Why do elephants keep crossing roads in Peninsular Malaysia? That’s the question a team of researchers set out to answer in order to help find solutions to the growing risk of pachyderms being killed or injured on Malaysian roads. To do so, the researchers equipped 17 wild Asian elephants with…
These aren’t good times for Malaysia’s wild elephants. Over the past few months several of them have died, having been poached for their ivory, run down on roads by cars, or gunned down by irate plantation workers. Now yet another elephant is dead. An elderly female pachyderm died after being…
Fully grown Asian elephants eat around 150kg of food every single day. Gourmands they are, yes. Yet by consuming so much vegetation they do more than just feed themselves; they also help keep complex ecosystems functioning well. For instance, by devouring larger plants they make way for smaller plants to…
Another day, another dead elephant. And to make matters worse, this latest casualty, too, has died under similar circumstances on the same road. Soon after a baby elephant died after being hit by a vehicle near Gerik in June, a grown bull elephant has now also perished after being hit…
The region’s beleaguered last few thousand wild Asian elephants have long been hunted for their tusks around Southeast Asia. Now in some areas of Myanmar (formerly Burma) they are also being hunted in record numbers for their skins. The reason: many people have come to believe that elephant skin has…
Seven elephant poachers who were labelled “most wanted” by authorities in Peninsular Malaysia are at large no more: they’ve been arrested and are now behind bars. In a joint operation between the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) and the country’s Armed Forces, a gang of seven local suspected poachers was caught near the Taman…
China says it has decided to ban all domestic trade in ivory by the end of this year. Time to celebrate? Sort of. “China will gradually stop the processing and sales of ivories for commercial purposes by the end of 2017,” the country’s Xinhua news service reported, referring to a government statement….
Giant pandas – those cuddly mascots of wildlife conservation the world over. They are – drum rolls please! – endangered no more. They remain classified as “vulnerable,” though. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which on its Red List classifies a large variety of wild animals worldwide…
Lasah, a 36-year-old Asian elephant, has never had it easy. Caught in the wild as a young animal, he would find himself forced to work in logging, where he endured backbreaking hardships. He would also find himself confined to small enclosures in a zoo, where visitors came to gawk at…