a shootout with 11 suspected poachers, all of whom escaped.
(AP, 1/20/16)
2016 Jan 20, It was reported that Peruvian authorities are outfitting vultures with GPS tracking devices and GoPro cameras to monitor the city from above.
(Reuters, 1/20/16)
2016 Jan 22, Pakistan's Supreme Court lifted a ban on hunting a rare bird, after the government argued it hurt relations with Gulf states whose wealthy hunters traditionally travel to Pakistan to pursue the endangered species with falcons.
(Reuters, 1/22/16)
2016 Jan 23, Finland began a 2nd government sanctioned trial wolf hunt permitting the cull of 46 wolves until Feb 21. In 2015 17 wolves were killed. Wolf hunting was banned in the country from 2007 to 2015.
(SFC, 1/23/16, p.A2)
2016 Jan 26, Kenya said it will torch its vast stockpile of ivory at a star-studded summit to include Hollywood celebrities, presidents and business leaders against "poaching and illegal trade in ivory." The promised destruction of the remaining stockpile is now slated for April 29 and 30.
(AFP, 1/26/16)
2016 Jan 26, Sri Lankan authorities began destroying a shipment of African ivory seized three years ago, following a ceremony at which Buddhist monks gave the slaughtered elephants blessings for a better rebirth.
(AP, 1/26/16)
2016 Jan, In Alaska thousands of dead common murres, a type of seabird also known as a guillemot, washed ashore near Homer and along the state’s vast coastline. The birds appeared to have starved. Researchers later pinned the die-off on warm ocean temperatures that affected the tiny fish eaten by the birds.
(Econ, 1/30/16, p.24)(SFC, 2/11/17, p.A9)
2016 Jan, The feral cat population of Australia, estimated at 4-20 million, was believed to eat as many as 75 million animals a day.
(Econ, 1/16/16, p.42)
2016 Feb 1, In Australia 16 young kangaroos were found killed after being deliberately run down by a driver. Another had to be euthanized because of its injuries.
(AP, 2/1/16)
2016 Feb 1, In Thailand Scottish tourist Gareth Crowe was gored to death by an elephant that he and his stepdaughter (16) were riding on the resort island of Samui.
(AP, 2/2/16)
2016 Feb 3, Environmentalists sued a branch of the US Department of Agriculture in a bid to block federal agents from carrying out targeted killings of gray wolves in Oregon.
(Reuters, 2/3/16)
2016 Feb 4, Congo DRC authorities dismantled a major ivory network, arresting three traffickers in a blow to poaching operations that threaten the survival of the African forest elephant. Officials also seized 30 kg (66 pounds) of ivory ornaments and other items.
(AP, 2/13/16)
2016 Feb 5, Japan deported Ric O'Barry, the star of an Oscar-winning documentary that shows how dolphins are hunted in a Japanese village, after Tokyo airport officials barred his entry and he was held in detention for more than two weeks.
(AP, 2/5/16)
2016 Mar 1, Four Kenyan policemen were charged with illegal possession of ivory at a Nairobi court.
(AFP, 3/1/16)
2016 Mar 3, On World Wildlife Day the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society said all sides in South Sudan's civil war have slaughtered wildlife including elephant, giraffe and antelope, warning huge efforts must be made to protect the surviving animal population.
(AFP, 3/3/16)
2016 Mar 17, Sea World said that it would stop breeding killer whales in captivity.
(SFC, 3/18/16, p.D1)
2016 Mar 18, The Red Cross said hundreds of thousands of farm animals have perished in a slow-moving natural disaster in Mongolia and the international aid response has been insufficient.
(AFP, 3/18/16)
2016 Mar 20, In eastern India three elephants killed 4 people. One elephant in the group, a male, was tranquilized and later died.
(AP, 3/21/16)
2016 Mar 21, In India one man was after he walked out of his home in a village in Burdwan district of West Bengal state. The man encountered five elephants, and was tossed in the air and trampled by one of them.
(AP, 3/21/16)
2016 Mar 24, Japan's whaling fleet returned with 333 whales it caught in its first Antarctic harvest since an international court ruling stopped its hunt two years ago.
(AP, 3/24/16)
2016 Mar 24, In South Africa an anti-poaching security unit found two white rhino cows killed and a bull seriously injured in a wildlife park. Two orphaned calves, aged three and 11 months and still suckling, were sent to a sanctuary.
(AP, 3/26/16)
2016 Mar 27, Thailand seized 87 ivory tusks, worth an estimated $800,000, found in a dozen barrels sent from Mozambique on a Kenya Airways flight. A routine X-ray at Suvarnabhumi International Airport detected the contraband.
(AP, 4/5/16)
2016 Apr 4, In China activists from a coalition of groups said that they will continue press for annual June 20 dog meat festival in Yulin to be banned as well as legislation outlawing the slaughtering of dogs and cats and the consumption of their meat.
(AP, 4/4/16)
2016 Apr 15, In Florida an endangered Malayan tiger attacked and killed zookeeper Stacey Konwiser (38) in its Palm Beach Zoo enclosure as the woman prepared to give a talk to visitors.
(AFP, 4/16/16)
2016 Apr 16, Conservationists said representatives from 13 Asian countries, meeting in New Delhi this week, have agreed to do more to protect tiger habitats.
(SFC, 4/16/16, p.A2)
2016 Apr 23, In South Africa 49 starved and sick monkeys were rescued from filthy living conditions in a private zoo, and were whisked away to a care facility after failed attempts by the owner of Little Falls garden center to improve their living conditions.
(Reuters, 4/24/16)
2016 Apr 23, In Congo DRC elephant poachers killed three rangers in Garamba National Park and wounded two other people including the Swedish park manager. The poachers were believed to have come from South Sudan.
(Reuters, 4/25/16)(SFC, 5/25/16, p.A3)
2016 Apr 25, The New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society said Cambodia's Royal Turtle is nearly extinct, with fewer than 10 left in the wild, because increased sand dredging and illegal clearance of flooded forest have shrunk its habitat.
(AP, 4/25/16)
2016 Apr 29, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta demanded a total ban on trade in ivory to end trafficking and prevent the extinction of elephants in the wild.
(AFP, 4/29/16)
2016 Apr 30, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta set fire to the world's biggest ivory bonfire, after demanding a total ban on trade in tusks and horns to end "murderous" trafficking and prevent the extinction of elephants in the wild. Some 100 tons of elephant ivory and more than 1 ton of rhino horn were destroyed.
(AFP, 4/30/16)(SSFC, 5/1/16, p.A4)
2016 May 1, Ringling Bros. circus elephants preformed their last shows in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania. The 11 elephants will be sent to Ringling’s 200-acre Center for elephant conservation in Florida.
(SFC, 5/2/16, p.A12)
2016 May 3, Zimbabwe put its wild animals up for sale, saying it needed buyers to step in and save the beasts from a devastating drought.
(Reuters, 5/3/16)
2016 May 19, In Spain the Castile and Leon government outlawed the killing of bulls at town festivals in a measure that likely will stop the animals being speared to death at one of the country's goriest summer events.
(AP, 5/19/16)
2016 May 20, South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed a government bid to keep a seven-year ban in place on the domestic trade in rhino horn. The decision had no bearing on a ban on international trade in rhino horn.
(Reuters, 5/23/16)
2016 May 24, South Sudan authorities arrested an army major for allegedly trafficking elephant ivory through the country's Paloich oil fields.
(AP, 5/27/16)
2016 May 25, In South Sudan an airport sniffer dog unit found 10 kg (22 pounds) of frozen pangolin meat in the luggage of a Chinese national upon his arrival in Juba from Paloich where he works as an oil engineer.
(AP, 5/27/16)
2016 May 26, Spanish police said they seized 74 illegally hunted African elephant tusks worth an estimated 200,000 euros ($222,000) and arrested a man who was trying to legalize possession of them so they could be sold. The tusks were found last month in a house in the town of Colmenar de Oreja, outside Madrid.
(AP, 5/26/16)
2016 May 30, In Thailand wildlife officials began removing some of the 137 tigers held at a Buddhist temple following accusations that the monks were involved in illegal breeding and trafficking of the animals.
(AP, 5/30/16)
2016 May 30, Zimbabwean officials say poachers killed 5 elephants by poisoning them with cyanide. Rangers discovered the carcasses of the elephants with their tusks removed in a western forest last week.
(AP, 5/30/16)
2016 Jun 1, Thai authorities found dozens of dead tiger cubs inside a freezer at the Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua temple in western Kanchanaburi province.
(AFP, 6/2/16)
2016 Jun 2, Thai authorities uncovered a trove of animal parts and intercepted a monk trying to leave the controversial “tiger temple" with tiger skins and fangs, the latest discovery to fuel accusations that the zoo is involved in the illegal wildlife trade.
(AFP, 6/2/16)
2016 Jun 8, South Africa's department of environmental affairs said an on-again-off-again moratorium on domestic trade in rhino horn had been reinstated after it appealed to the top court in the land to render judgment on the thorny issue.
(Reuters, 6/8/16)
2016 Jun 10, In China animal rights activists calling for an end to the slaughter and eating of dogs at a Chinese festival delivered a petition with 11 million signatures to authorities in Beijing.
(Reuters, 6/10/16)
2016 Jun 14, In Florida a boy (2) was dragged into the water by an alligator while wading near Disney’s Grand Florida Resort & Spa.
(SFC, 6/15/16, p.A5)
2016 Jun 14, Australian researchers said the Bramble Cay melomys, a rodent that only lived on Bramble Cay in the Great Barrier Reef, has become the first documented mammal to go extinct due to man-made climate change.
(SFC, 6/15/16, p.A4)
2016 Jun 15, In Indonesia more than 30 pilot whales began stranding themselves during high tide on the coast of Pesisir village in Probolinggo district in the province of East Java. At least 10 died as a mass rescue operation managed to pull most of the stranded whales into the deep sea.
(AP, 6/16/16)
2016 Jun 16, In the Solomon Islands scientists on World Sea Turtle Day tagged hawksbill sea turtles in a key South Pacific breeding ground, hoping that information fed to satellites will help them better understand the endangered species' nesting, feeding and migration patterns.
(Reuters, 6/16/16)
2016 Jun 17, Police in Michigan confiscated 25 dogs and arrested five people in an investigation into dog fighting in the Detroit suburbs of Inkster and Westland.
(SFC, 6/18/16, p.A5)
2016 Jun 19, In southern California a fire at a stable outside Los Angeles killed 10 horses.
(SFC, 6/20/16, p.A4)
2016 Jun 21, In southern China Yulin city went ahead with an annual dog-meat eating festival despite heavy criticism and protests from animal rights activists.
(AP, 6/21/16)
2016 Jun 22, Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific said it will ban carrying shark fin on all its flights, a victory for conservationists concerned for endangered species of the predator.
(AFP, 6/22/16)
2016 Jun 23, It was reported that Walt Disney Co has had more than 240 "nuisance" alligators captured and killed over the last 10 years at its Florida theme park property.
(Reuters, 6/23/16)
2016 Jun 27, Hong Kong called for an end to local ivory trading within five years, a move activists hailed as significant given the financial hub's reputation as a wildlife trafficking blackspot, while calling for this ban to be speeded up.
(Reuters, 6/27/16)
2016 Jun 29, In Montana a grizzly bear attacked and killed mountain biker Brad Treat (38) at Glacier national Park.
(SFC, 6/30/16, p.A5)
2016 Jul 5, Dozens of French farmers protested against the presence of bears in the Pyrenees mountains, after a flock of 125 sheep took fright and fell to their death in a ravine over the weekend. brown bears were reintroduced to the area 20 years ago after disappearing in the early 1990s.
(AP, 7/5/16)
2016 Jul 7, Australia's greyhound industry was reeling after New South Wales, the country's most populous, state banned the sport following a string of scandals including "live baiting" and the slaughter of tens of thousands of dogs.
(AFP, 7/7/16)
2016 Jul 8, In Spain six foreigners, including three Americans, were among seven people gored in a hair-raising second running of the bulls at Pamplona's San Fermin festival.
(AP, 7/8/16)
2016 Jul 9, In Spain a man from Valencia died after being gored in a late-night bull run near the southern town of Alicante. Two men were gored and 12 others injured in the more popular morning bull-run race in Pamplona.
(AP, 7/9/16)
2016 Jul 10, In Spain bullfighter Victor Barrio (29) was fatally gored at the Teruel bullring, the first professional matador to be killed in the ring since3 1985.
(AP, 7/10/16)
2016 Jul 12, Malawi began a massive project to move 500 elephants, by truck and crane, to a sanctuary for the threatened species.
(AP, 7/19/16)
2016 Jul 13, In Spain an American was gored and five other runners were injured in the next-to-last running of the bulls at Pamplona's San Fermin festival.
(AP, 7/13/16)
2016 Jul 15, The Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that US officials have wrongly allowed the Navy to use sonar at levels that could harm whales and other marine animals.
(SSFC, 7/17/16, p.C1)
2016 Jul 20, Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo signed legislation banning the use of bullhooks to train elephants, making her state the first to do so.
(http://tinyurl.com/hrewt2q)(SFC, 7/22/16, p.A7)
2016 Jul 22, In northern Indiana 14 dogs were found dead after air conditioning failed in a truck they were housed in for a dog show.
(SFC, 7/26/16, p.A5)
2016 Jul 22, In Kenya a court in Mombasa convicted Feisal Mohamed Ali of possessing ivory. He had been accused of leading an ivory smuggling ring. Ali was arrested in Tanzania in December 2014 over illegal elephant tusks weighing more than 2 tons.
(AP, 7/22/16)
2016 Jul 22, It was reported that days of heavy snowfall in Peru have killed some 50,000 alpacas. Sheep were also reported dying in large numbers in the high Andean plateaus.
(SFC, 7/22/16, p.A2)
2016 Jul 24, In northern Thailand about 100 macaques tore up voter lists publicly posted ahead of the August 7 referendum on a proposed constitution.
(AP, 7/25/16)
2016 Jul 26, In Morocco a girl was visiting the Zoological Garden of Rabat with her family, admiring three elephants when one picked up a stone, then tossed it more than 10 meters (yards) over a huge ditch and a wooden barrier toward the visitors. The girl was struck in the head and died hours later.
(AP, 7/29/16)
2016 Jul 27, In Venezuela a union leader said some 50 animals have starved to death in the last six months at the Caricuao zoo in Caracas, due to chronic food shortages that have plagued the crisis-stricken South American nation.
(Reuters, 7/27/16)
2016 Aug 2, In Russia the Yamal regional governor's office said a child has died of anthrax in Siberia in the first fatal outbreak of the bacterial disease reported in Russia in 75 years. More than 2,300 reindeer have also died in the outbreak in the region.
{Russia, Siberia, Animal, Microbiology}
(AP, 8/2/16)
2016 Aug 5, Cambodian customs seized more than 600 kg of illegal ivory in a container packed with corn that had languished unclaimed at a port for two years after being shipped from Africa.
(AFP, 8/5/16)
2016 Aug 15, Indonesian authorities seized 657 critically endangered pangolins, known as "scaly anteaters," found hidden in freezers and arrested a man (55) for allegedly breaking wildlife protection laws.
(AFP, 8/26/16)
2016 Aug 22, A Canadian conservation officer said that authorities have killed nine bears in three days in Revelstoke, British Columbia. He warned that the death toll will rise if unsecured trash continues to draw the animals into residential areas. 23 bears were killed there in 1995, but in recent years the average annual number had been fewer than seven.
(Reuters, 8/23/16)
2016 Aug 24, Australia’s New South Wales parliament in Sydney banned greyhound racing in an overnight session effective from July 1, 2017.
(AFP, 8/24/16)
2016 Aug 26, In central Norway 323 wild reindeer werre killed by lighting on the Hardangervidda mountain plateau.
(AP, 8/29/16)
2016 Aug 29, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a measure that bans the use of bullhooks and other devices to control elephants, the latest victory for animal rights activists who condemn the practice.
(Reuters, 8/30/16)
2016 Aug, A Botswana based team led the Great Elephant Census funded by Paul Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft. The survey suggested that about 350,000 African savannah elephants remained alive, down 140,000 from 2007.
(Econ 6/17/17, p.72)
2016 Sep 7, A US federal judge ordered wildlife managers to enlarge habitat protections in Idaho, Montana and Colorado for the Canada lynx, a rare wild cat that roams the Rockies and mountain forests of several other states.
(Reuters, 9/8/16)
2016 Sep 10, In Hawaii the International Union for Conservation of Nature voted to call on every country to shut down domestic ivory markets that threaten elephants. The group has 1,300 members from more than 160 countries, but no enforcement power.
(AP, 9/11/16)
2016 Sep 13, Cambodia released more than 200 nearly extinct royal turtles in muddy waters at a new breeding and conservation center that was built in hopes of keeping the national reptile from disappearing.
(AP, 9/13/16)
2016 Sep 13, In Spain a small group of local people and anti-bullfighting activists scuffled and exchanged insults at a centuries-old Spanish festival in the town of Tordesillas, where for the first time in its history the gory killing of a bull was banned and the beast was unharmed.
(AP, 9/13/16)
2016 Sep 14, South Africa said rangers in Kruger National Par are killing about 350 hippos and buffalos in an attempt to relieve the impact of the region's most severe drought in more than three decades.
(AP, 9/14/16)
2016 Sep 15, A local Japanese official said that hundreds of horseshoe crabs -- known as "living fossils" because they are among the Earth's oldest creatures -- have been found dead near Kitakyushu city where they lay their eggs.
(AFP, 9/15/16)
2016 Sep 16, In Kenya angry protesters marched in Nairobi against plans to build an elevated railway line over the country's oldest national park, saying the project will threaten wildlife that includes lions, leopards and giraffes.
(AP, 9/16/16)
2016 Sep 23, Conservation groups said Laos has promised to phase out farms that breed endangered tigers for their body parts, a positive step from a country believed to be a major hub of wildlife trafficking in Asia. Wildlife trade monitoring group TRAFFIC said that endangered species such as pangolins and helmeted hornbills were being openly sold in Laos and that law enforcement against the illegal trade remained threadbare.
