Tag archives for Thailand
Life for Captive Elephants
Posted by Sasha Ingber on February 7, 2013 
More than half of Thailand’s elephants are in captivity. Once used for transportation, religious festivals, and war stemming back to 2000 BCE, adult elephants today work in illegal logging and tourism camps, while calves simply wander the city streets. Most of Thailand’s working elephants are considered private property. As the only source of revenue for their owners,…
Posted by 
Recently, while I was recording my video “Rain,” I suffered a heavy fall in the jungle. I had slipped on a bridge “slightly” slippery due to the rain, and the moss. The fall, combined with long periods of contemplation, an orthopedic collar injury, and various sedatives, I decided to develop a compendium of rules; that…
Posted by Customs authorities in Hong Kong have seized over 1,000 kg of African ivory worth almost $1.5m. This concealed shipment of 779 tusks is the third largest seizure in just three months and was smuggled by sea from Kenya via Malaysia. A routine x-ray scan of a shipping container reported to contain “archaeological stones” revealed the…
Tiger Poachers Get Stiff Sentences
Posted by David Robinson on March 9, 2012 
Two men received substantial prison sentences after being convicting of poaching in Thailand earlier this year. One convicted tiger poacher, a Vietnamese citizen, received four years in prison; the other, a Thai national, received five—the most severe punishment for wildlife poaching ever given in Thailand. The men had been convicted in Thai court on February 19.…
Posted by Thailand’s Western Forest Complex (WEFCOM) is a large protected landscape along the Thailand-Myanmar border of the Tenasserim Range that covers more than 18,000 square kilometers (7,000 square miles), and is one of the largest protected area systems in Southeast Asia. Most WEFCOM habitat has the potential to hold approximately 10 tigers per 100 square kilometers (40…
With only 3,500 tigers hanging on in isolated patches of wilderness scattered across 13 Asian countries, the prospects for the survival of the species outside zoos is grim. The Prime Minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin, is convening a summit in St. Petersburg this weekend to discuss and endorse a plan that would double the population…
News of another wild tiger killing has come on the eve of the international summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, to discuss an urgent strategy to save the last tigers in the wild. A rare Siberian tiger was killed yesterday by poachers near Vladivostok, Russia, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), said in a news…
NGS stock photo by Michael Nichols For four days starting this weekend, government leaders from the 13 tiger range countries will be meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, to confirm a plan to restore and conserve one of the world’s most iconic big cats to its wild habitat. Teams from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia,…
Tiger range countries meeting next week in St. Petersburg, Russia, for the International Tiger Conservation Forum hosted by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, have been urged by conservation activists to “act decisively now or face a future in which the wild tiger is extinct.” The UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) said: “It as an opportunity to…
Parts of at least 1,069 tigers have been seized in tiger range countries over the past decade, according to an analysis of tiger seizures released today by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network. Wild tiger numbers are in steep decline, caused by a combination of poaching and illegal trade in the animals themselves, coupled with…
As we head into the Chinese Year of the Tiger (starting on February 14), here’s a bit of encouraging news: All 13 tiger-range countries have pledged to double the number of tigers in the wild by 2022, the next Year of the Tiger. NGS stock photo by Michael Nichols Populations of wild tigers have declined to…
Guarded by giant seven-headed serpent gods high on a mountain, on the border between Thailand and Cambodia, is an ancient sacred site that’s often been at the center of conflict. Jon Ortner, photographer and author of the book “Angkor, Celestial Temples of the Khmer Empire,” shares his first encounters and impressions of the thousand-year-old sanctuary Preah Vihear in…
The largest illegal ivory market in Asia–much of it poached from elephants in Africa–continues to thrive in Thailand, according to the latest market surveys by the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC. Photo of ivory Buddhas by Daniel Stiles/TRAFFIC The organization also raises concerns that legal provisions in Thailand governing trade in domesticated elephants are…
Warning: Graphic Imagery Photo courtesy Mekong Waterfront Guard & Natural Resources and Environmental Crime Suppression Division (NRECD) Thailand. The Thai Navy seized two tiger carcasses and 45 pangolins, and arrested eight traffickers who had planned to smuggle the animals across the Mekong River into Laos, TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, said today. “Navy officers…
Smithsonian’s National Zoo photo by Lisa Ware An endangered clouded leopard at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo’s Conservation & Research Center in Front Royal, Virginia, gave birth to a genetically valuable litter of two cubs today. They are the first such births at the special breeding facility in 16 years. “Staff has been on pregnancy watch of the two-and-a-half…
