Global trade in African grey parrots banned

Yahoo – AFP, October 2, 2016

African Grey parrots on sale at a bird market in Kuwait City (AFP Photo/
Yasser al-Zayyat)

Johannesburg (AFP) - Delegates at a global wildlife conference on Sunday voted to ban international trade in African grey parrots, one of the world's most trafficked birds.

Prized for their ability to mimic human speech, the birds are a highly sought-after pet, but their numbers have been decimated in recent years by poaching and the destruction of their forest habitats.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting in Johannesburg voted 95 to 35 in a secret poll to ban the global commercial trade of the parrot.

The African grey parrot will now have 

"the highest level of protection" (AFP

Photo/Ronaldo Schemidt)

CITES said the vote result would give the African grey the "highest level of protection" by listing it in "appendix 1", which outlaws all international trade in animals facing possible extinction.

Dr Colman O'Criodain of conservation group WWF called the move "a huge step forward" in protecting the bird.

"Fraud and corruption have enabled traffickers to vastly exceed current quotas and continue to harvest unsustainable numbers of African grey parrots from Congo’s forests to feed the illegal trade," he said.

"Banning the trade will make it easier for law enforcement agencies to crack down on the poachers and smugglers, and give the remaining wild populations some much-needed breathing space."

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) estimates that between 2.1 and 3.2 million African greys were captured between 1975 and 2013.

Susan Lieberman of the Wildlife Conservation Society said the parrot had experienced "significant population declines throughout its range in West, Central and East Africa".

"It is extremely rare or locally extinct in Benin, Burundi, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Togo," she said in a statement

"If this bird could talk –- and it certainly can -– the African grey parrot would say thank you."

The CITES treaty, signed by 182 countries and the European Union, protects about 5,600 animal and 30,000 plant species from over-exploitation through commercial trade.

The 12-day conference, which ends on Wednesday, is sifting through 62 proposals to tighten or loosen trade restrictions on around 500 species.

Eyes on elephants as Google cameras snap Kenya reserve

Yahoo - AFP, September 15, 2015

A Google Street View vehicle collects imagery for Google Maps while driving down

a street in Calais, northern France, on July 29, 2015 (AFP Photo/Philippe Huguen)

Samburu (Kenya) (AFP) - For once, Google was unlikely to face privacy complaints as the US Internet giant on Tuesday launched its Street View service in Kenya's Samburu park, in a move conservationists said could help protect endangered elephants.

Special cameras have taken panoramic images of the reserve while driving down dusty tracks -- and have also been fixed to a backpack to penetrate deep into the bush.

Some of Google's previous Street View forays have brought complaints on privacy grounds.

A lioness stands near an oryx at the Samburu

National Park in Kenya (AFP Photo/

Pedro Ugarte)

But this time there were no demands to blur out faces -- the main residents of the 165 square kilometre (65 square mile) reserve are 900 elephants.

The idea is to allow viewers to click and view the elephant herds close up.

"We hope that by bringing Street View to Samburu, we will inspire people around the world to gain a deeper appreciation for elephants," said Farzana Khubchandani of Google Kenya.

Slightly larger than a basketball, Google's camera contains 15 individual fixed-focus lenses that simultaneously capture a 360 degree image roughly every three metres.

The Kenya project was launched in collaboration with conservation group Save the Elephants.

"It's exciting to open a window onto Samburu, and to help us better protect its elephants," said Save the Elephants chief Iain Douglas-Hamilton, speaking in Samburu, some 300 kilometres (185 miles) north of the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

Kenya is struggling to stem poaching to protect its remaining elephant population -- currently estimated at 30,000 -- and just over a thousand rhinos.

With ivory raking in thousands of dollars a kilo in Asia, conservationists have warned that African elephants could be extinct in the wild within a generation.

"Giving people a virtual tour will bring Samburu to the world, and inspire the world to come to Samburu," county governor Moses Lenolkulal said.

"The more people experience our culture, our people and the majestic elephants and other wildlife with which we co-exist, the more we are able to conserve and sustain the Samburu culture and its fragile ecosystem for generations to come."