(AP, 9/23/16)(AFP, 9/23/16)
2016 Sep 24, In South Africa thousands of conservationists and top government officials went into talks in Sandton, a suburb of Johannesburg, for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to thrash out international trade regulations on elephant ivory, rhino horn and hundreds of endangered wild animals and plants.
(AFP, 9/24/16)(Econ, 10/1/16, p.48)
2016 Sep 25, It was reported that the skies across North America have become increasingly quieter over recent decades as the bird populations plummeted by 1.5 billion. Domestic cats, farming and logging were all cited as contributing factors.
(SSFC, 9/25/16, p.C14)
2016 Sep 28, In South Africa the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting in Johannesburg voted overwhelmingly to ban trade in the endangered pangolin, the world's most heavily trafficked mammal.
(AFP, 9/28/16)
2016 Sep 28, South African rangers shot and killed three suspected poachers in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi park in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province.
(AP, 9/30/16)
2016 Sep 29, Thailand’s government said it has decided to suspend seahorse trade because of concern about threats to its wild population. The decision was announced at a meeting in South Africa of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
(AP, 9/29/16)
2016 Oct 16, In Spain about 3,500 dogs of all breeds and sizes ran through the streets Madrid with their owners in the fifth edition of the "Perroton," or Dogathon, a yearly event that seeks to raise awareness about animal cruelty and encourage dog adoptions.
(AP, 10/16/16)
2016 Oct 17, An Indonesian official said three men were arrested over the weekend for allegedly trading in protected species, with police seizing animal parts including a tiger skin, deer genitalia and pangolin scales.
(AFP, 10/17/16)
2016 Oct 20, Spain's Constitutional Court cancelled a bullfighting ban in Catalonia in what is likely to exacerbate tensions between Madrid and the separatist region, and drew an outcry from animal activists.
(AFP, 10/20/16)
2016 Nov 17, Argentina's Congress passed a law to ban greyhound racing in a bid to reduce the risk of animal cruelty in the South American country.
(AP, 11/17/16)
2016 Nov 18, The island nation of Kiribati established a large shark sanctuary that will help ensure the creatures are protected across much of the central Pacific. Palau established the first shark sanctuary in the region in 2009, and has been followed by the Marshall Islands, French Polynesia and other nations.
(AP, 11/19/16)
2016 Nov 20, The German news agency dpa reported that some 8,800 geese on two poultry farms will be culled in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein because some of the animals are infected with the bird flu. Last week 30,000 chickens were destroyed in Schleswig-Holstein after H5N8 was detected in their enclosure.
(AP, 11/20/16)
2016 Nov 23, Australian researchers said daylight saving time could reduce the decline of koalas in Queensland state, where the population has plunged by 80% in less than two decades in great part due to road accidents.
(SFC, 11/24/16, p.A2)
2016 Nov 23, South African police arrested a Hong Kong-bound Chinese man found with 18 rhino horns hidden in his luggage.
(AFP, 11/24/16)
2016 Nov, In Russia a cull of reindeer began in the northern Yamal region. The cull this year was raised from 70,000 to 100,000 and would continue to the end of January. Opponents of the plan said traditional pasture lands of the Nenets people are disappearing due to the growth of the oil and gas industry.
(SFC, 11/17/16, p.A6)
2016 Nov, Vietnam’s government hosted a big pow-wow on wildlife conservation and obliterated tons of confiscated ivory in a fireball.
(Econ, 2/18/17, p.36)
2016 Dec 8, The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) warned that wild giraffe numbers have plummeted by 40 percent in the last three decades, and the species is now "vulnerable" to extinction.
(AFP, 12/8/16)
2016 Dec 16, Cambodian authorities found 1.3 metric tons of ivory, 10 cheetah skulls and 82 kg (180 pounds) of cheetah bones, and 137 kg (301 pounds) of pangolin scales concealed in three containers shipped from Mozambique.
(AP, 12/22/16)
2016 Dec 27, Research led by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) said the Cheetah, the world's fastest land animal, is in danger of extinction because it is running out of space. The study said there are now just 7,100 cheetahs in the world.
(Reuters, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 28, In southwest Nepal a herd of elephants attacked a village, killing one person and wounding two others. The elephants attacked Praseni village at dawn, when there was not much light and poor visibility due to winter fog.
(AP, 12/28/16)
2016 Dec 28, Russian investigators said they had opened a criminal case into a group of men who filmed themselves crushing a bear to death by repeatedly driving over it in off-road vehicles in the Siberian tundra.
(Reuters, 12/28/16)
2016 Dec 30, China’s government said it will ban all ivory trade and processing by the end of 2017, in a move hailed by conservationists as a "game changer" for African elephants.
(AFP, 12/31/16)
2016 Charles Foster authored “Being a Beast."
(Econ, 2/27/16, p.74)
2016 In Cyprus trappers killed some 2.3 million birds this autumn, up from 1.4 million in 2010. Trappers can catch thousands of birds a season, selling a dozen for up to $45 (40 euros) to restaurants, which serve a traditional dish called ambelopoulia, for nearly twice the price.
(AFP, 6/18/17)
2016 In South Africa poaching killed some 1,054 rhinos this year, up from just 13 in 2007.
(Econ 5/6/17, p.69)
2017 Jan 5, Zimbabwe's wildlife agency said it has sold 35 elephants to China to ease overpopulation and raise funds for conservation, amid criticism from animal welfare activists that such sales are unethical.
(AP, 1/5/17)
2017 Jan 8, SeaWorld in San Diego hosted its last killer whale performance, the culmination of its promise to phase out the decades-old show after criticism of its treatment of the captive marine mammals.
(Reuters, 1/8/17)
2017 Jan 12, In Romania two tigers were among a number of animals that died when a fire broke out at an animal shelter which houses animals retired from the circus.
(AP, 1/12/17)
2017 Jan 19, The Obama administration passed the Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices rule that required an increase in the amount of space required for livestock and poultry, provide more access to the outdoors and outlaw the use of subtherapeutic antibiotics. On Dec. 15 the Trump adminsitration scrapped the rule.
(SSFC, 12/24/17, p.L9)
2017 Jan 19, Slovenia said it will allow hunters to kill 93 brown bears and up to 8 wolves this year in order to keep those animal populations from growing. Last year hunters killed 83 bears and 4 wolves.
(AP, 1/19/17)
2017 Jan 22, In India lawmakers in Tamil Nadu state passed an emergency order allowing bull-taming festivals (Jallikattu) to resume after a court ban on the traditional events led to mass protests. The Supreme Court had banned Jallikattu in 2014 and upheld the ban earlier this month.
(Reuters, 1/23/17)(Econ, 1/28/17, p.36)
2017 Jan 26, Scientists said they have grown human cells inside pig embryos, a very early step toward the goal of growing livers and other human organs in animals to transplant into people.
(AP, 1/26/17)
2017 Jan, In South Africa poachers cut through fences at an animal park and decapitated and chopped the paws off three male lions, possibly for use in traditional healing rituals.
(AP, 6/4/17)
2017 Feb 2, Wildlife anti-trafficking organization Freeland said that almost three tons of scales from endangered African pangolins, hidden in sacks, were seized last December at Bangkok's main airport. The haul was worth more than $1 million dollars on the illegal market, and represented as many as 6,000 dead animals. The scales were sent from Kinshasa in Congo, via Turkey with a final destination listed as Vientiane, Laos.
(AP, 2/2/17)
2017 Feb 4, In Taiwan a bill banning the euthanizing animals in shelters came into effect. This followed the tragic suicide last year of Chien Chih-cheng, a vet burdened with the task of putting down animals.
(AFP, 2/5/17)
2017 Feb 11, In New Zealand a new pod of 240 whales swam aground at a remote beach just hours after weary volunteers managed to refloat a different group of whales following an earlier mass stranding. In total, more than 650 pilot whales have beached themselves over two days on Farewell Spit at the tip of the South Island. About 350 of the whales were dead, 100 were refloated by volunteers and more than 200 managed to swim away unassisted.
(AP, 2/11/17)(SSFC, 2/12/17, p.A4)
2017 Feb 13, A Tanzanian court sentenced a married couple to 20 years in jail each for illegal possession of 210 pieces of ivory from 93 poached elephants. Peter and Leonida Loi Kabi had pleaded not guilty.
(Reuters, 2/14/17)
2017 Feb, Parks Canada reintroduced a herd of plains bison to the country's oldest national park in Banff, Alberta.
(Reuters, 2/13/17)
2017 Mar 1, US salmonella illnesses linked to turtles began to infect people. According to the US Centers for Disease Control some 37 people across 13 states were diagnosed with salmonella until August 3.
(SFC, 8/30/17, p.A5)
2017 Mar 3, A DC federal appeals court ruled that wolves in Wyoming should be stripped of Endangered Species Act protections and management given to the state rather than the US government, a decision that opens the door for hunting of the animals.
(Reuters, 3/3/17)
2017 Mar 5, It was reported that US federal authorities have approved a plan to move nearly 1,500 desert tortoises from California’s Marine base at Twentynine Palms so that the marine Corps can use the area for training with tanks and live ammunition.
(SSFC, 3/5/17, p.A11)
2017 Mar 6, In Kenya one of Africa's oldest and largest elephants was killed by poachers in Tsavo National Park. Two poachers believed to be responsible for the killing were soon apprehended.
(AFP, 3/6/17)
2017 Mar 7, In France poachers broke into the Thoiry Zoo overnight and shot a 5-year-old rhinoceros named Vince three times in the head. They used a chain saw to remove the animal's ivory horn.
(AP, 3/7/17)
2017 Mar 8, The European Union's police agency said an international operation has dismantled a crime network smuggling live eels to China, describing it as the EU's biggest success in recent years against trafficking in endangered species.
(AP, 3/8/17)
2017 Mar 9, Scientists said they have developed a vaccine to shield endangered chimpanzees and gorillas against Ebola, which has wiped out tens of thousands of the wild apes in three decades.
(AFP, 3/9/17)
2017 Mar 15, Turkey said its red meat association has ordered a consignment of prize Dutch cattle to be sent back to the Netherlands, saying it no longer wants to farm the cows due to the diplomatic crisis between the countries.
(AFP, 3/15/17)
2017 Mar 20, A Czech zoo started sawing off the horns of its 21 rhinos to protect them from poaching after the killing of a rhinoceros in France earlier this month.
(Reuters, 3/21/17)
2017 Mar 26, Indonesian farmer Akbar (25) failed to return home from a trip to the family's plantation on Sulawesi Island. His body was found the next day inside the belly of a giant python.
(AFP, 3/29/17)
2017 Mar 31, Japan's whaling fleet returned home after killing 333 whales in the Antarctic, achieving its goal for the second year under a revised research whaling program.
(AP, 3/31/17)
2017 Mar, In Brazil the howler-monkey population in Espirito Santo and Minas Gerais states was reported to be crashing. Doctors suspected this was due to yellow fever. Since December 371 human cases have been reported, a third of them fatal.
(Econ, 3/18/17, p.79)
2017 Mar, Researchers noted that there are 25 million tons of spiders around the world and that they consume collectively consume 400-800 million tons of animal prey every year, putting them in the same league as humans and whales.
(Econ, 3/18/17, p.82)
2017 Apr 1, Norway kicked off its annual six-month whale hunt season with a quota of 999 minke whales, up from 880 animals in 2016.
(AP, 4/1/17)
2017 Apr 4, Indonesian police saved a young sun bear, a clouded leopard and a baby orangutan from the wildlife trade after a tip from conservationists who tracked the illegal activities through Instagram. Abdul Malik was arrested in a raid on his southern Jakarta house where the animals were found caged.
(AP, 4/4/17)
2017 Apr 8, In southern Nepal a rare one-horned rhinoceros was found killed and horn cut off by poachers in the Chitwan National Forest.
(AP, 4/9/17)
2017 Apr, In waters off Bermuda a robot called Guardian LF1, Made by IRobot, caught 15 venomous lionfish during two days of testing.
(SFC, 4/29/17, p.A6)
2017 Apr, Taiwan became the first Asian country to ban eating or trading the meat of dogs or cats.
(Econ 7/8/17, p.38)
2017 May 4, In Texas office workers found nearly 400 migratory birds of brilliant plumage killed after they smashed into an office tower in Galveston while flying in a storm. More than 20 species were represented among the 395 birds that died.
(Reuters, 5/6/17)
2017 May 7, It was reported that more than 40 humpback whales have died since January along the Eastern Seaboard of the Unite States.
(SSFC, 5/7/17, p.C14)
2017 May 7, It was reported that Brazilian officials are urging residents to stop killing wild monkeys in an attempt to halt an expanding yellow fever outbreak.
(SSFC, 5/7/17, p.C14)
2017 May 19, In western Zimbabwe Theunis Botha (51), a professional hunter who specialized in hunting with hounds, was crushed to death when an elephant picked him up and then fell on him after being shot.
(AFP, 5/22/17)
2017 May 22, Nepal destroyed thousands of valuable animal skins and other parts seized from poachers on a giant bonfire in a symbolic gesture against the illegal wildlife trade. The bonfire was timed to coincide with International Day for Biological Diversity.
(AFP, 5/22/17)
2017 May 23, India’s government issued notification regarding changes to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. The environment ministry said that animal markets will only be able to trade in cattle meant for agricultural purposes. Animals for slaughter will have to be bought from farmers directly, a big blow to the meat business run mainly by Muslims.
(AP, 5/27/17)
2017 May 26, Albania's government declared May 10 as Pelican Day in an effort to protect the habitat of a bird under threat.
(AP, 5/26/17)
2017 May 26, In Spain 1,036 pigs died late today in a fire that engulfed a roofed feedlot filled with pig pens in the small town of Puerto Lumbreras in the Murcia region.
(AP, 5/27/17)
2017 May 26, In India rules took effect requiring that cattle traders pledge that any cows or buffalos sold are not intended for slaughter. At least one state government is planning a challenge in court.
(AP, 5/29/17)
2017 May 29, It was reported that a local rescue group has found dozens of sick and dying pelicans along California’s Ventura and Santa Barbara coasts. Poisoning from domoic acid, a naturally occurring toxin in algae, was suspected.
(SFC, 5/29/17, p.A4)
2017 May 29, In England an encounter between a tiger and a zookeeper at Hamerton Zoo Park, 130 km (80 miles) north of London, claimed the life of Rosa King (34).
(AP, 5/30/17)
2017 May 30, A court in southern India ordered a four-week stay on the federal government's decision to ban the sale of cows and buffaloes for slaughter.
(AP, 5/30/17)
2017 Jun 6, A local Myanmar official said thousands of rats have descended on villages on Haingyi island in the Irrawaddy Delta, in what some have taken to be an ill omen of impending disaster. More than 4,000 have been killed since the critters scurried into their villages over the weekend.
(AFP, 6/6/17)
2017 Jun 8, A Rwanda official said Hungarian ecologist Krisztian Gyongyi has been killed by a rhinoceros in the Akagera National Park while tracking animals there. He had been instrumental in supporting the reintroduction of black rhinos into the park.
(AP, 6/8/17)
2017 Jun 12, The Trump administration threw out a new rule intended to limit the number of endangered whales and sea turtles caught in fishing nets off the West Coast, saying existing protections were already working.
(SFC, 6/13/17, p.C2)
2017 Jun 14, Indonesian authorities said they have arrested two suspected wildlife smugglers after a raid on a port warehouse in Sumatra uncovered more than 200 pangolins, many of them dead from stress and dehydration.
(AP, 6/14/17)
2017 Jun 14, Japan kicked off a whaling campaign in the northwestern Pacific. Three ships left port on a three-month mission to catch 43 minke whales and 134 sei whales.
(AFP, 6/14/17)
2017 Jun 15, Malaysian customs officials seized nearly 400 kg (880 pounds) of pangolin scales worth 5 million ringgit ($1.2 million) from Ghana.
(AP, 6/16/17)
2017 Jun 20, The London-based group World Animal Protection said dried penises of endangered Bengal monitor lizards and yellow monitor lizards look similar to a rare plant root sought by people who believe it brings good luck. Wildlife authorities conducted raids in five Indian states last month and some raids were continuing.
(AP, 6/20/17)
2017 Jun 21, A notorious Chinese dog meat festival opened in the southern city of Yulin with sellers torching the hair off carcasses, butchers chopping slabs of canines and cooks frying up dishes, dispelling rumors that authorities would ban sales this year.
(AFP, 6/21/17)
2017 Jun 28, Botswana's government moved to crack down on the multi-billion dollar trade in donkey skins following a spate of killings of the animals fuelled by soaring demand from China. Botswana became the sixth African country to impose restrictions on donkey exports, following Niger, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso and Gambia.
(AFP, 6/29/17)
2017 Jun 28, South Africa approved the export of some 800 skeletons of captive-bred lions this year, meeting demand for the bones in parts of Asia while alarming critics who believe the policy threatens Africa's wild lions.
(AP, 6/28/17)
2017 Jul 4, Hong Kong customs officials seized more than $9 million worth of ivory in a shipment from Malaysia that had been labeled as frozen fish. Three people at a trading company in Hong Kong were arrested in connection with the shipment.
(AP, 7/6/17)
2017 Jul 13, Botswana police said a Chinese man, alleged to be involved in illegal donkey skin trade, has been arrested after being found with 500 animals suffering in dire conditions.
(AFP, 7/13/17)
2017 Jul 13, In western Niger local authorities said at least 27 hippos have been slaughtered in a touristy zone by villagers who blame them for destroying crops and harming livestock.
(AFP, 7/13/17)
2017 Jul 14, In San Jose, Ca., Robert Farmer (26) was sentenced to a maximum of 16 years in prison. Last October he had pleaded guilty to 21 counts of animal cruelty. Farmer had killed at least 16 cats though only four bodies were recovered.
(SSFC, 7/16/17, p.C10)
2017 Jul 14, Malaysian authorities arrested a Vietnamese man and seized a stash of elephant ivory worth almost $70,000.
(AFP, 7/17/17)
2017 Jul 16, In Zambia a baboon plunged a tourist town into darkness after tampering with equipment at a hydro-electric power station in Livingstone.
(Reuters, 7/17/17)
2017 Jul 19, Vietnam planned to rescue more than 1,000 bears from illegal farms across the country, in a move to end the traditional medicine trade in the creatures' bile.
(AFP, 7/19/17)
2017 Jul 22, In Zimbabwe a bull elephant, that gave tourist rides in the town of Victoria Falls, trampled to death Enock Kufandanda (50), his professional handler. Parks and wildlife authority rangers shot and killed the elephant, reported to be about 30 years old.
(AFP, 7/25/17)
2017 Aug 1, India released data this week data showing that about one person has been killed every day for the past three years by roaming tigers or rampaging elephants.
(AP, 8/1/17)
2017 Aug 3, Malawi celebrated the successful conclusion of a two-year project moving 520 sedated elephants by truck to a reserve where the animals had been nearly wiped out by poaching.
(AFP, 8/3/17)
2017 Aug 4, A district in central Indonesia said it has invited the army, police and local hunters to help battle bands of wild long-tailed macaque monkeys, which were raiding plantations and attacking villagers in Boyolali district in central Java.
(AP, 8/4/17)
2017 Aug 4, In northern Sweden an employee at Orsa Rovdjurspark, one of Europe's largest predator parks, died of bite wounds after being attacked by a bear. The 2-year-old bear was euthanized after the attack.
(AP, 8/4/17)
2017 Aug 5, In southern France hundreds of farmers, shepherds and politicians rallied in Aveyron calling for action to halt the slaughter of livestock by packs of wolves.
(AFP, 8/5/17)
2017 Aug 7, Chantek (39), a male orangutan, died at Zoo Atlanta. He was among the first apes to learn sign language, could clean his room and memorized the way to a fast-food restaurant.
(Reuters, 8/8/17)
2017 Aug 7, In Germany some 2,600 pigs and piglets died in a fire at a farm southwest of Berlin that caused an estimated 800,000 euros ($950,000) in damage in the area of Frankenfoerde.
(AP, 8/8/17)
2017 Aug 10, Scientists in Germany said they have identified a new type of pox virus that's sickening young red squirrels in Berlin.
(AP, 8/10/17)
2017 Aug 11, Chaoyi Le (28), of Mississauga, Ontario, was taken into custody in Los Angeles after getting off a flight from Shanghai for attempting to ship live snakes to China through the mail.
(AP, 8/15/17)
2017 Aug 11, In India an elephant blamed for killing more than a dozen people in the eastern states of Jharkhand and Bihar was shot dead, after an elaborate hunt that involved dozens of forest officials and a sharpshooter.
(Reuters, 8/12/17)
2017 Aug 16, In Tanzania Wayne Lotter, the South African co-founder of the Protected Areas management Solutions (PAMS), a conservation group for the protection of elephans, was shot and killed in the Masa-ki district of Dar es Salaam.
(SFC, 3/18/17, p.A2)(Econ, 9/2/17, p.78)
2017 Aug 17, In South Africa John Hume, the owner of the world's biggest private rhino herd, took court action to force the government to allow its first online sale of rhino horn, which he aims to hold next week.
(AP, 8/17/17)
2017 Aug 18, South Africa moved to halt an online auction of rhino horn starting next week, as outraged conservationists said the sale would undermine the global ban on rhino trade. The Pretoria High Court was expected to make a decision on Aug 20.
(AFP, 8/18/17)
2017 Aug 19, In India park director Satyendra Singh said rising floodwaters have inundated large parts of Kaziranga National Park in Assam state, killing more than 225 animals and forcing hundreds of other animals to flee.
(AP, 8/19/17)
2017 Aug 20, A South African court ordered the government to allow John Hume, the owner of the world's biggest private rhino herd, to hold an online sale of rhino horn, which he aims to hold this week.
(Reuters, 8/20/17)
2017 Aug 23, South Africa's first legal auction of rhino horns opened for bids and 264 horns went on sale after the owner of the world's biggest private rhino herd won a court case against the government.
(Reuters, 8/23/17)
2017 Aug 25, South Africa's first online auction of rhino horn concluded amid outrage from conservationists, but no details of the sale were immediately available.
(AFP, 8/25/17)
2017 Aug, Chinese police found pangolins in the trunk of a smuggler's car. 33 of the trafficked animals — endangered scaly mammals from southern China — were still alive, but died within a few months under government captivity.
{China, Animal}
(AP, 1/25/19)
2017 Aug, In Rwanda seven people were killed this month by crocodiles as they tried to draw water from the diminished Nyabarongo River.
(SSFC, 9/3/17, p.C14)
2017 Sep 1, German’s Cologne Zoo said German-born Elizabeth Reichert (93), an American widow of a Holocaust survivor, is leaving it $22 million (18.5 million euros) in her will. Reichert has already started transferring $6,000 per month to the zoo. The entire sum is to be donated upon her death.
(AP, 9/1/17)
2017 Sep 7, A study by wildlife trade monitoring network Traffic said weak governance, corruption and shifting trade dynamics are seriously undermining efforts to control ivory trafficking throughout Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Gabon.
(AFP, 9/7/17)
2017 Sep 8, A new study by UC Davis showed that the number of deer and other large animals killed or injured by California motorists jumped 20 percent in 2016 in accidents that killed five people, led drivers to put themselves in harm's way trying to save the animals, and cost society about $276 million.
(Reuters, 9/8/17)
2017 Sep 14, In Sri Lanka Paul Stewart McClean, a reporter for the Financial Times, went missing in a lagoon near the city of Panama. The next day local navy divers found the body of the British journalist, believed to have been attacked by a crocodile while holidaying with friends.
(AP, 9/15/17)
2017 Sep 18, A Botswana Power Co. official discovered eight dead elephants that had come into contact with a fallen power line near a water source created by a leaking pipe. A ninth elephant soon died despite efforts to save it.
(SFC, 9/22/17 p.A2)
2017 Sep 20, The US Fish and Wildlife Service announced an endangered species designation for the Sonoyta mud turtle, citing threats from climate change to loss of habitat for the southern Arizona animal, whose numbers are believed to have dwindled to as low as 100 turtles.
(AP, 9/24/17)
2017 Sep 21, Africa's leading anti-poaching coalition said the fight against poaching must be treated as a war, as it called for the illicit wildlife trade to be monitored like global conflicts. Enact, an EU-funded anti-poaching analytical taskforce that includes Interpol, called for the expansion of a media tracking system to track poaching incidents similar to established conflict monitoring methods.
(AP, 9/21/17)
2017 Sep 22, In Greece Celia Lois Hollingworth (63) was reported missing by the British embassy. The next day a woman's gnawed body was discovered in a remote hilly area.
(AP, 9/26/17)
2017 Sep 27, It was reported that hundreds of vultures in Namibia died after feeding on an elephant carcass that poachers had poisoned. Poachers in Zimbabwe used cyanide to kill dozens of elephants for their ivory tusks. In Mozambique three lions died after eating bait infused with a crop pesticide.
(AP, 9/27/17)
2017 Sep 28, Vietnam's annual water buffalo fighting festival resumed despite calls for an end to the traditional event because of its violence. The tournament was halted temporarily three months ago after a buffalo killed its owner on the fighting field.
(AP, 9/28/17)
2017 Sep, Oregon and Washington state authorities said an extensive poaching ring was responsible for slaughtering more than 100 black bears, cougars, bobcats, deer and elk dating back to 2015. Seven people were charged and investigators planned to recommend charges against more people.
(SSFC, 9/10/17 p.A12)
2017 Sep, Romania moved to kill or relocate 140 bears and 97 wolves after attacks on humans. The World Wildlife Fund denounced the measure and blamed the attacks on deforestation.
(SSFC, 9/10/17 p.C14)
2017 Oct 8, It was reported that Australia’s pet and feral cats are killing more than 1 million birds every day.
(SSFC, 10/8/17, p.C14)
2017 Oct 9, French farmers trucked hundreds of sheep into a central square in Lyon in protest against the government's protection of wolves, which they blame for livestock deaths and heavy financial losses. The president of the National Sheep Federation, said wolves were costing livestock producers 26 million euros a year compared with 1.5 million euros in 2004.
(Reuters, 10/9/17)
2017 Oct 9, Namibia’s environment minister said over 100 hippos have died in a remote national park in the past week, warning that anthrax could be to blame.
(AFP, 10/9/17)
2017 Oct 10, Thai authorities arrested two Chinese citizens suspected of smuggling rhinoceros horns worth about $300,000 through Bangkok's main airport.
(AP, 10/11/17)
2017 Oct 14, In southern Bangladesh wild elephants attacked the new Balukhali camp in Ukhiya town where Rohingya refugees were sleeping, killing a woman and her three children.
(AP, 10/15/17)
2017 Oct 16, Guam's territorial veterinarian said the island has four animal control officers who field as many as 30 stray dog calls daily. A draft bill crafted by the island's Stray Dog Committee aimed at decreasing Guam's stray dog population by 75 percent over the next 18 months, part of a plan to reduce the island's population of about 25,000 stray dogs, about one stray dog for every seven residents.
(AP, 10/16/17)
2017 Oct 30, It was reported that Iranian environmentalists have mobilized to protect the world's last Asiatic cheetahs, estimated to number just 50 and faced with the threats of becoming roadkill, a shortage of prey and farmers' dogs.
(AFP, 10/30/17)
2017 Oct, Tanzania seized and auctioned off 1,300 cattle which had wandered across the border from Kenya to graze in a region where herders typically pay little heed to frontiers.
(AFP, 11/8/17)
2017 Nov 2, Researchers said a new species of orangutan has been discovered in the remote jungles of Indonesia, immediately becoming the world's most endangered great ape. The species, called 'Tapanuli orangutan', lives in the Batang Toru forest on Sumatra island, and numbers only about 800 in total.
(AFP, 11/3/17)
2017 Nov 3, Russian authorities said they were investigating whether 141 Baikal earless seals starved to death after their carcasses began washing up last weekend on the shoreline of Lake Baikal.
(AP, 11/3/17)
2017 Nov 3, Tommy Zhou of Brooklyn was sentenced in a federal Virginia court to 1 ½ years behind bars for illegally trafficking more than $150,000 worth of baby eels from Virginia. He had pleaded guilty in April.
(AP, 11/6/17)
2017 Nov 14, It was reported that Pakistan’s white-backed vulture is facing extinction. Its population has been devastated by the use of industrial drugs to breed the cattle whose carcasses they traditionally feed on. Diclofenac, used as a painkiller by livestock breeders, was banned in neighboring India in 2006 after it was also blamed for destroying the vulture population there.
(AP, 11/14/17)
2017 Nov 14, A Miami judge sentenced Michael Hegarty of Ireland to 18 months in US prison for the international smuggling of a cup carved from the horn of an endangered rhinoceros.
(AP, 11/15/17)
2017 Nov 16, Conservation groups decried US President Donald Trump's decision to allow trophy hunters who kill elephants in Zambia and Zimbabwe to bring home the endangered animals' tusks or other body parts as trophies.
(Reuters, 11/16/17)(SFC, 11/16/17, p.A6)
2017 Nov 17, US President Donald Trump said in a tweet he is putting a decision to allow imports of big game trophies on hold until he can "review all conservation facts."
(Reuters, 11/18/17)
2017 Nov 19, In northeastern India two endangered Asian elephants were hit and killed by a passenger train near the city of Gauhati.
(AP, 11/19/17)
2017 Nov 21, A Norwegian court granted a reprieve to seven wolves near Oslo caught in the middle of a battle between environmental activists and sheep farmers. It issued an injunction temporarily stopping the hunt of 12 wolves in the Oslo region -- five of which have already been killed -- pending a final decision on the matter.
(AFP, 11/21/17)
2017 Nov 27, In India police in Assam state used elephants and tear gas in an attempt to evict hundreds of people living illegally in the Amchang forest, an elephant habitat threatened by unauthorized settlements.
(SFC, 11/28/17, p.A2)
2017 Nov 29, A Norwegian train smashed into a herd of reindeer in the country's Arctic region, killing 17 animals. Reindeer have been hit eight times between Nov. 22 and 25, resulting in the death of 110 animals.
(AP, 11/29/17)
2017 Dec 13, Zimbabwe’s parks agency said it has seized 200 kg (440 pounds) of ivory, worth over $500,000, destined for Malaysia.
(AP, 12/13/17)
2017 Dec 21, A small reindeer herder from the indigenous Sami community in the Norwegian Arctic lost a much-publicized appeal with Norway's top court over a ruling that he must cull 41 of his 116-strong herd.
(AP, 12/21/17)
2017 Dec 22, The Trump administration said energy companies and other businesses that accidentally kill migratory birds will no longer be criminally prosecuted, in a decision hailed by industry but denounced by environmental groups.
(Reuters, 12/23/17)
2017 Dec 22, In Indonesia the remains of a pregnant elephant, already dead for about ten days, was found in a palm oil plantation in Aceh on Sumatra island, in what authorities suspect was a deliberate poisoning.
(AFP, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 24, In Malaysia a sun bear and tapir were killed in road accidents in the northeast of the country on Christmas Eve, with the tapir skinned by villagers after its carcass was discovered. A second sun bear was killed and cut up, with its parts spotted on the same day sold openly at a market in Sarawak state on Borneo island.
(AFP, 12/28/17)
2017 Dec 24, Mexican fishermen in the Gulf of California fired 25 shots at a night-vision drone belonging to the environmental group Sea Shepherd, bringing it down. The drone had located four small boats illegally fishing for totoaba, a fish whose swim bladder is prized in China.
(AP, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 31, China's complete ban on ivory trade went into effect, a major step forward in Beijing's efforts to rein in what was once the world's largest market for illegal ivory.
(AFP, 12/31/17)
2017 Susanna Forest authored “The Age of the Horse: An Equine Journey Through Human History."
(Econ 6/3/17, p.75)
2017 The US Fish and Wildlife Service lifted protections for 700 grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park, located in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.
(SFC, 8/31/18, p.A9)
2017 A sharp accumulation of sea ice around an Antarctic island caused all but two Adelie penguin chicks to starve. The sea ice had forced the adults to venture 60 miles further than usual to find food for their young.
(SSFC, 12/31/17, p.C12)
2017 In Siberia a lion cub called Boris was found at the Semyuelyakh River in Russia's Yakutia region. Boris, a male cub, lived around 43,448 years ago. A female cub, named Sparta, was found in the same area a year later and lived 28,000 years ago. Cave lions have been extinct for thousands of years.
(AP, 8/13/21)
2018 Jan 2, In England 13 Patas monkeys died in a fire at Woburn Safari Park, marking the second major fire at an animal attraction in the last two weeks.
(AP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 10, Switzerland banned the common culinary practice of throwing fresh lobsters into boiling water as part of an overhaul of its animal protection rules, which take effect in March.
(Reuters, 1/10/18)
2018 Jan 11, Brazilian scientists said the cetacean morbillivirus is the main cause for the death of close to 200 gray dolphins since late November on the coast of Rio de Janeiro state.
(AP, 1/11/18)
2018 Jan 16, In Indonesia a conservation official said a Bornean orangutan, a critically endangered species, has been found stabbed to death in Central Kalimantan province. The World Wildlife Fund estimates there are 104,700 Bornean orangutans left in the world.
(Reuters, 1/16/18)
2018 Jan 19, Thailand police arrested Boonchai Bach, a 40-year-old Thai of Vietnamese descent, in the northeastern border province of Nakhon Phanom in connection with the with smuggling of 14 rhino horns worth over $1 million from Africa into Thailand last month. He had allegedly fueled much of Asia's illegal trade for over a decade.
(AP, 1/20/18)
2018 Jan 29, The German government dismissed as unjustifiable any auto emissions testing on monkeys or people. German daily Stuttgarter Zeitung reported at the weekend that a research organization funded by German carmakers sponsored scientific experiments testing nitrogen dioxide, a gas found in exhaust fumes, on people.
(Reuters, 1/29/18)
2018 Jan 31, Hong Kong lawmakers gave final approval to a government proposal banning local ivory trading in the Chinese territory by 2021, with conservation groups hailing it as a major victory in the fight to save elephants.
(AP, 1/31/18)
2018 Feb 4, In Indonesia villagers spotted a wounded orangutan in a lake in the Kutai Timur district, East Kalimantan province. The male orangutan had been shot at least 130 times with an air gun and was apparently stabbed and clubbed. He died in a hospital on Feb 6 in the second known killing of a critically endangered orangutan this year. Police later arrested four farmers and a 13-year-old boy who admitted they stabbed, clubbed and shot the orangutan to protect their pineapple crop.
(AP, 2/7/18)(AP, 2/19/18)
2018 Feb 4, In Kenya Esmond Bradley Martin, a leading American investigator into the illegal ivory and rhino horn trade, was found stabbed to death in his Nairobi home. He had researched the illegal ivory trade in Myanmar shortly before he was killed. In October the "Save The Elephants" conservation group released a report saying the illegal flow of ivory from Myanmar to neighboring China is continuing "largely unabated."
(AP, 2/5/18)(AP, 10/2/18)
2018 Feb 4, Thai police arrested construction tycoon Premchai Karnasuta and three others for poaching in a protected wildlife sanctuary. Photos of hunting equipment and animal carcasses including a black leopard soon circulated on social media.
(AFP, 2/6/18)
2018 Feb 9, In South Africa a pride of lions killed a suspected poacher at the Umbabat Private Nature Reserve. Human tracks found nearby suggested the alleged poacher had companions who escaped.