One-year ban on ivory carving imports to China

Want China Times, Xinhua 2015-02-28

Elephants in Amboseli National Park in Kenya, July 16, 2014. (Photo/Xinhua)

Chinese authorities on Thursday announced a one-year ban on imports of African ivory carvings acquired in accordance with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

In a brief statement on its website, the State Forestry Administration said it would halt administrative approval for the imports until Feb. 26, 2016.

The agency said the move is to protect African elephants, and the one-year timeframe is designed to assess the effects.

The sale of ivory is legal in China if the activities conform with certain regulations. Imports of ivory and its products must gain approval from the State Forestry Administration.

According to the rules, raw elephant ivory and its products should be processed at designated places, sold at fixed shops and tracked on an individual item basis. Each legal ivory product can be tracked through a unique photo ID and is recorded in a database.

Related Articles:

Chinese officials 'on illegal African ivory buying sprees'

UN Security Council declares war on ivory poachers, traffickers

Pakistan prepares for Saudi royal to hunt 'protected' birds

Yahoo – AFP, 2 Feb 2015

A falcon (R) tries to catch a Houbara bustard during a falconry competition,

 part of the 2014 International Festival of Falconry, in Hameem, 150km west of

 Abu Dhabi, on December 9, 2014 (AFP Photo/Karim Sahib)

Quetta (Pakistan) (AFP) - Pakistani authorities are finalising arrangements for a Saudi prince to visit its southwestern desert region to hunt the Houbara bustard, a bird supposedly protected by law, officials said Monday.

An advance party has already been reached the Yak Much desert in the province of Baluchistan along with falcons which will be used to catch the bustard, officials said.

Saudi Prince Fahd bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz is expected to join the group in coming days. He led a hunting party to Baluchistan last year that officials said killed more than 2,000 bustards.

The birds are listed as "vulnerable" and declining in numbers by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's "Red List" of threatened species. Hunting them is banned in Pakistan.

But authorities issue special permits to wealthy visitors from Arab countries. Permit holders are in theory restricted to hunting a maximum of 100 of the protected birds over 10 days, but only in certain areas.

A Houbara bustard flies during a falconry competition -- part of the 2014

 International Festival of Falconry -- in Hameem, 150km west of Abu Dhabi,

on December 9, 2014 (AFP Photo/Karim Sahib)

Saifullah Zehri, district forest officer for wildlife in Chagai district of which Yak Much is a part, told AFP the advance party arrived on Sunday in a C-130 transport plane.

"They were fully equipped and had all the material which is required for bird hunting," Zehri said.

Arab sheikhs are known as enthusiastic hunters, travelling to Pakistan each year to hunt the bird using the traditional Arabian method. They arrive by private jets from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

According to conservative estimates, between 500,000 and a million birds of all species migrate through Pakistan each year -- flying south from Siberia to pass the winter in Central and South Asia.

Hunt: Fahd bin Sultan is said to have killed

1,977 houbara bustards in just 21 days while

on holiday

Related Articles:

Bustard act: Saudi prince accused of slaying 2,000 near-extinct birds while on safari in Pakistan (April 24, 2014)

Tanzania ditches plan to evict Masai for Serengeti 'wildlife corridor'

Botswana to ban wildlife hunting

Spain's King Juan Carlos poses in front of a dead elephant

on a hunting trip in Botswana, Africa. Photograph: Target

Press/Barcroft Media

Spain's king ousted as WWF honorary president

Spain's King Juan Carlos under fire over elephant hunting trip

Bustard act: Saudi prince accused of slaying 2,000 near-extinct birds while on safari in Pakistan

• Fahd bin Sultan is said to have killed 1,977 houbara bustards in 21 days
• He had been granted a permit to kill a certain number within a small area
• But it is claimed he far exceeded his allowance and hunted in banned zone
• Arab royals have long hunted houbara, considering its meat an aphrodisiac
• Bird is covered by protection laws but Pakistan can grant special permits
• Hunting sees global houbara population shrink by 30 per cent annually

Daily Mail, John Hall, 22 April 2014

Hunt: Fahd bin Sultan is said to have killed
1,977 houbara bustards in just 21 days while
on holiday

A Saudi prince has been accused of killing 2,000 birds that are on the verge of extinction while on a safari holiday in Pakistan earlier this year.