(AP, 2/14/18)
2018 Feb 10, In San Francisco Wakeen Best (34) broke into a white Mercedes at the parking structure on Stockton and Sutter streets and hurled a 5-year-old Chihuahua from its 7th story. On July 20 a SF Superior Court jury found her guilty animal cruelty, auto burglary and vandalism.
(SFC, 7/21/18, p.C1)
2018 Feb 10, Spanish police said they have confiscated 310 kilos (683 pounds) of young eels over the past week that were about to be smuggled out of the country and shipped to Hong Kong and Vietnam. The confiscated eels were released in rivers.
(AP, 2/10/18)
2018 Feb 27, In South Africa a lion mauled a young woman (22) to death in the Dinokeng Game Reserve. The lion was under the care of Kevin Richardson known as the "lion whisperer" for his close interactions with the predators.
(AP, 2/28/18)
2018 Mar 10, In Indonesia Yusri Effendi (34), a construction worker, died after he was mauled by a rare Sumatran tiger in the Indragiri Hilir district of Riau province.
(AP, 3/11/18)
2018 Mar 13, Malaysian officials said four heavily armed poachers who targeted wild elephants, have been caught, the second such arrest in less than two years.
(AFP, 3/13/18)
2018 Mar 15, California wildlife officials said Richard Parker (67) had shot and killed more that 130 protected birds of prey in Lassen County. Parker was reported jailed on charges of taking protected birds of prey and migratory non-game birds.
(SFC, 3/16/18, p.D3)
2018 Mar 19, In Kenya the world's last male northern white rhino died, leaving only two females of its subspecies alive in the world, although scientists still hope to save it from extinction by in vitro fertilization.
(AP, 3/20/18)
2018 Mar 20, Wildlife authorities in Zimbabwe shot dead a large crocodile that strayed into the northern town of Hwange and blocked entry to a hospital.
(AFP, 3/22/18)
2018 Mar 23, In western Australia more than 150 whales were found stranded in Hamelin Bay, and only 15 of them were still alive. The mammals are believed to be short-finned pilot whales. Volunteers managed to rescue only five of 150 short-finned pilot whales.
(AP, 3/23/18)(AP, 3/24/18)
2018 Mar 23, Meeting in Colombia the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) reported that mankind's voracious consumption of biodiversity has unleashed the first mass species die-off since the demise of the dinosaurs. Scientists issued four regional reports on how well animal and plants are doing in the Americas; Europe and Central Asia; Africa; and the Asia-Pacific area, concluding that Earth is losing plants, animals and clean water at a dramatic rate.
(AFP, 3/23/18)(AP, 3/23/18)
2018 Mar 27, Bulgarian prosecutors said they have launched an investigation into the owner of a herd of around 100 horses after they were found starving to death or already dead on snow-bound Mount Osogovo.
(Reuters, 3/27/18)
2018 Mar 31, Japanese whaling vessels returned to port after catching 333 minke whales in the Antarctic Ocean without facing protests by anti-whaling groups.
(AFP, 3/31/18)
2018 Apr 3, Britain said it will ban the sale of ivory, no matter how old, to help protect the world's elephant population.
(AP, 4/3/18)
2018 Apr 3, Indonesian police said a group of people have been arrested after a video emerged of them skinning and cooking four sun bears that they had slaughtered. The sun bear population is in decline in Indonesia because of rapid deforestation, which has led to habitat loss.
(AFP, 4/3/18)
2018 Apr 4, A Berlin court convicted two Romanian men (29) of killing an Angora goat at the Hasenheide petting zoo in February, following a trial in which the defendants testified that they had been hungry.
(AP, 4/4/18)
2018 Apr 5, In India Bollywood superstar Salman Khan was convicted of poaching rare deer in a wildlife preserve two decades ago and sentenced to five years in prison.
(AP, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 5, Kenya started marking rhinos and aimed to tag and identify 22 of them in two weeks at a cost of $600,000, as part of conserving their dwindling numbers.
(Reuters, 4/5/18)
2018 Apr 6, Spain's Civil Guard said it has brought down a criminal network making lucrative profits by smuggling glass eels to Asia, a burgeoning illicit traffic that is worrying both law enforcement agencies and scientists. Europol coordinated the operation involving Spanish and Portuguese investigators.
(AP, 4/6/18)
2018 Apr 7, In India a court in Jodhpur granted bail to Bollywood superstar Salman Khan, who will be allowed to remain free while he appeals his conviction on charges of poaching rare deer in a wildlife preserve two decades ago.
(AP, 4/7/18)
2018 Apr 10, It was reported that Mexico's vaquita marina, the world's smalest porpose, has been virtually wiped out by totoaba fishing, because it gets stuck in the same kind of net. Totoaba swim bladders sell for up to $20,000 in China, where it is reputed to rejuvenate the skin and heal a host of ailments, from arthritis pain to discomfort during pregnancy.
(AFP, 4/10/18)
2018 Apr 13, In Uganda a wildlife official said a pride of 11 lions have been killed by suspected poisoning in Queen Elizabeth National Park, one of the country's major protected areas.
(AP, 4/13/18)
2018 Apr 26, Romania's environment ministry said that the country had between 6,050 to 6,640 brown bears in 2016 and that 4,000 bears was an optimum figure from an "ecological, social and economic point of view."
(AP, 4/26/18)
2018 May 2, In Kenya three rhinos were found dead with their horns missing in Rhino Sanctuary in Meru National Park. The country's Ministry of Tourism called it an act of poaching.
(Reuters, 5/3/18)
2018 May 2, In South Africa news media reported that staff member at Marakele Predator Center in Limpopo province has shot dead the male lion named Shamba after it mauled Michael Hodge, the proprietor of the facility, a day earlier. Hodge suffered neck and jaw injuries and was being treated at a Johannesburg hospital.
(AP, 5/2/18)
2018 May 3, Six critically endangered black rhinos were en route from South Africa to Chad in a pioneering project to re-introduce the animals to a country where they were wiped out by poaching nearly 50 years ago.
(AFP, 5/3/18)
2018 May 4, In Uganda a leopard snatched and ate the three-year-old son of a female ranger working in the popular Queen Elizabeth National Park.
(AFP, 5/7/18)
2018 May 7, Indian officials said 12 children between the ages 5 and 12 have been killed in dog attacks in and around the northern town of Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh state, since November. Roaming packs of feral dogs killed six children in the area last week.
(AP, 5/7/18)
2018 May 11, It was reported that a court in Thailand has sentenced Boonchai Bach (41), believed to be a kingpin in the illicit wildlife trade, to 2 ½ years in prison for smuggling rhinoceros horns.
(AP, 5/11/18)
2018 May 19, In Washington state Sonja Brooks was killed and her friend Isaac Sederbaum seriously injured when they encountered a cougar while mountain biking near North Bend. The cougar was soon located and fatally shot. The last cougar killing of a human in the state was in 1924.
(SSFC, 5/20/18, p.A10)(SFC, 5/21/18, p.A6)
2018 May 21, Australia's New South Wales Deputy Premier John Barilaro said his state government has decided to legally protect rather than kill thousands of wild horses, known as brumbies, infuriating scientists who argue the feral species is doing severe environmental damage to the country's iconic Snowy Mountains alpine region.
(AP, 5/21/18)
2018 May 21, A letter to Indonesia's President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo was released in which International stars of acting, music and sports urged Widodo to ban what they say is a "brutal" trade in dog and cat meat for human consumption.
(AP, 5/21/18)
2018 May 28, New Zealand politicians and industry leaders announced plans to slaughter about 150,000 cows in an effort to eradicate Mycoplasma bovis, a strain of disease-causing bacteria from the national herd.
(AP, 5/28/18)
2018 May 30, Environmental campaigners said a hidden shipment of shark fins including some from endangered species had been shipped to Hong Kong via Singapore Airlines, despite a ban by the carrier.
(AFP, 5/30/18)
2018 May 30, In Kenya wildlife troopers shot dead three armed men in Mount Elgon National Park, while two other suspected poachers were injured but escaped.
(Reuters, 5/30/18)
2018 May, Interpol's Operation Thunderstorm, which followed similar stings in past years, yielded seizures worth millions of dollars, in a globe-spanning crackdown in nearly 100 countries this month on the illegal wildlife trade.
(AP, 6/20/18)
2018 Jun 1, A small pilot whale died in southern Thailand after an attempted rescue failed to nurse the mammal back to health. An autopsy revealed 80 plastic bags weighing up to eight kg (18 pounds) in the creature's stomach. It was reported that least 300 marine animals including pilot whales, sea turtles and dolphins perish each year in Thai waters after ingesting plastic.
(AFP, 6/2/18)
2018 Jun 8, In Florida Shizuka Matsuki (47) disappeared while walking her dogs and was likely killed by an alligator near a lake in Davie. The alligator was captured and a necropsy confirmed that it had bit Matsuki.
(SFC, 6/9/18, p.A6)
2018 Jun 14, In central Indonesia a 7-meter-long (23-foot-long) python swallowed Wa Tiba (54) as she checked her vegetable garden near her village on Muna island, Southeast Sulawesi province.
(AP, 6/16/18)
2018 Jun 16, It was reported that Kenya's donkey population has fallen from 1.8 million to 1.2 million as the country's three slaughterhouses butcher some 1,000 donkeys a day to supply skins to China, where donkey skins are processed to produce ejiao, a gelatin that purports to provide health benefits. The Chinese demand for donkey skins has led to donkey theft across Africa.
(SFC, 6/16/18, p.A4)
2018 Jun 19, In South Carolina Steven Verren Baker (38) of Holly Hill pleaded guilty in Charleston, again, to smuggling turtles. The latest crimes were committed while Baker was serving three years' probation after pleading guilty in 2014 to illegally trafficking turtles taken from the wild in South Carolina for sale in Florida.
(AP, 6/21/18)
2018 Jun 21, In California the Gorilla Foundation in Woodside announced that Koko (b.1971), a San Francisco-born gorilla famed for her ability to communicate in sign language, died in her sleep.
(SFC, 6/22/18, p.D1)
2018 Jun 21, In Belgium a female lion was shot and killed following several attempts to sedate it after she escaped from the Planckendael zoo in Machelen.
(SFC, 6/22/18, p.A2)
2018 Jun 21, Botswana's parliament passed a motion to review and reconsider a ban on hunting for sport, which was imposed by former president Ian Khama in 2014 after surveys showed declining wildlife populations in the north. France-sized Botswana has only has around 2.3 million people and the mostly arid country has vast tracts of remote wilderness which also make it a magnet for foreign tourists who want to view wildlife.
(Reuters, 7/15/18)
2018 Jun 21, In Sri Lanka a dozen men beat a leopard to death after it strayed into a village in Kilinochchi and attacked people. Police were deployed the next day to arrest those responsible for the killing, which was captured on mobile phones and shared on social media.
(AFP, 6/22/18)
2018 Jun 24, Sri Lankan police arrested two men accused of beating a leopard to death in an attack caught on video and widely condemned by wildlife activists.
(AP, 6/24/18)
2018 Jul 13, Kenya's government said eight critically endangered black rhinos died after being moved to a new reserve in southern Kenya, doubling the number of deaths from similar operations in the previous dozen years. Kenya's Tourism and Wildlife Minister Najib Balala ordered the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) to immediately suspend the ongoing translocation of black rhinos.
(AFP, 7/13/18)
2018 Jul 14, In Indonesia a mob illegally slaughtered 292 crocodiles at a breeding ground in West Papua province in retaliation for the death of a local man.
(AP, 7/16/18)
2018 Jul 14, In northern Spain the final bull run of the San Fermin festival in Pamplona left six people injured in the fastest dash this year.
(AP, 7/14/18)
2018 Jul 18, Hundreds of farmers from around Bulgaria rallied in the capital Sofia against the government-ordered mass slaughter of livestock following the first outbreak in the EU of the highly contagious Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR).
(Reuters, 7/18/18)
2018 Jul 21, Macau authorities took in 533 greyhounds abandoned following the closure today of Asia's only legal dog-racing track.
(AP, 7/21/18)
2018 Jul 23, Diamond producer De Beers said it was relocating 200 elephants from its private reserve in South Africa to neighboring Mozambique, part of wider efforts to restore wildlife populations ravaged by conflict there.
(Reuters, 7/23/18)
2018 Jul 24, In Mexico the remains of endangered sea turtles began turning up at a wildlife sanctuary on the Pacific coast of Chiapas state. By August 13 some 113 turtles were found dead at the Playas de Puerto Arista Sanctuary.
(SFC, 8/20/18, p.A2)
2018 Jul 26, Kenyan wildlife authorities said a tenth critically endangered black rhino has died after being moved from the capital to a new wildlife park and the sole survivor has been attacked by lions in what some conservationists have called a national disaster.
(AP, 7/26/18)
2018 Jul 27, The International Fund for Animal Welfare said the controversial hunt for minke whales in Iceland has come to end after declining profits led to the local industry closing.
(AFP, 7/27/18)
2018 Jul 27, An official of Macau's Yat Yuen, the company that ran the only dog-racing track in the world's largest gambling hub until last week, joined hands with animal rights group Anima to announce plans for a center to rehouse more than 500 greyhounds.
(Reuters, 7/27/18)
2018 Jul 28, Norwegian authorities said a polar bear has attacked and injured a man leading tourists off a cruise ship on the most northern island of Svalbard. The man was taken by helicopter to Spitsbergen island and the bear was shot dead.
(AP, 7/28/18)
2018 Jul 30, In Kenya poachers killed a 12-year-old black rhino in Lake Nakuru national park days after the authorities announced that ten of the critically endangered animals had died in a bungled relocation.
(Reuters, 7/31/18)
2018 Jul, The US federal Bureau of land management began rounding up wild horses in Nevada and Utah as drought threatened their livelihood. Volunteers in Arizona and Colorado were said to be hauling food and water to dried up grazing grounds. The region was home to some 67,000 wild horses.
(SFC, 7/24/18, p.A10)
2018 Aug 2, One of Iceland's top whaling companies said it has stopped hunting minke whales this year, in response to a new government regulation that enlarged the protected area for baleen whales.
(AP, 8/2/18)
2018 Aug 3, A new study published in Nature said tegu lizards from South America, that can grow up to four feet long (1.2 meters), have established a home in the Florida wild after being brought to the United States as pets, and that the reptiles could begin a voracious march across the US South.
(Reuters, 8/3/18)
2018 Aug 3, Egyptian media reported that human remains were found on a beach in Marsa Alam. A Czech tourist was killed by a shark while swimming in the Red Sea.
(AFP, 8/5/18)
2018 Aug 3, Latvia's government voted to fund the disposal of pig carcasses after a pork producer decided to exterminate all of its livestock when the animals contracted African swine fever. 15,570 pigs were to be killed via lethal gassing.
(AFP, 8/3/18)
2018 Aug 6, Romanian authorities reported more than 500 separate outbreaks of African swine fever in pigs, mainly in the Danube Delta and near the Hungarian border. 48,000 pigs had been culled since June after they came down with the disease.
(AP, 8/6/18)
2018 Aug 8, Kenya's national wildlife service said authorities have arrested a suspected poacher linked to the killing of a 12-year-old black rhino last month in Lake Nakuru national park.
(Reuters, 8/8/18)
2018 Aug 11, In Kenya a Chinese tourist died after he was attacked by a hippo as he was taking pictures on the shores of Lake Naivasha in the Rift Valley.
(AP, 8/12/18)
2018 Aug 12, It was reported that a French theme park has trained six rooks to pick up cigarette butts and other rubbish dropped by visitors in return for food.
(Reuters, 8/12/18)
2018 Aug 15, Denmark's Environmental Protection Agency said it had approved the outline for a steel fence along the German border, which will be up to 1.5 meters (5 feet) tall, to keep out wild boars, in the hope of preventing the spread of African swine fever, which can jeopardize the country's valuable pork industry. Pigs outnumber people in Denmark, with 215 pigs to every 100 residents.
(AP, 8/15/18)
2018 Aug 21, Romanian hunting officials shot dead a brown bear after it rampaged through an empty high school and scared residents in Miercurea Ciuc. There are believed to be more than 6,000 brown bears in Romania.
(AP, 8/21/18)
2018 Aug 23, Europol, the European law enforcement agency, said police in Mallorca have seized around 1,100 turtles and 750 eggs, including specimens of 14 of the 50 most endangered species in the world. Europol also said Spanish police have shut down what they believe to be Europe's biggest illegal turtle farm, selling endangered species worth 10,000 euros ($11,500) each.
(AP, 8/23/18)
2018 Aug 25, In South Africa two lion cubs, a male and female, were born by means of artificial insemination -- the first such pair anywhere in the world.
(AFP, 9/30/18)
2018 Aug 30, A US federal judge temporarily blocked the opening of grizzly bear hunting two days before Idaho and Wyoming prepared to open the first grizzly bear hunting season in the lower 48 states since 1974.
(SFC, 8/31/18, p.A9)
2018 Sep 2, China's agriculture ministry said more than 38,000 hogs have been culled as of Sept. 1 due to African swine fever outbreaks.
(Reuters, 9/2/18)
2018 Sep 3, Zimbabwe's wildlife authority said it is donating 10 white rhinos to Democratic Republic of Congo to re-establish a population driven to extinction by poachers a decade ago.
(Reuters, 9/3/18)
2018 Sep 4, Elephants Without Borders said ninety elephant carcasses have been discovered in Botswana with their tusks hacked off, in what is believed to be one of Africa's worst mass poaching sprees.
(AFP, 9/4/18)
2018 Sep 10, A wildlife monitoring group says research it has conducted since 2016 has found a sharp increase in the number of people belonging to Facebook groups in Thailand where endangered animals are bought and sold.
(AP, 9/10/18)
2018 Sep 11, Hanoi Vice Mayor Nguyen Van Suu said in a message published on the city's website that slaughtering and consuming dog and cat meat are disturbing to foreigners and "negatively impact the image of a civilized and modern capital." Officials say there are 493,000 dogs and cats in Hanoi, of which more than 10 percent are raised for commercial purposes.
(AP, 9/11/18)
2018 Sep 12, In Brazil countries on both sides of the whaling divide voted to renew quotas for limited whale hunts for indigenous communities in Alaska, Russia, Greenland and the Caribbean -- taking into account their cultural and subsistence needs.
(AFP, 9/13/18)
2018 Sep 13, In Brazil the International Whaling Commission (IWC) voted to back a proposal which would safeguard whales in perpetuity, after a bitter debate. The biennial meeting of the 89-nation body passed the host country's "Florianopolis Declaration" which sees whaling as no longer being a necessary economic activity.
(AFP, 9/13/18)
2018 Sep 14, In Wyoming hunting guide Mark Uptain (37) and client Corey Chubon were attacked by a bear. Chubom escaped with injuries. Uptain's body was found the next day.
(SFC, 9/17/18, p.A4)
2018 Sep 14, Japan's determined bid to return to commercial whale hunting was blocked by anti-whaling nations in a tense vote at the International Whaling Commission meeting in Brazil.
(AFP, 9/14/18)
2018 Sep 18, It was reported that millions of animals trapped inside of North Carolina’s factory farm operations died from drowning during Hurricane Florence.
(http://tinyurl.com/y8ekdjej)
2018 Sep 20, Botswana rejected claims of a surge of elephant poaching made by a leading conservation charity and put on display carcasses of animals allegedly slaughtered for ivory -- some with tusks still intact.
(AFP, 9/20/18)
2018 Sep 20, In France dozens of farmers and lawmakers stormed out of a meeting with the new environment minister after he confirmed that two more bears would soon be released into the Pyrenees mountains. Some 40 brown bears currently roam the range between France and Spain after France began importing them from Slovenia in 1996 after the native population had been hunted to near-extinction.
(AFP, 9/20/18)
2018 Sep 22, Hundreds of marchers demanded better protection for British wildlife at the People's Walk for Wildlife in Hyde Park.
(AP, 9/23/18)
2018 Sep 23, In Australia a Fisheries Queensland spokesman said four large sharks have been killed after a woman and a 12-year-old girl were attacked in separate incidents just a day apart last week at the Whitsunday Islands of the Great Barrier Reef.
(AFP, 9/23/18)
2018 Sep 24, In Montana a US judge in Billings restored protections to grizzly bears in the Northern Rocky Mountains and blocked the first hunts in the lower 48 states planned in almost three decades.
(SFC, 9/25/18, p.A6)
2018 Sep 25, A beluga whale was spotted in the River Thames estuary outside London, far from its natural Arctic habitat.
(AFP, 9/26/18)
2018 Sep 26, A critically endangered Sumatran tiger pregnant with two cubs was found dead in the Indonesian province of Riau after being caught in a pig trap. The tigers are estimated to have dwindled to about 400.
(AP, 9/27/18)
2018 Sep 26, In Zimbabwe an elephant trampled a German tourist (49) while she was trying to take photos of it in Mana Pools National Park.
(AP, 9/27/18)
2018 Sep 28, In Vietnam authorities at Hanoi's airport found 805 kg of pangolin scales as well as 193 kg of ivory and ivory-derived products in two dozen boxes.
(AFP, 9/30/18)
2018 Oct 4, French authorities helicoptered a Slovenian she-bear into the Pyrenees mountains, despite an all-night protest by furious local farmers who fear she will eat their sheep.
(AFP, 10/4/18)
2018 Oct 4, Authorities in Myanmar destroyed an estimated $1.3 million worth of confiscated ivory and other parts of endangered animals, days after a conservation group charged that the country's ivory exports to China are increasing.
(AP, 10/4/18)
2018 Oct 4, Vietnam seized eight tons of pangolin scales and elephant ivory shipped from Nigeria, the second such haul in a week.
(AFP, 10/5/18)
2018 Oct 7, Around a thousand dogs and their owners marched on Britain's parliament demanding an end to Brexit via a second vote on the terms of the country's exit from the European Union.
(Reuters, 10/7/18)
2018 Oct 8, In Japan zookeeper Akira Furusho died after he was found bleeding from his neck and lying on the floor inside a tiger cage at Hirakawa Zoological Park in Kagoshima following an apparent attack by a white tiger.
(AP, 10/9/18)
2018 Oct 12, It was reported that animal-rights in Nepal campaigned to reduce animal slaughter as the 15-day Dasain festival began this week. Traditionally tens of thousands of goats, buffaloes, chickens and ducks are sacrificed to please the gods and goddesses as part of a practice that dates back centuries.
(AP, 10/12/18)
2018 Oct 15, It was reported that Idaho Fish and Game Commissioner Blake Fisher and his wife were being criticized after having shot at least 14 animals while hunting in Namibia. One photo showed showed him smiling with four dead baboons propped in front of him. Idaho Gov. C.L. Otter asked for and accepted Fischer's resignation.
(SFC, 10/15/18, p.A6)(SFC, 10/17/18, p.A6)
2018 Oct 17, It was reported that six to ten sea lions suffering from leptospirosis were being received on a daily basis at the Marine Mammal Center in the Marin Headlands. Veterinarians have treated 220 sea lions so far this year.
(SFC, 10/17/18, p.A1)
2018 Oct 21, Officials from Chad and South Africa said two of six critically endangered black rhinos have died of unknown causes five months after being flown from South Africa to Chad in a pioneering project to re-introduce the animals. The carcasses of the cow and bull were discovered on October 15.
(AFP, 10/21/18)
2018 Oct 27, In eastern India seven elephants in search of food were electrocuted after coming in contact with loosely hanging electric wires in Orissa state.
(AP, 10/27/18)
2018 Oct 29, China's State Council unexpectedly announced that it would allow the sale of rhino and tiger products under "special circumstances". China prohibited the trade of rhino horn and tiger bones in 1993 but a thriving transnational black market has since flourished.
(AFP, 10/30/18)
2018 Oct 30, China defended its controversial decision to ease a 25-year ban on trading tiger bones and rhinoceros horns after conservationists warned that the government had effectively signed a "death warrant" for the endangered species.
(AFP, 10/30/18)
2018 Nov 2, In India a man-eating tiger that stalked the hills of Maharashtra state was killed after an attempt to tranquilize her failed. She was suspected of killing at least 13 villagers.
(SSFC, 11/4/18, p.A6)
2018 Nov 4, It was reported that the world's wild animal population has lunged 60 percent since 1970 because of pressure from human activities.
(SSFC, 11/4/18, p.B12)
2018 Nov 4, In India villagers circled around the female tiger after it killed the farmer late today in Uttar Pradesh state. When the tiger tried to escape, the villagers crushed it under the wheels of a tractor. Villagers said the tiger injured another person in an attack about 10 days ago.
(AP, 11/5/18)
2018 Nov 5, In Australia a shark killed Daniel Christidis (33) near Cid Harbor on Whitsunday Island on the Great Barrier Reef where two tourists were mauled on consecutive days in September.
(AP, 11/6/18)
2018 Nov 9, Dorothy L. Cheney (68), American primate scientist, died at her home in Pennsylvania. She and her husband, Robert M. Seyfarth, authored "How Monkeys See the World: Inside the Mind of Another Species" (1990) and "Baboon Metaphysics: The Evolution of a Social Mind" (2007).
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Cheney_(scientist))(SFC, 11/16/18, p.C4)
2018 Nov 11, It was reported that a Florida trapper has captured a record-setting 17-foot, 5-inch female Burmese python in Miami-Dade County last week. Python hunters have now eliminated 1,859 of the snakes from the Everglades.
(SSFC, 11/11/18, p.A8)
2018 Nov 12, China said it is postponing a decision to allow trading in tiger and rhinoceros parts a bare two weeks after the easing of the ban had raised fears the country was giving legal cover to poaching and smuggling of endangered wildlife.
(AP, 11/13/18)
2018 Nov 16, An Indonesian conservation official said a Sumatran elephant was found dead earlier this week in Aceh province with its tusks removed in an apparent poaching case targeting the critically endangered animal.
(AP, 11/17/18)
2018 Nov 17, An Australia man went into cardiac arrest at Lauderdale Beach, east of Hobart in Tasmania, after he suffered a stingray puncture wound to his lower abdomen.
(AP, 11/18/18)
2018 Nov 19, In Indonesia the rotting carcass of a 31-foot sperm whale in Southeast
Sulawesi province. Researchers found 13 pounds of plastic inside the animal's stomach. A study plublished last January said Indonesia produces 3.2 million tons of mismanaged plastic waste a year, of which 1.29 million tons end up in the ocean.
(SFC, 11/21/18, p.A5)
2018 Nov 25, It was reported that six sea lions have died from gunshot wounds in central Puget Sound and Washington state's Kitsap county since September. Another seven were suspected to have died from acute trauma caused by humans.
(SSFC, 11/25/18, p.A13)
2018 Nov 28, In Canada the Yukon Coroner's Service said a grizzly bear killed a woman and her 10-month-old baby. The bear was killed by the woman's husband.
(SFC, 11/29/18, p.A2)
2018 Nov 28, In northeastern Thailand a man was killed by a wild elephant after his speeding car hit the animal near Khao Yai National Park.
(AP, 11/29/18)
2018 Nov 29, Up to 90 pilot whales beached themselves at Hanson Bay on the Chatham Islands of New Zealand. 51 died by the next day, less than a week after 145 pilot whales and nine pigmy whales perished in two other strandings.
(SFC, 12/1/18, p.A2)
2018 Dec 5, It was reported that Pinna nobilis, a giant species of clam only found in the Mediterranean Sea, was in danger of extinction due to a mysterious parasite. The mollusk has been the EU's list of protected species for decades.
(SFC, 12/5/18, p.A2)
2018 Dec 6, A Dutch court gave the go-ahead for a cull of hundreds of red deer in a nature reserve north of Amsterdam, in a wildlife management case that has sparked fierce opposition from animal rights activists.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 7, ABC News reported that a 28-year-old Australian man will spend five months in prison for brutally killing a kangaroo in an attack filmed and posted on social media. Ricky Ian Swan was one of four men charged in September with using weapons to torture and kill two kangaroos.
(Reuters, 12/8/18)
2018 Dec 13, Cambodian authorities seized more than 3 tons of rare African ivory hidden inside an abandoned shipping container, the country's largest haul of elephant tusks in the last four years. The ivory was sent from Mozambique.
(AP, 12/15/18)
2018 Dec 15, A fire at the Chester Zoo in northwest England killed insects, frogs, fish and small birds in an enclosure devoted to exotic tropical habitats.
(AP, 12/16/18)
2018 Dec 16, In Spain dozens of animal rights activists stripped naked and covered themselves in fake blood in Barcelona in a protest against the use of fur and leather.
(Reuters, 12/16/18)
2018 Dec 24, It was reported that Britain has banned third-party sales of puppies and kittens to protect the animals from exploitation.
(AP, 12/24/18)
2018 Dec 26, Japan announced that it is leaving the International Whaling Commission to resume commercial hunts for the animals for the first time in 30 years, but said it would no longer go to the Antarctic for its much-criticized annual killings.
(AP, 12/26/18)
2018 Dec 30, In North Carolina a lion killed Alexandra Black (22) after it got loose from a locked space at a wildlife conservatory in Burlington. The lion was killed after attempts to tranquilize it failed.
(SFC, 12/31/18, p.A5)
2018 The grey wolf was voted Estonia's national animal by nature organizations.
(AP, 2/24/19)
2019 Jan 9, Thousands of Poles protested a government plan to hold a massive slaughter of wild boars as a way to stop the spread of the deadly African swine fever among farm pigs.
(AP, 1/9/19)
2019 Jan 16, Hong Kong customs officers and mainland officials seized 8,300 kilos of pangolin scales and 2,100 kilos of ivory tusks hidden inside a container -- declared to be carrying frozen beef -- at a customs facility. A man and a woman from a trading company in the city were soon arrested.
{China, Hong Kong}
(AFP, 2/1/19)
2019 Jan 28, Denmark began erecting a 70-km (43.4-mile) fence along the German border to keep out wild boars in an attempt to prevent the spread of African swine fever, which could jeopardize the country's valuable pork industry.
(AP, 1/28/19)
2019 Jan 28, In western Germany three Polish men were killed when their car collided with a truck transporting pigs.
(AP, 1/28/19)
2019 Jan 31, Poland's top state veterinary official said about 2,500 kg (5,500 pounds) of meat from sick cows who were slaughtered illegally in Poland has been exported to 10 other European Union countries. The Polish veterinary inspectorate stripped the slaughterhouse in Ostrow Mazowiecka of permission to operate earlier this week.
(AP, 1/31/19)
2019 Jan 31, Uganda's revenue agency said authorities have seized 750 pieces of ivory and thousands of pangolin scales being smuggled from neighboring South Sudan, in one of the largest seizures of wildlife contraband in the East African country. Two Vietnamese nationals were in custody over the contraband.
(AP, 1/31/19)
2019 Feb 1, In San Francisco federal Judge Richard Seeborg ruled that Ndume, the Gorilla Foundation's companion gorilla to the late Koko, must go back to the Cincinnati Zoo in accordance with a 2015 agreement. Ndume returned to Cincinnati on June 14.
(SFC, 2/4/19, p.C3)(SFC, 6/15/19, p.C1)
2019 Feb 1, It was reported that a special airlift for thousands of baby flamingos is under way in South Africa as drought has put their breeding ground in peril.
(AP, 2/1/19)
2019 Feb 3, It was reported that Britain's brown hares are dying from a pathogen found to be the deadly rabbit hemorrhagic disease Type 2. Numbers of the animals have plummeted by about 80 percent in recent decades due to intensive agriculture that has destroyed their habitats and food supplies.
(SSFC, 2/3/19, p.A20)
2019 Feb 5, It was reported that activists in Russia are expressing alarm about more than 100 whales that are being kept in small, crowded pools in what environmentalists are calling a "whale prison," off the coast of the Russian Far East.
(AP, 2/5/19)
2019 Feb 12, A wildlife monitoring group said Malaysian authorities have seized a record 30 tons of pangolin and pangolin products in eastern Sabah state on Borneo, the biggest such bust in the country.
(AP, 2/12/19)
2019 Feb 12, Spanish police said they had seized more than 200 stuffed endangered animals, including giraffes, rhinos, lions and tigers, from an illegal taxidermy workshop that was selling them online.
(AFP, 2/12/19)
2019 Feb 16, World Pangolin Day was marked around the globe. Conservationists say well over 1 million pangolins have been poached since around 2000.
(AP, 2/16/19)
2019 Feb 19, A Tanzanian court sentenced Yang Feng Glan (69) of China to 15 years in jail for her role in trafficking tusks from more than 400 elephants. Two Tanzanian men were also found guilty for their role in the illegal commerce. They were also sentenced to 15 years each.
(AFP, 2/19/19)(Reuters, 2/19/19)
2019 Mar 3, Philippine authorities found 1,529 live exotic turtles stuffed inside luggage at Manila's airport. The various types of turtles were found inside four pieces of left-behind luggage of a Filipino passenger arriving at Ninoy Aquino International Airport on a Philippine Airlines flight from Hong Kong.
(AP, 3/4/19)
2019 Mar 4, In Indonesia a court ruled that construction of a Chinese-backed dam, that will cut through the habitat of a the most critically endangered orangutan species, can continue.
(SFC, 3/5/19, p.A2)
2019 Mar 18, An Indonesian official and veterinarian said that an endangered orangutan with a young baby on Sumatra island was blinded after being shot at least 74 times with an air gun last week. The baby died from malnutrition as rescuers rushed the two animals to an orangutan veterinary clinic.
(AP, 3/18/19)
2019 Mar 22, In Fresno, Ca., a one-year-old boy was fatally mauled by two roaming rottweiler dogs in the front yard of his home.
(SSFC, 3/24/19, p.A10)
2019 Mar 22, Indonesian authorities detained a Russian man at Ngurah Rai airport in Bali as he was caught trying to smuggle a young orangutan in a suitcase. Zhestkov Andrei also had two live geckos and five lizards in his luggage and was scheduled to fly to Russia.
(Reuters, 3/23/19)(AFP, 3/23/19)
2019 Mar 30, China's Customs Administration confiscated nearly 7.5 tons (6,803 kg) of ivory. Since the start of the year, customs officers have seized a total of 8.5 tons (7,711 kg) of ivory products through 53 investigations.
(AP, 4/15/19)
2019 Apr 1, The World Wildlife Foundation sounded the alarm over plastics in the Mediterranean Sea after an 8-meter (over 26-foot) sperm whale was found dead off Sardinia with 22 kg (48.5 pounds) of plastic in its belly.
(AP, 4/1/19)
2019 Apr 5, Jean-Michel Cousteau of the Ocean Futures Society arrived in Russia's Far East on a mission to inspect 97 belugas and orcas and help create conditions for them to be released. Environmentalists said four animals likely died because of cramped conditions and low temperatures.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 7, In Cuba more than 400 animal-lovers peacefully marched more than a mile through Havana, shouting slogans and waving signs calling for an end to animal cruelty in their country.
(AP, 4/7/19)
2019 Apr 7, Dozens of neglected animals were evacuated from a ramshackle Gaza zoo in the fourth and largest such rescue mission in the blockaded Palestinian enclave. Vets and volunteers from Four Paws International transported some 40 animals into Israel from the neglected zoo in the southern town of Rafah.
(AP, 4/7/19)
2019 Apr 8, Australian police arrested 38 animal rights activists after they blocked peak hour traffic in Melbourne in protests to mark the first anniversary of a film, Dominion, about factory farming.
(Reuters, 4/8/19)
2019 Apr 8, A Greek marine conservation group said the Aegean Sea has seen a "very unusual" spike in dolphin deaths over the past few weeks, adding that the rise could be linked to massive Turkish naval exercises in the area.
(AP, 4/8/19)
2019 Apr 8, Russian officials said they will work towards freeing all orca and beluga whales from a notorious facility in the east of the country, after a visit by US-based marine mammal advocates.