Prince Fahd bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud - who is commonly known as Fahd bin Sultan - is said to have killed 1,977 near-extinct houbara bustards while on a 21-day trip to Chagai in Pakistan's Balochistan province in January.

An additional 123 bustards - which are covered by laws to protect endangered species - were slaughtered by members of the prince's travelling party, bringing the total killed to 2,100.

Fahd bin Sultan, 63 -the governor of Saudi Arabia's Tabuk Province and the second eldest son of late Crown Prince Sultan - is accused of hunting illegally in protected areas, according to a report by Karachi-based Dawn News.

The website claims to have seen a document titled ‘Visit of Prince Fahd bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud regarding hunting of houbara bustard' which they say was prepared by Jaffar Baloch - a divisional officer in the local forest and wildlife department.

The report allegedly says the prince and his party hunted for 21 days - from Jan 11, 2014 to Jan 31 - and had been granted special permits by the Pakistani federal government which allow important visitors to bypass laws preventing the hunting of houbaras.

These permits still require the recipient to kill no more than 100 birds over a 10-day period however, and only allow them to do so in certain areas.

More...

• Miracle of the elephant which survived poacher's POISON ARROW: young bull was able to walk away after vets found and treated him
• A horse, a horse, a Smart Car for my horse! Two-foot high Argentinian Falabella is too small for a horsebox - so gets about in the back of smallest car on the road

It is not known if Fahd bin Sultan or any or his party will face punishments for violating the rules over how many birds they killed and for hunting with falcons outside the specified areas.

Houbaras are highly valued by Arab royals, who consider the meat to be an aphrodisiac.

For decades sheikhs have travelled to remote areas of Pakistan in time for the bird to make its winter migration from Central Asia. India banned the hunting of houbaras in early 1979.

At risk: Hunting in Pakistani sees the global houbara population shrink by
 between 20 and 30 per cent annually. Houbaras are highly valued by Arab royals,
who consider their meat to be an aphrodisiac

The ongoing hunting in Pakistan has seen global houbara numbers fall to around 110,000 - with that figure decreasing by between 20 and 30 per cent every year.

After a particularly aggressive hunting season last year, Pakistan introduced an interim ban on killing the birds.

The move proved popular with local environmental campaigners who have grown tired of Arab sheikhs flouting hunting laws, but the Pakistani government appears to have subsequently eased the restrictions, issuing at least 33 houbara hunting permits already this year.

One reason they are likely to have done so is because Arab royals bring a huge economic boost to the poor regions in which they hunt.

They are said to travel in a convoy of private jets while on safari, with some transport planes given over purely to falcons and hunting equipment.

The sheikhs also make large donations while travelling in Pakistan's poor rural areas - paying for new schools and mosques to be built, as well as funding the repair of rundown roads and airports.

Read more:

Arab royal hunts down 2,100 houbara bustards in three week safari

Related Article:

Botswana to ban wildlife hunting

Spain's King Juan Carlos poses in front of a dead elephant

on a hunting trip in Botswana, Africa. Photograph: Target

Press/Barcroft Media

Spain's king ousted as WWF honorary president

Spain's King Juan Carlos under fire over elephant hunting trip

Monkeys slaughtered for meat market on Bioko

Oil money has been flowing into Equatorial Guinea for two decades now, prompting inflation. On Bioko island, the price of monkey meat has soared, making it a status symbol that threatens the primates' existence.

Deutsche Welle, 11 October 2013

Charred monkey meat for sale at a market

Shoppers jostle amongst the stalls at a market in the capital city of Malabo, on Bioko Island. As the northernmost part of Equatorial Guinea, the island is 32 kilometers (20 miles) off the African coast. Oil money has been flowing into Equatorial Guinea for almost 20 years, making it the richest per capita of the Sub-Saharan African countries. For those who've managed to profit, there's no shortage of items on which to splurge. Vendors sell everything from music and football jerseys to traditional medicine.