(AFP, 4/8/19)
2019 Apr 11, Police in North Macedonia said they have detained five men, including two Chinese citizens and a customs official, on suspicion of smuggling a critically endangered species of eel.
(AP, 4/11/19)
2019 Apr 13, In southern China the only known female member of one of the world's rarest turtle species died at a zoo in Suzhou city. The animal was one of four Yangtze giant softshell turtles known to be remaining in the world.
(AP, 4/14/19)
2019 Apr 13, South African police intercepted 167 rhino horns believed to be destined for Southeast Asia, in one of the biggest such hauls ever in the country. Two suspects, aged 57 and 61, were arrested.
(Reuters, 4/15/19)
2019 Apr 15, In Malaysia two Vietnamese men, aged 25 and 29, were arrested by a wildlife enforcement team in a national park in eastern Terengganu state. Authorities seized body parts from tigers and bears from the suspected poachers.
(AFP, 4/16/19)
2019 Apr 23, In Boston Derrick Semedo (26) of New Hampshire pleaded guilty to smuggling rare lizards from the Philippines to the US in 2016 by hiding them in socks and placing them inside electronic equipment.
(AP, 4/24/19)
2019 Apr 30, Malaysia destroyed nearly four tons of elephant tusks and ivory products estimated to be worth 13.26 million ringgit ($3.2 million) as part of its fight against the illegal ivory trade. The ivory was confiscated in 15 raids between 2011 and 2017.
(AP, 4/30/19)
2019 May 3, In Spain the town council of Barcelona voted to modify its zoo's bylaws to include a rule by which any of its breeding programs will be stopped unless there is a plan to eventually release the offspring into nature. The goal is to convert the zoo, which was built inside a park in the city center in 1892, into a center focused on education and research, and a refuge for animals that can no longer survive in liberty.
(AP, 5/23/19)
2019 May 11, Animal rights groups cheered the release of 37 spotted seal pups rescued from traffickers into the wild in northern China in a small victory for efforts to save the country's endangered species.
(AP, 5/11/19)
2019 May 16, Animal activists urged Kenya to ban the slaughter of donkeys for use in Chinese medicine, a practice which has soared in recent years and decimated African populations of the animal.
(AFP, 5/16/19)
2019 May 22, Botswana announced on it would overturn the hunting ban introduced in 2014 to reverse a decline in the population of elephants and other wildlife. Lawmakers from the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) have been lobbying to overturn the ban, saying wild animal numbers have become unmanageable in some areas.
(AFP, 5/23/19)
2019 May 27, Malaysia's last surviving male Sumatran rhino died, leaving behind only one female in the country and pushing the critically-endangered species closer to extinction.
(AFP, 5/27/19)
2019 May 29, In Bangladesh four people accused of poaching threatened Bengal tigers were shot dead by police during a gunfight in a mangrove forest.
(AFP, 5/29/19)
2019 May, European scientists successfully transferred a test tube rhino embryo back into a southern white female rhino whose eggs were fertilized in vitro at the Cherzow Zoo in Poland.
(SFC, 6/26/19, p.A2)
2019 Jun 11, Thai construction tycoon Premchai Karnasuta was sentenced to an additional one year in prison for bribing a park ranger in relation to a high-profile case of poaching endangered animals in a wildlife sanctuary last year.
(AP, 6/11/19)
2019 Jun 12, Authorities in Vietnam seized 3.5 tons of elephant ivory and 4 tons of pangolin scales in one of the country's biggest wildlife trafficking cases.
(AP, 6/14/19)(SFC, 6/18/19, p.A2)
2019 Jun 13, Germany's top administrative court ruled that the slaughtering of male chicks may continue in the poultry industry until a method is found to determine the sex of an embryo in the egg.
(AFP, 6/13/19)
2019 Jun 12, Authorities in Vietnam seized 7.5 tons of elephant ivory and pangolin scales in one of the country's biggest wildlife trafficking cases.
(AP, 6/14/19)
2019 Jun 17, New Jersey sentenced William "Billy" Gangemi to two years' probation for his role in a conspiracy to smuggle wildlife in the scheme that involved hiding rare turtles in candy wrappers or socks and shipping them overseas. South Carolina ringleader Steven Verren Baker, Matt Kail and Joseph Logan Brooks previously were each sentenced to prison in the scheme.
(AP, 6/18/19)
2019 Jun 20, Malaysia authorities arrested four Indians and seized more than 14 kg of drugs and 5,255 turtles from their luggage at the Kuala Lumpur airport. The red-ear slider baby turtles were kept in small baskets from the luggage of two Indian nationals who flew in from Guangzhou, China.
(AP, 6/26/19)
2019 Jun 20, State TV said Russia has started releasing a group of captive killer whales whose detention in Russia's Far East has caused an international outcry. Russian Deputy PM Alexei Gordeyev said the whales would be taken back to where they were caught and released within four months.
(Reuters, 6/20/19)
2019 Jun 26, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation allowing the state to immediately shut down horse races for safety reasons. This was in response to the deaths of 30 horses in the last racing season at Santa Anita park near Los Angeles.
(SFC, 6/27/19, p.C6)
2019 Jun 27, Russia said six beluga and two killer whales, captured to perform in aquariums and held in cramped pens, have been released into the wild.
(AFP, 6/27/19)
2019 Jul 1, Japanese whalers returned to port with their first catch after resuming commercial whaling for the first time in 31 years, achieving the long-cherished goal of traditionalists that is seen as largely a lost cause amid slowing demand for the meat. This was the first commercial hunt since 1988.
(Reuters, 7/1/19)
2019 Jul 7, It was reported that bats in northern California have begun dying from white-nose syndrome, a mysterious fungus that has killed millions of bats in the eastern United States. The first case in the state was detected a year ago and officials said the disease, caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans, was poised to spread across the state.
(SSFC, 7/7/19, p.C10)
2019 Jul 11, In Russia three orcas were loaded onto trucks at a controversial facility near the far eastern port town of Nakhodka, as the country continues to release animals from what the media have dubbed a "whale jail".
(AFP, 7/11/19)
2019 Jul 28, Vietnam said it has seized more than 125 kg (275 lb) of rhino horns hidden in plaster blocks and shipped from United Arab Emirates. Separately, police in Vietnam earlier this week arrested three men for transporting seven frozen tiger carcasses from Laos to Hanoi.
(Reuters, 7/28/19)
2019 Aug 12, Singapore said it will ban the domestic trade in ivory from September 2021. The international trade in ivory has been banned since 1990 under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
(Reuters, 8/12/19)
2019 Aug 16, In rural Washington state the last four members of a wolf pack that preyed on cattle in an area bordering Canada were killed by state hunters in helicopters, prompting protests from environmental groups.
(AP, 8/19/19)
2019 Aug 17, In Switzerland the World Wildlife Conference on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) opened in Geneva.
{Switzerland, Animal}
(SFC, 8/18/19, p.A6)
2019 Aug 17, In Thailand an orphaned baby dugong rescued earlier this year died due to pieces of plastic clogging her digestive system.
(Reuters, 8/17/19)
2019 Aug 19, In Michigan three dogs killed 9-year-old Detroit girl Emma Hernandez as she rode a bike. One dog was shot and killed and the others were captured. The owner of the pit bulls or pit-bull mixes was taken into custody.
(AP, 8/20/19)
2019 Aug 20, Elanco Animal Health Inc said it would buy Bayer AG's animal health unit in a cash and stock deal valued at $7.6 billion, a move that would create the second largest animal health business and expand Elanco's reach in the pet e-commerce space.
(Reuters, 8/20/19)
2019 Aug 22, In Switzerland countries voted overwhelmingly to regulate international trade in giraffes, an endangered species, and in their body parts, overcoming objections by southern African states and drawing praise from conservationists. The provisional decision, taken in a key committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), was expected to be endorsed at a plenary next week.
(Reuters, 8/22/19)
2019 Aug 24, US federal officials said more than 40 wild burros have been found shot and killed along I-5 near the California-Nevada line.
(SSFC, 8/25/19, p.A12)
2019 Aug 25, In Switzerland countries at a CITES meeting on the global wildlife trade agreed to strengthen protections for 18 threatened species of sharks and rays, including those whose fins are prized for making Chinese soups.
(Reuters, 8/25/19)
2019 Aug 31, Tennessee woman Adrieanna O'Shea (19) died 10 days after she was mauled by a pack of dogs. Deputies shot one of the dogs. The others were euthanized.
(AP, 9/4/19)
2019 Sep 1, Minnesota woman Catherine Sweatt-Mueller (62) was killed by a black bear on Red Pine Island in Rainy Lake, which straddles the US-Canada border. The bear was shot and killed.
(http://tinyurl.com/y4zhumrf)(SFC, 9/6/19, p.A2)
2019 Sep 2, It was reported that Denmark is spending 11 million kroner ($1.6 million) to buy the country's last four circus elephants to give them a proper retirement as the government moves to ban wild animals in circuses.
(AP, 9/2/19)
2019 Sep 5, US wildlife officials rejected petitions to protect Yellowstone National Park's storied bison herds but pledged to consider more help for two other species — a tiny, endangered squirrel in Arizona and bees that pollinate rare desert flowers in Nevada.
(AP, 9/5/19)
2019 Sep 6, Conservationists hoped the arrival of the environmentally-conscious Pope Francis will spotlight Madagascar's loss of 2% of primary rainforest last year, the highest of any tropical nation according to the World Resources Institute. Slash-and-burn farmers were driving humanity's smallest relative - the Madame Berthe’s mouse lemur - to extinction.
(Reuters, 9/6/19)
2019 Sep 7, Norwegian officials said they haven't been able to detect the cause behind an unexplained disease that is estimated to have killed dozens of dogs in the country in recent days.
(AP, 9/7/19)
2019 Sep 9, Authorities in southern Texas discovered about 270 animals, about two dozen of them dead, on property in the small community of Los Fresnos, north of Brownsville, after receiving complaints from neighbors about barking dogs. Tiffany Woodington (49) was later charged in Missouri with 10 counts of felony animal abuse and two misdemeanor counts of animal abuse. Her husband, Steven Woodington (55) was charged in Texas with animal cruelty. The couple operated All Accounted For, which brought rescued animals from Texas to Missouri.
(AP, 9/24/19)
2019 Sep 11, In Italy an international consortium of scientists and conservationists announced that they have succeeded in creating two embryos of the near-extinct northern white rhino, a milestone in assisted reproduction that may be a pivotal turning point in the fate of the species.
(AP, 9/11/19)
2019 Sep 12, Belgian and French researchers said they have detected high accumulations of industrial fluids and mercury in the blubber and skin of the rare bottlenose dolphins off the northwest coast of France.
(AP, 9/12/19)
2019 Sep 28, Jordan Gerbich shot an elephant seal in the head near the Piedras Blancas State Marine Reserve in San Simeon. In 2021 Gerbich (30) was sentenced to three months in prison. He will then serve three months in home detention and have to perform 120 hours of community service alongside paying a $1,000 fine.
(The Independent, 4/14/21)
2019 Oct 4, Local reports said Peruvian authorities, in an operation at the port of Callao, have seized some 12.3 million seahorses that were illegally fished and allegedly destined to be sold abroad.
(http://tinyurl.com/y6t96nq2)(SSFC, 10/6/19, p.A4)
2019 Oct 6, It was reported that Nevada Officials are testing dead animals and monitoring migratory elk and deer at the state line with Utah for signs of chronic wasting disease, a highly contagious and terminal disorder that causes symptoms such as lack of fear of humans, lethargy and emaciation.
(AP, 10/6/19)
2019 Oct 8, The US federal government said it will remove the Kirtland's warbler from its list of protected species, finding the small, yellow-bellied songbird had recovered more than half a century after being designated as endangered. The latest census put them at about 2,300 pairs.
(AP, 10/8/19)
2019 Oct 10, The US National Audubon Society said two-thirds of bird species in North America, already disappearing at an alarming rate, face extinction unless immediate action is taken to slow the rate of climate change.
(Reuters, 10/11/19)
2019 Oct 12, California Gov. Gavin Newson signed AB44, outlawing the sale and manufacture of new fur clothing and accessories effective Jan. 1, 2023. Newsome also signed SB313, which prohibits the use of wild animals in a circus.
(SSFC, 10/13/19, p.A6)
2019 Oct 13, The Indianapolis Zoo said it plans to open an international center devoted to saving threatened species, an effort that zoo officials call a natural extension of their biennial Indianapolis Prize honoring animal conservation leaders.
(AP, 10/13/19)
2019 Oct 14, It was reported that South Korea is deploying snipers to the Demilitarized Zone with orders to shoot any wild boar that are seen in the buffer zone with North Korea before they can bring more cases of African swine fever into the South.
(The Telegraph, 10/14/19)
2019 Oct 16, A Paris zoo showcased a mysterious new organism, dubbed the "blob", a yellowish unicellular small living being which looks like a fungus but acts like an animal. The blob has almost 720 sexes, can move without legs or wings and heals itself in two minutes if cut in half.
(Reuters, 10/16/19)
2019 Oct 21, Zimbabwe authorities said at least 55 elephants have starved to death in the past two months in the country's biggest national park as a serious drought forces animals to stray into nearby communities in search of food and water.
(AP, 10/21/19)
2019 Oct 25, Humane Society International said Zimbabwe has sent about 30 young elephants to China this week, where they will be held in zoos. Authorities said at least 55 elephants have starved to death in the past two months in Hwange National Park as drought dries up water sources and overcrowding results in massive loss of habitat. The park has a carrying capacity of 15,000 elephants but is home to more than 50,000.
(AP, 10/25/19)
2019 Oct 30, In Indiana emergency workers were called to the home in Battle Ground and found 36-year-old Laura Hurst dead with an 8-foot python coiled around her neck. The Reticulated Python was one of 140 snakes that were found inside the home.
(ABC News, 10/31/19)
2019 Oct 31, It was reported that the recent transfer of hundreds of elephants to Malawi's largest wildlife reserve has led to residents falling ill from sleeping sickness, a parasitic disease spread by testse flies, a companion of the elephants.
(SFC, 8/31/19, p.A2)
2019 Nov 12, Zimbabwe said more than 200 elephants have died amid a severe drought, and announced plans for a mass relocation of animals to ease congestion.
(AP, 11/12/19)
2019 Nov 18, The head of a UN treaty said a rare species of porpoise is facing imminent extinction as fishing vessels appear to be flouting an international ban on them entering its last sanctuary, off the coast of Mexico.
(Reuters, 11/19/19)
2019 Nov 19, A new US federal law, effective January 1, was published in the federal register. It will restrict bottom trawling over 90% of the sea floor along the West Coast from Canada to Mexico.
(SFC, 11/20/19, p.A1)
2019 Nov 20, Activists said six conservationists working to save the critically endangered Asiatic cheetah have been sentenced to prison on internationally criticized espionage charges in Iran.
(AP, 11/20/19)
2019 Nov 23, The last Sumatran rhinoceros in Malaysia, a female rhino named Iman, died. This left the smallest species of rhino, which once roamed across Asia, surviving in small numbers mostly in Indonesia. The Sumatran rhino was declared extinct in the wild in Malaysia in 2015. Malaysia's last male Sumatran rhino died in May this year.
(Reuters, 11/23/19)
2019 Nov 24, In Texas Christine Rollins (59) was killed by multiple feral hogs outside a rural home where she worked as a caretaker.
(SFC, 11/28/19, p.A7)
2019 Nov 24, The Queen Hind, a cargo ship carrying 14,600 sheep, capsized off the coast of Romania. All crew memberswere saved along with 32 sheep found swimming by the ship. Many of the sheep were expected to have drowned.
(USA Today, 11/26,19, p.4A)
2019 Nov 25, In northern Thailand a wild deer was found dead in a national park with seven kg of plastic waste and other trash in its stomach. Officials estimated that the 10-year-old deer had died at least two days earlier.
(AP, 11/27/19)
2019 Nov, North Carolina's Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper warned that no more than 14 known red wolves remain in the wild and that the breed is on the verge of extinction. Red wolves were reintroduced to North Carolina in 1987. An additional 200 live in captive breeding programs.
{North Carolina, USA, Animal}
(SFC, 12/27/19, p.A11)
2019 Dec 4, Poland's agriculture minister said an outbreak of African swine fever near the German border has killed 21 wild boar.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 7, Indonesian authorities arrested five suspected poachers of a pair of critically endangered pregnant Sumatran tigers and seized four fetuses that had been preserved in a jar. About 400 Sumatran tigers remained because of forest destruction and poaching.
(SFC, 12/9/19, p.A2)
2019 Dec 8, The SpaceX Dragon caqpsule delivered three tons supplies to the Int'l. Space Station.The delivery include 8 of 40 mice genetically engineered with twice the normal muscle mass for a muscle and bone experiment.
(SFC, 12/9/19, p.A6)
2019 Dec 14, Indonesian police arrested two men suspected of being part of a ring that poaches and trades in endangered animals and seized from them several lion and leopard cubs and dozens of turtles.
(AP, 12/15/19)
2019 Dec 17, It was reported that scientists are working quickly to discover the cause of a massive fresh water mussel die-off on the Clinch River in Tennessee and understand whether it is related to similar die-offs on at least five US rivers and another in Spain.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, In eastern Kentucky at least 15 horses were found fatally shot at a strip mine site along US 23 near the Floyd-Pike County line.
(AP, 12/18/19)
2019 Dec 18, Puerto Rico adopted a law to keep cock-fighting alive, seeking to protect a 400-year-old tradition despite a US federal ban due to go into effect this week.
(SFC, 12/19/19, p.A9)
2019 Dec 28, In Australia thousands of koalas were feared to have died in a wildfire-ravaged area north of Sydney, further diminishing the iconic marsupial, while the fire danger increased in the country’s east as temperatures soared.
(AP, 12/28/19)
2019 In Sri Lanka about 386 elephants died at human hands, up from 319 a year earlier. Human fatalities due to wild elephants rose to 114.
(Econ., 2/29/20, p.31)
2020 Jan 1, In western Germany a fire at the Krefeld zoo in the first minutes of 2020 killed more than 30 animals, including apes, monkeys, bats and birds. Police said the fire may have been caused by sky lanterns launched to celebrate the new year.
(AP, 1/1/20)
2020 Jan 5, It was reported that wildfires that have been ravaging swaths of Australia have burned through one-third of Kangaroo Island, killing a father and his son and leaving behind a scorched wasteland and a devastated community. The fires have killed thousands of koalas and kangaroos, and also have raised questions about whether any members of a mouse-like marsupial species that carries its young in a pouch have survived.
(AP, 1/5/20)
2020 Jan 6, In Wyoming gunners contracted by Grand Teton National Park began culling about 100 goats that threatened the park's bighorn sheep herd.
(SFC, 1/6/20, p.A6)
2020 Jan 9, Chicago authorities captured a coyote late today after two reported attacks by wild canines on humans in the city, including a 6-year-old boy who was bitten in the head. DNA tests would confirm if this was the animal involved in either of the attacks.
(AP, 1/10/20)
2020 Jan 15, Researchers announced the successful creation of another embryo of the nearly extinct northern white rhino. The last two females, hosted in Kenya, provided the eggs.
(SFC, 1/16/20, p.A4)
2020 Jan 20, In New Hampshire a coyote attacked a pair of dogs, bit a woman and skirmished with a vehicle before being killed by a father defending his family.
(AP, 1/21/20)
2020 Jan 21, European Union lawmakers backed measures to clamp down on abuse of EU pet passports by criminals and gangs that illegally trade cats and dogs.
(Reuters, 1/21/20)
2020 Jan 31, Fifty North Atlantic right whales were spotted south of Nantucket Island. The US federal government asked Atlantic Ocean vessels to slow down in the area as only about 400 right wales are left in the world.
(SFC, 2/6/20, p.A5)
2020 Feb 2, Punxsutawney Phil, Pennsylvania's most famous groundhog, declared: “Spring will be early, it's a certainty".
(AP, 2/2/20)
2020 Feb, In Cyprus 96 flamingos were found dead over the last two months in the Larnaca Salt Lake wetlands as a result of lead poisoning. In 2021 Conservationists in Cyprus urged authorities to expand a hunting ban throughout a coastal salt lake network amid concerns that migrating flamingos could potentially swallow lethal quantities of lead shotgun pellets.
(AP, 2/21/21)
2020 Mar 3, In Mexico a boat from a conservation group carrying government inspectors was attacked while monitoring a near-extinct porpoise species in a protected zone of Mexico’s Gulf of California.
(Reuters, 3/4/20)
2020 Mar 6, Gilbert Khoo, a seafood salesman in the UK, received a two-year suspended sentence for six offenses related to the transport of $7 million worth of endangered eels.
(Business Insider, 3/8/20)
2020 Mar 11, Kenyan officials said a white female giraffe and her 7-month-old calf have been killed by poachers. About 110,000 giraffes remained in Africa.
(SFC, 3/12/20, p.A2)
2020 Mar 17, In South Africa Lt Col Leroy Brewer, a top rhino poaching investigator, was driving to work when he was shot dead by gunmen with high-caliber weapons. He died on the spot.
(AP, 3/18/20)
2020 Mar 18, A new report said a tiny fossil skull nicknamed “Wonderchicken" may be the oldest known fossil from this group. A skull of partridge-sized bird, named Asteriornis maastrichtensis, was found in Belgium and said to be some 66.7 to 66.8 million years old. It lived just before the asteroid impact that's blamed for killing off many species, most notably the giant dinosaurs.
(AP, 3/18/20)(Reuters, 3/18/20)
2020 Mar, In South Africa some 218,000 farm animals, such as cows sheep or goats, were stolen over the last 12 months, up from 180,000 five years earlier. 87% of the cases involved criminal syndicates.
(Econ., 11/21/20, p.42)
2020 Apr 5, US federal and local zoo officials said a tiger at the Bronx Zoo has tested positive for the new coronavirus, in what is believed to be the first known infection in an animal in the US or a tiger anywhere.
(AP, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 6, Malta said it would allow hunters to hunt quail from April 10 until the end of the month, despite health authorities urging everyone to stay indoors to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Malta has so far reported 227 COVID-19 cases but no deaths.
(Reuters, 4/6/20)
2020 Apr 9, A US judge ruled that the National Marine Fisheries Service failed to adequately protect endangered right whales from lobster fishing activities. Right whales currently number only about 400.
(SFC, 4/11/20, p.A3)
2020 Apr 19, It was reported that dogs are no longer to be classified as livestock in China and are instead considered merely pets in new guidelines issued by Beijing because of the coronavirus crisis.
(SSFC, 4/19/20, p.E4)
2020 Apr 25, In the SF Bay Area the Alameda County Sheriff's Office shut down a cockfighting ring in rural Pleasanton. Officers seized nearly 600 hens, chicks and razor-wielding roosters.
(SFC, 4/28/20, p.B1)
2020 Apr 30, It was reported that the US Fish and Wildlife Service is offering a $1,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest of someone who is poisoning pets and wildlife in northern Wisconsin. Ongoing poisonings in Florence, Forest and Marinette counties have been investigated for about a year. 7 pet dogs have died so far along with coyotes, weasels and wolves.
(AP, 4/30/20)
2020 May 4, Hong Kong customs officials impounded 24 tons of shark fins from Ecuador with a retail value of $1.1 million.
(Econ., 11/21/20, p.30)
2020 May 8, The World Health Organization said that although a market in the Chinese city of Wuhan selling live animals likely played a significant role in the emergence of the new coronavirus, it does not recommend that such markets be shut down globally.
(AP, 5/8/20)
2020 May 14, US federal land managers said it will take two decades and cost more than $1 billion over the first six years alone to slash wild horse populations across 10 Western states to sustainable levels necessary to protect rangeland.
(SFC, 5/15/20, p.A5)
2020 May 15, Britain's wildlife charity the RSPB said it has been "overrun" by reports of birds of prey being illegally killed since the lockdown started six weeks ago. All birds of prey are protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981).
(BBC, 5/15/20)
2020 May 22, It was reported that archaeologists in Mexico have found the bones of about 60 mammoths at an airport under construction just north of Mexico City, near human-built ’traps’ where more than a dozen mammoths were found last year. The bones were found in sediment layers corresponding to 15,000 to 20,000 years ago.
(AP, 5/22/20)
2020 Jun 1, Rafiki, one of Uganda's best known mountain gorillas, went missing. His body was discovered by a search party the following day. The silverback, believed to be around 25-years-old when he died in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, was the leader of a group of 17 mountain gorillas. Four men were expected to be charged under a wildlife protection law that was passed last year. In late July Felix Byamukama pleaded guilty to illegally entering a protected area and killing the gorilla and was jailed for 11 years.
(BBC, 6/12/20)(BBC, 7/30/20)
2020 Jun 3, It was reported that poachers in Ethiopia killed at least six elephants in a single day last week. In the 1970s Ethiopia had more than 10,000 elephants, but poaching and habitat degradation have reduced the number to about 2,500 to 3,000.
(SFC, 6/3/20, p.A2)
2020 Jun 3, In India a pregnant elephant died in agony in a river in Silent Valley National Park in Kerala's Palakkad district after eating a firecracker-stuffed pineapple. Her death caused outrage in the country. A suspect was soon arrested Farmers in the area are known for using explosives in fruit to protect their land from wild animals.
(https://tinyurl.com/y9t66rxj)(SFC, 6/8/20, p.A2)
2020 Jun 3, Dutch broadcaster RTL reported that the government intends to cull the mink at farms where animals have been infected with the coronavirus. Coronavirus has so far been detected on eight farms in the Netherlands. A law banning mink farming in the Netherlands was passed in 2013, and the remaining 120 farms are due to cease operations in 2023.
(Reuters, 6/3/20)
2020 Jun 17, Danish authorities said mink at a farm in Denmark were found to be infected with the new coronavirus and all 11,000 of the animals there will have to be culled.
(Reuters, 6/17/20)
2020 Jun 18, In San Francisco a 50-pound male cougar, believed to be under 2 years old, was spotted roaming downtown over several days this week. He was seen sleeping in a planter box and looking at his reflection in the glass of an office tower before being captured. Authorities said he may have killed three animals at the city zoo. The cougar was soon released back to the wild. On July 3 the mountain lion was found dead on the shoulder of Highway 1 near Pacifica.
(AP, 6/20/20)(AP, 7/4/20)
2020 Jun 21, It was reported that poaching in India has become increasingly common amid the coronavirus pandemic, as people left jobless turn to wildlife to make money and feed their families. The problem extended into Nepal, southeast Asia and parts of Africa.
(AP, 6/21/20)
2020 Jul 1, It was reported that some 350 elephant carcasses have been found in the Okavango Delta of Botswana over the last two months. It was unknown why the animals are dying.
(BBC, 7/1/20)
2020 Jul 3, Botswana said it is investigating a staggeringly high number of elephant carcasses — 275 — found in the popular Okavango Delta area in recent weeks. A day earlier Botswana's government announced “an alarming surge of rhinoceros poaching in the Okavango Delta" in recent days.
(AP, 7/3/20)
2020 Jul 6, In Cambodia the province of Siem Reap outlawed the trade of dog meat. The trade remains legal in other parts of the country. Recent reports estimated that 2-3 million dogs are killed annually in Cambodia for their meat.
(SFC, 7/10/20, p.A2)
2020 Jul 7, US Secretary of the Interior David L. Bernhardt announced his agency will not conduct the environmental impact statement needed to move forward with the idea to reintroduce grizzly bears to the forested mountains in and around North Cascades National Park in north central Washington state.
(AP, 7/11/20)
2020 Jul 9, The Swiss-based Int'l. Union for the Conservation of Nature updated its red list and said the lemurs of Madagascar are just one step away form extinction. North Atlantic Right Whales were also said to be nearing extinction.
(SFC, 7/10/20, p.A2)
2020 Jul 10, The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) revealed that the illegal global ivory trade has decreased, but trafficking of pangolins is on the rise.
(AP, 7/10/20)
2020 Jul 14, The FBI arrested an Indiana woman (19) they say was torturing and graphically killing cats and dogs. Private citizens helped identify Krystal Cherika Scott using social media and providing the information to law enforcement.
(Insider, 7/17/20)
2020 Jul 20, A University of Toronto-led study, published in Nature Climate Change, said polar bears could be starved into extinction by 2100 as the Arctic sea ice continues to shrink at alarming rates, making it hard for the bears to hunt for food.
(Good Morning America, 7/22/20)
2020 Aug 3, It was reported that authorities in the Netherlands and Spain have killed more than 1 million minks at breeding farms following outbreaks of coronavirus in the animals.
(SFC, 8/3/20, p.A6)
2020 Aug 10, It was reported that at least five horses have been killed around Pearland, Texas, since late May. Police believe the horses were killed for their meat.
(Miami Herald, 8/10/20)
2020 Aug 14, US authorities gave wildlife managers in Washington, Oregon and Idaho permission to start killing hundreds of sea lions in the Columbia River basin in hopes of helping struggling salmon and steelhead trout.
(AP, 8/14/20)
2020 Aug 14, It was reported that Spanish police in Catalonia have broken up a gang of poachers believed to have captured 10,000 protected finches in two years, amassing an estimated €150,000 by illegally selling the animals as caged songbirds.
(The Telegraph, 8/14/20)
2020 Aug 20, In New Mexico a mystery started with the discovery of a large number of dead birds at the US Army White Sands Missile Range and White Sands National Monument. Dead migratory birds were also being found in Colorado, Texas and Mexico.
(https://tinyurl.com/y5fgjb6w)
2020 Aug 26, It was reported that at least 13 dead dolphins have been found on the seashore in Mauritius, more than a month after the huge oil spill caused by a Japanese-owned ship.
(BBC, 8/26/20)
2020 Aug 26, In South Africa well-known conservationist West Mathewson died after he was mauled by two white lions as he was taking them for a walk.
(BBC, 8/27/20)
2020 Aug 28, The Dutch government brought forward to March a ban on mink-farming that had been scheduled to take effect in 2024.
(Econ., 9/5/20, p.43)
2020 Aug 28, A polar bear attacked a camping site in Norway's remote Svalbard Islands, killing a 38-year-old Dutch man before being shot and killed by onlookers. Johan Jacobus Kootte was the fifth person on Svalbard to have been killed by polar bears since 1971.
(AP, 8/28/20)
2020 Aug 29, It was reported that attackers armed with knives, some knowledge of their prey and a large dose of cruelty, are going after horses and ponies in pastures across France in what may be ritual mutilations.
(AP, 8/29/20)
2020 Aug 29, Thousands of people marched through the Mauritian capital, Port Louis, in protest at the authorities' handling of a massive oil spill, and the discovery of at least 40 dead dolphins. Dead fish, turtles, whales and crabs were also observed.
(BBC, 8/30/20)(SSFC, 9/6/20, p.B10)
2020 Aug 30, Zimbabwe's parks authorities said they are investigating the death of 11 elephants in a forest in the west of the country. The carcasses of the elephants were discovered August 28 in Pandamasue Forest.
(AP, 8/30/20)
2020 Aug, In Siberia the remains of a woolly rhino, dating to the late Pleistocene era, was found at a river in the diamond-producing region of Yakutia complete with all its limbs, some of its organs, its tusk, and even its wool.
(AP, 12/30/20)
2020 Sep 7, France's interior minister said investigators have made numerous arrests since a macabre series of attacks left scores of horses mutilated or killed this year and have opened more than 150 investigations into such cases.
(AP, 9/7/20)
2020 Sep 8, It was reported that an environmental group in Zimbabwe has applied to the country’s High Court to stop a Chinese firm from mining coal in Hwange National Park, which hosts one of Africa’s largest populations of elephants. The mining license was granted by President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government to the Chinese firm in February, 2019, and the firm has started exploratory work in the park. Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa announced a ban on mining in all national parks, reversing a decision to let Chinese firms explore for coal at its famous Hwange game park with immediate effect.
(AP, 9/8/20)(BBC, 9/9/20)
2020 Sep 20, In Alaska a grizzly bear mauled and killed a moose hunter in a first-of-its-kind attack in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve.
(Good Morning America, 9/23/20)
2020 Sep 21, In Australia hundreds of pilot whales were discovered beached on the shore and sand bars along the remote west coast of Tasmania state.
(SFC, 9/25/20, p.A6)
2020 Sep 21, Wildlife officials said a total of 330 elephants in Botswana are now known to have died from ingesting cyanobacteria, a toxic bacteria which can occur naturally in standing water and sometimes grow into large blooms known as blue-green algae.
(BBC, 9/21/20)
2020 Sep 23, More pilot whales were found stranded in Australia, raising the estimated total to nearly 500, including 380 that have died, in the largest mass stranding ever recorded in the country. 88 whales were rescued and crews worked to free 20 more.
(AP, 9/23/20)(SFC, 9/25/20, p.A6)
2020 Sep 25, The British charity People's Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA) said Magawa, a giant African pouched rat, has been awarded its Gold Medal for his "lifesaving bravery and devotion" after discovering 39 landmines and 28 items of unexploded ordinance in the past seven years in Cambodia. Before Magawa, all the recipients were dogs.
(AP, 9/25/20)
2020 Sep 27, It was reported that experts are warning of a "feral swine bomb" that could go off at any time, as the numbers of hybrid wild pigs have soared to six million and spread from 17 to 39 US states over the last three decades.
(SSFC, 9/27/20, p.B10)
2020 Sep 29, France's environmental minister announced a gradual ban on using wild animals in traveling circuses, on keeping dolphins and killer whales in captivity in marine parks and on raising mink on fur farms.
(SFC, 9/30/20, p.A2)
2020 Sep 29, Wildlife officials in Zimbabwe said they suspect a bacterial disease is responsible for the deaths of more than 30 elephants since late August.
(BBC, 9/30/20)
2020 Oct 6, It was reported that Tasmanian devils, the carnivorous marsupials whose feisty, frenzied eating habits won the animals cartoon fame, have returned to mainland Australia for the first time in some 3,000 years. The 11 most recently released devils began exploring their new home at the nearly 1,000-acre Barrington Tops wildlife refuge in New South Wales state.
(AP, 10/6/20)
2020 Oct 19, In Alabama Ruthie Brown (36), a mother of four boys from Jasper, died after being mauled by a pack of five dogs.
(Miami Herald, 10/20/20)
2020 Oct 29, The Trump administration announced that the gray wolf will lose endangered species protection.
(SFC, 10/30/20, p.A1)
2020 Nov 4, Denmark said it will cull its entire herd of up to 17 million mink after a mutation of the coronavirus found in the animals spread to humans, posing risk to any possible future vaccine.
(Reuters, 11/4/20)
2020 Nov 5, A US federal judge ruled that the government in 2015 illegally approved a breed of genetically engineered salmon because it failed to assess the harm the fish might cause if they escaped their confines and interbred with other salmon species. The fish, engineered by AquaBounty Technologies, grow twice as fast as others, but are not yet available for sale.
(SFC, 11/9/20, p.B4)
2020 Nov 6, It was reported that more than 14,000 farmed minks have died in recent weeks in Utah and Wisconsin after contracting COVID-19.
(SFC, 11/6/20, p.A7)
2020 Nov 13, A Greek agriculture ministry official said the new coronavirus has been found in mink at two farms in northern Greece. A cull of the 2,500 mink at one farm was due to begin shortly.
(Reuters, 11/13/20)
2020 Nov 22, The French agriculture ministry said mink infected with coronavirus have been found at a farm in the Eure-et-Loire region of western France, and 1,000 mink at the farm will be culled.
(Reuters, 11/22/20)
2020 Nov 23, Australian scientists pushed to list the platypus as a vulnerable species after a report showed the habitat of the semi-aquatic native mammal had shrunk more than a fifth in the last 30 years.
(Reuters, 11/23/20)
2020 Nov 24, The acting head of a big Russian state fur company floated the idea of vaccinating minks to prevent the spread of COVID-19, after millions of infected minks were destroyed in Denmark and cases of the disease were found elsewhere.
(Reuters, 11/24/20)
2020 Dec 2, The US Transportation Dept. issued a final rule saying only dogs can be service animals on airlines, and companions used for emotional support don't count.
(SFC, 12/3/20, p.A6)
2020 Dec 2, Christopher Allen Whiteley (28) was last seen early today in Lipan, Texas. Whiteley’s body was found days later in a nearby wooded area after a search. A preliminary report found that he likely died of a mountain lion attack.
(NBC News, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 8, Spanish veterinary authorities said four lions at Barcelona Zoo have tested positive for COVID-19, in only the second known case in which large felines have contracted coronavirus.
(Reuters, 12/8/20)
2020 Dec 14, Russian authorities said they are investigating the death of nearly 300 endangered seals, including pregnant females, that have been found washed up on the Caspian Sea shores of Dagestan since December 6. The Caspian seal was included in Russia’s Red Data Book of rare and endangered species this year.
(The Telegraph, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 21, Denmark agreed on a temporary ban on mink breeding, leaving little hope to rebuild the industry, which pioneered the global fur trade.
(Reuters, 12/21/20)
2020 Dec 24, It was reported that a $5,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the conviction of whoever is slashing the pouches and necks of brown pelicans on the Southern California coast.
(AP, 12/24/20)
2021 Jan 5, The Trump administration finalized changes that weaken the government's enforcement powers under a century-old law protecting most American wild bird species.
(SFC, 1/6/21, p.A4)
2021 Jan 8, In southern California 8 gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park tested positive for the coronavirus in what is believed to be the first cases among such primates in captivity.
(https://tinyurl.com/yxcwcttz)(SFC, 1/13/21, p.A4)
2021 Jan 20, Germany's Cabinet approved legislation that will prohibit the killing male chicks after they hatch from Jan. 1 next year. In a second step, the killing of chick embryos in the egg will be prohibited after the sixth day of incubation starting on Jan. 1, 2024.
(AP, 1/20/21)
2021 Jan 26, Lifestyle guru Martha Stewart launched a line of cannabis-infused oil drops and soft-baked chews for dogs, months after the successful release of her cannabidiol (CBD) gummie treats for humans hit shelves in the United States. Stewart is banking on a nearly one-year partnership with Canada's Canopy Growth Corp, the world's top pot producer by market value.
(AP, 1/26/21)
2021 Feb 9, It was reported that the Indian army is training dogs to find COVID-19 in its ranks by sniffing human sweat and urine.
(Reuters, 2/9/21)
2021 Feb 10, It was reported that the hippo population at Hacienda Napoles Park in Colombia, once the private estate of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, now numbered between 65 and 80. Escobar had imported 3 female hippos and one male decades ago. Scientists now warned that the hippos pose a major threat to the areas biodiversity.
(SFC, 2/10/21, p.A3)
2021 Feb 14, It was reported that parts of southeastern Australia have been overrun by mice. The pests in rural New South Walews have spread into Queensland, Victoria and South Australia dued to abundant rainfall and a good harvest.
(SSFC, 2/14/21, p.B8)
2021 Feb 22, It was reported that three rare, Rothschild's giraffes have died after being electrocuted by low-hanging power lines in Soysambu conservancy in Nakuru, Kenya. Conservationists have estimated there are fewer than 1,600 in the wild with about 600 in Kenya.
(BBC, 2/22/21)
2021 Feb 22, In New Zealand volunteers tried to save 28 stranded long-finned pilot whales by refloating them on the high tide. Dozens of whales had already died on Farewell Spit.
(SFC, 2/24/21, p.A4)
2021 Feb 23, In Mozambique 86 dolphin carcasses were found on Bazaruto Island, north of the capital Maputo, after a first group of 14 was washed ashore two days earlier. Last week Cyclone Guambe caused unrest in the waters off the island of Bazaruto.
(BBC, 2/24/21)
2021 Feb 24, In Los Angeles a 30-year-old man was walking three of Lady Gaga's dogs when an unknown male shot him about in the 1500 block of North Sierra Bonita Avenue. The dog walker was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Lady Gaga soon offered $500,000 for the return of her two French bulldogs. On Feb. 26 a woman brought the dogs into a Los Angeles police station.
(NBC News, 2/26/21)(The Independent, 2/27/21)
2021 Feb 27, A confidential report by Spanish government veterinarians said more than 850 cows that spent months aboard a ship wandering across the Mediterranean are not fit for transport anymore and should be killed.
(Reuters, 2/27/21)
2021 Feb 28, Spanish authorities said nearly 900 cattle that have been on a ship traveling the Mediterranean Sea for two months will be sacrificed after veterinarians deemed them no longer fit for export.
(AP, 2/28/21)
2021 Mar 6, Spanish authorities said the culling of nearly 900 cattle that were deemed unfit after spending more than two months at sea and on a ship has begun in the Mediterranean port of Cartagena.
(AP, 3/7/21)
2021 Mar 8, The Biden administration reversed a policy imposed under former President Donald Trump that drastically weakened the government's power to enforce a century-old law that protects most US bird species.
(AP, 3/8/21)
2021 Mar 12, In China The Polar Bear Hotel, part of the Harbin Polarland theme park in Heilongjiang's capital and largest city, Harbin, opened its doors with the promise of round-the-clock polar bear viewing from all 21 guest rooms.
(Reuters, 3/13/21)
2021 Mar 13, Thailand celebrated Elephant Day and held a fruit banquet for dozens of elephants in the ancient capital of Ayutthaya.
(Reuters, 3/13/21)
2021 Mar 21, Uganda reported that six lions have been found in Queen Elizabeth National Park with their heads and paws hacked off, and their bodies surrounded by dead vultures.
(BBC, 3/21/21)
2021 Mar 22, Germany’s agriculture ministry said the governments of Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic have agreed that intensified hunting of wild boar is needed to combat an outbreak of African swine fever (ASF) among wild animals.
(Reuters, 3/22/21)
2021 Mar 25, A report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature said increasing threats of poaching and loss of habitat have made Africa's elephant populations more endangered. The African forest elephant is now critically endangered, and the African savanna elephant is endangered. The IUCN said Africa currently has 415,000 elephants, counting the forest and savanna elephants together.
(AP, 3/25/21)
2021 Apr 4, New Zealand hunters resumed their annual tradition of shooting invasive rabbits over the Easter weekend after a 4-year break. 11,968 rabbits were shot in the fundraising event that began more than 25 years ago.
(SFC, 4/11/21, p.A18)
2021 Apr 5, It was reported that authorities in Ghana are trying to find out what has caused more than 60 dead dolphins to wash up on several beaches.
(BBC, 4/5/21)
2021 Apr 8, In the SF Bay Area two dead whales washed ashore, joining two more that were discovered dead in area beaches since March 31. Of the four animals, two died from blunt force trauma from ship strikes.
(Reuters, 4/10/21)
2021 Apr 13, The United Nations' health agency urged countries to suspend the sale of live animals captured from the wild in food markets. The World Health Organization recommended it as an emergency measure, saying wild animals are a leading source of emerging infectious diseases like the coronavirus.
(CBS News, 4/13/21)
2021 Apr 15, In Montana a backcountry guide who was fishing just west of Yellowstone National Park was fatally attacked by a large grizzly bear that might have been protecting a food source.
(NY Times, 4/19/21)
2021 Apr 17, In South Africa a suspected poacher was trampled and killed by a herd of elephants at Kruger National Park. The deceased man and his accomplices were fleeing from park rangers when they unexpectedly encountered a breeding herd of elephants.
(CBS News, 4/19/21)
2021 Apr 27, The Idaho House approved legislation allowing the state to hire private contractors and expand methods to kill wolves roaming the state. The measure could cut the wolf population by 90%.
(SFC, 4/29/21, p.A5)
2021 Apr 27, In Texas Grand Prairie police closed down a $500,000 cockfighting operation after seizing almost 300 roosters, hens and chicks.
(Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 4/30/21)
2021 Apr 30, A Colorado woman (39) died in an apparent black bear attack near the town of Durango, marking just the fourth fatal mauling in the state since record-keeping began in 1960.
(Reuters, 5/1/21)
2021 May 4, India's government said 8 Asiatic lions at a zoo in Hyderabad have contracted the coronavirus, adding that there was no evidence that animals could transmit the disease to humans. The Nehru Zoological Park has now been closed.
(AP, 5/4/21)
2021 May 7, It was reported that South Africa will end its captive lion industry. The move would outlaw "canned hunting" and sale of their bones as well as popular tourist experiences like petting cubs. Wild lion hunts were not affected and would continue under strict controls.
(SFC, 5/7/21, p.A3)
2021 May 14, It was reported that Denmark this week began digging up millions of culled mink buried six months ago because of concerns that the mass graves could contaminate drinking water and a nearby bathing lake.
(Reuters, 5/14/21)
2021 May 20, The DOJ said federal law enforcement officers have seized nearly 70 protected big cats from Jeffrey and Lauren Lowe's Thackerville, Oklahoma, Tiger King Park.
(CBS News, 5/21/21)
2021 May 27, Thailand said it is ramping up efforts to curb trade in wildlife to help reduce the risk of future pandemics, though it was unclear whether that would mean an end to all sales of exotic species in the wildlife trafficking hub.
(AP, 5/27/21)
2021 May 28, Spain's Environment Ministry said the Iberian lynx population in Portugal and Spain rose above 1,000 last year after 414 cubs were born under a joint breeding program, in a major leap towards conserving the endangered species.
(Reuters, 5/28/21)
2021 May 29, In Bangladesh Habib Talukder (50), a notorious poacher accused of killing at least 70 endangered Bengal tigers, was caught after evading arrest for 20 years.
(The Telegraph, 6/1/21)
2021 May 30, It was reported that farmers in Australia's New South Wales state were being threatened by an unprecedented mouse plague. The state government has ordered 1,320 gallons of the banned poison Bromadiolone from India.
(SSFC, 5/30/21, p.A8)
2021 Jun 2, A herd of 15 wild elephants was approaching the city of Kunming, the capital of southwest China's Yunnan province, defying attempts to redirect them after a journey of several hundred kilometers from forests to the south.
(Reuters, 6/2/21)
2021 Jun 4, The Biden administration said it will revise or reverse a slate of Trump-era actions that rolled back protections for endangered or threatened species.
(Axios, 6/4/21)
2021 Jun 13, In South Carolina Shamar Jackson (7) died after he was mauled by dogs while walking in his neighborhood with his brother in Marion County.
(NBC News, 6/16/21)
2021 Jun 14, US officials announced a one-year ban on importing dogs from more than 100 countries. The ban is in response to the alarming number of dogs bought from foreign countries that arrived in the US with false rabies vaccination certificates over the past year.
(NPR, 6/14/21)
2021 Jun 28, France's top administrative court definitively banned the use of glue trapping to hunt birds, a technique that was denounced by animal protection groups as barbaric and endangering some species.
(AP, 6/28/21)
2021 Jul 2, The record heat in the northwest US and Canada has left hundreds dead. The death toll in Oregon reached 79. British Colombia reported at least 486 sudden deaths. More than a billion seashore animals were also killed due to the heat wave.
(SFC, 7/2/21, p.A8)(SSFC, 7/11/21, p.B8)
2021 Jul 4, It was reported that birds from Washington, DC, to Kentucky have been found suffering from a mysterious illness that causes them to have crusty eyes and swollen faces that prevent them from flying.
(SSFC, 7/4/21, p.B8)
2021 Jul 5, University of Wisconsin scientists said as many as one-third of the state's gray wolves likely died at the hands of humans in the months after the federal government in January announced it was ending legal protections.
(AP, 7/5/21)
2021 Jul 6, A grizzly bear attacked and killed a person who was camping in western Montana early today, after previously wandering into the campsite. Leah Lokan (65) of Chico, Ca., was killed while sleeping in her tent on a bicycle camping trip. The bear was shot dead e days later.
(AP, 7/6/21)(SFC, 7/9/21, p.B1)(SFC, 7/10/21, p.B4)
2021 Jul 25, It was reported that the dried-up lake bed of Turkey's Lake Tuz is littered with the remains of thousands of flamingos that became victims of a devastating regional drought. Most of the 5,000 chicks that hatched this year died.
(SSFC, 7/25/21, p.B10)
2021 Jul 30, Endangered killer whales received new habitat protections from the US government. The National Marine Fisheries Service finalized rules to expand the Southern Resident orca’s critical habitat from the Canadian border down to Point Sur, Ca.
(AP, 7/30/21)
2021 Aug 8, In China the 14 Asian elephants of various sizes and ages were guided across the Yuanjiang river in Yunnan late today and a path was being opened for them to return to the nature reserve where they lived in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture.
(AP, 8/8/21)
2021 Aug 11, The state of Wisconsin authorized the killing of 300 wolves as part of a hunt this fall, far exceeding the recommendations of its own biologists for the once-protected species and drawing criticism from conservationists.
(NY Times, 8/12/21)
2021 Aug 24, In Indonesia three critically endangered Sumatran tigers, including two cubs, were found dead in a conservation area on Sumatra island after being caught in traps apparently set by a poacher.
(AP, 8/27/21)
2021 Aug 30, A new analysis of data from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Bird Life International found that 30% of 557 raptor species worldwide are considered near threatened, vulnerable or endangered or critically endangered.
(AP, 8/31/21)
2021 Aug 31, New rules were announced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration designed to protect the North Atlantic right whale. The whales number only about 360 and are vulnerable to lethal entanglement in fishing gear. Members of the lobster fishing industry have said strict new rules could make it difficult to get lobsters to consumers.
(AP, 8/31/21)
2021 Aug 31, In western England the alpaca named Geronimo (8), at the center of a legal row with the British government and whose plight triggered a nationwide campaign to keep him alive, was killed after twice testing positive for bovine tuberculosis.
(Reuters, 8/31/21)
2021 Aug 31, Kenya said its black rhinos, sable antelope and three other species are critically endangered, while nine more species including lions, elephants and cheetahs are endangered, citing the threat from an expanding human population.
(Reuters, 9/1/21)
2021 Sep 4, In France a new red list released today at a global conference aimed at protecting dwindling species said the world's sharks and rays have seen declines in their populations since 2014 and more and more are now threatened with extinction.
(AP, 9/4/21)
2021 Sep 10, Atlanta's zoo said at least 13 western lowland gorillas have tested positive for COVID-19, including 60-year-old Ozzie, the oldest male gorilla in captivity.
(AP, 9/11/21)
2021 Sep 12, The slaughter of 1,428 white-sided dolphins, part of a four-century-old traditional drive of sea mammals into shallow water where they are killed for their meat and blubber, reignited a debate on the small Faeroe Islands, a semi-independent and part of the Danish realm.
(AP, 9/14/21)
2021 Sep 14, Somaliland police said they have arrested a man at an airport as he tried to smuggle 200 lizards to Egypt. The lizards appeared to be shield-tailed agama, which can retail for $500 each on pet websites.
(Reuters, 9/14/21)
2021 Sep 16, The Faeroese government said that it will review the way hunts of Atlantic white-sided dolphins are carried out following the release of gruesome video footage showing the mass killing on Sept. 12 of nearly 1,500 sea mammals.
(AP, 9/16/21)
2021 Sep 21, The Australian Koala Foundation said Australia has lost about 30% of its koalas over the past three years, hit by drought, bushfires and developers cutting down trees.
(Reuters, 9/21/21)
2021 Sep 28, US federal wildlife officials announced that 22 animals and one plant should be declared extinct and removed from the endangered species list. They included 11 birds, eight freshwater mussels, two fish, a bat and a plant.
(NY Times, 9/29/21)
2021 Sep 28, Denmark said it will extend its ban on mink breeding for another year to 2023.
(Reuters, 9/28/21)
2021 Oct 14, California's Fish and Game Commission approved the addition of the Western population of the Pacific leatherback sea turtle to the state's endangered species list. The population of these turtles has declined by 95% in the past 30 years.
(SFC, 10/18/21, p.C1)
2021 Oct 15, Maine's beloved puffins suffered one of their worst years for reproduction in decades this summer due to a lack of the small fish they eat.
(AP, 10/15/21)
2021 Oct 19, A wildlife official told a House committee that manatees have starved to death by the hundreds along Florida’s east coast because algae blooms and contaminants are killing the seagrass the beloved sea mammals eat.
(AP, 10/19/21)
2021 Nov 3, It was reported that an Iowa study showed that hundreds of white-tailed deer infected with the coronavirus likely contracted the disease from humans and have rapidly spread it among other animals. 80% of the deer sampled from April 2020 to January 2021 were infected.
(SFC, 11/3/21, p.A4)
2021 Nov 9 It was reported that South African officials are investigating an alarming rise in seal deaths along the west coast near Cape Town, with malnutrition one potential cause.
(Reuters, 11/9/21)
2021 Nov 17, Hong Kong authorities captured and euthanized seven wild boars late as they began a campaign to reduce their numbers in urban areas around the financial center after one bit a policeman last week.
(Reuters, 11/18/21)
2021 Nov 25, South Korea said it will start a task force to consider outlawing the centuries-old practice of dog meat consumption.
(SFC, 11/26/21, p.A2)
2021 Dec 15, It was reported that efforts using poison to eradicate invasive mice on Britain's Gough Island, home to one of the world's largest seabird colonies, have failed. A remote camera recently revealed that at least one mouse had survived on the South Atlantic island.
(BBC, 12/15/21)(SSFC, 12/19/21, p.B10)
2021 Dec 26, It was reported that Louisiana researchers have identified 14 new species of shrews on Indonesia's Sulawesi island where seven in that genus were previously known.
(AP, 12/26/21)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Animals
Return to home