Tucked away in the back corner is a line of men with blowtorches and machetes, standing over tables topped with metallic grates. They are preparing bushmeat - the meat of local wild animals - from giant rat to forest antelope.

A shopper waiting near the table says the blowtorch is used to clean the animals before they are sold. She says the meat is from the forest. Today she's buying pangolin, a cat-sized mammal covered in scales that resemble the outside of an artichoke. It costs 20 thousand Central African Francs, or about 30 euros ($40).

A monkey carcass has just appeared - the second one this morning. The carcass is charred black, but its face, long tail and slender fingers are unmistakably monkey. The vendors aren't thrilled to see foreigners. Outsiders can only stay for a few minutes before the man singeing the monkey meat makes a menacing gesture with his machete.

Status symbol

The Pennant’s Red Colobus is one of top
25 most endangered primates in the
world.Only 5,000 remain

According to the Bioko Biodiversity Protection Program (BBPP) more than 240,000 carcasses have been sold over the past decade and a half. About a fifth of those were monkeys.

Drew Cronin, a biologist from Philadelphia's Drexel University, has been analyzing data gathered by the BBPP.

He said oil money makes it unnecessary for locals to eat bushmeat - but inflation is turning Bioko bushmeat into a status symbol.

"The inflation in Malabo from the petroleum industry has caused the bushmeat prices to go to a point where the average person cannot afford it," Cronin said. "The argument that you have on the mainland in West Africa, where people need this for sustenance, does not apply on this island. It's definitely a luxury item."

Bushmeat is commonly consumed in West Africa, but there is a ban on monkey meat. This is intended to protect the primates, but it's also a public health measure. Eating monkey meat can lead to the transmission of diseases between animals and humans.

Nevertheless, monkey remains a rare delicacy here. Cronin likens it to having a lobster dinner.

"There's definitely a status involved ‘look at what I've provided at this table,'" Cronin said.

Instead of deterring poachers, a ban passed in 2007 had the opposite effect. It turned monkey meat into a sought-after status symbol. Since the ban, the number of monkeys coming through the bushmeat market has increased.

"It went up to levels that were double to triple the number of primates that were being sold prior to the ban," Cronin said. "With no enforcement it had no effect."

Threatened existence

Volunteer scientists conduct a wildlife
 census on the island of Bioko, Equatorial
Guinea

Bioko's monkeys are a rare sight these days - they have been hunted out across the island. A few populations can be found in the Gran Caldera de Luba Reserve - a remote area in the south.

This is where primatologist Katie Gondor does her work. On a visit to the forest, she squints in the direction of a flash of movement on a forest trail in the reserve. She whispers so as not to scare off the monkey.

“I couldn't really tell what it was, but when it moves quiet and slow like that, it makes me suspect it's a colobus." Gondor is collecting data for the Bioko Biodiversity Protection Program. A small group of young scientists - including both Americans and locals - walk carefully behind her. They are carrying notebooks, binoculars and GPS tracking equipment.

After a few false alarms - a squirrel, a parrot - they hit the monkey jackpot. Different species are sitting together in a tree on a cliff overlooking a river gorge. A family of black colobus is sleeping and munching on leaves.

Later, the researchers surprise a Pennant's Red Colobus - the primate begins to shriek at the scientists. Locals refer to the Pennant's Red Colobus as the 'brave monkey' because it confronts danger with these loud calls and refuses to run away.

When humans started hunting with guns the colobus' survival mechanism made it an easy target for hunters. The Pennant's Red Colobus is one of the most endangered primates in the world. Since the late 1980s, the population has been cut nearly in half. Less than 5,000 remain today.

Activists on the airwaves

There are people in Bioko who want to save these monkeys - and they are using radio to build a protection movement. Prospero Rivas and Antonio Manuel have created Bioko's first environmental radio program, broadcast every Friday on Radio Songa. Recent graduates of the National University of Equatorial Guinea, they encourage listeners to protect Bioko's unique flora and fauna.

Antonio Manuel (left) and Prospero Rivas (right) broadcast on Radio Songa in
Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. The pair founded the country's first radio program
dedicated to environmental issues.

"We are leaving the environment almost empty," Rivas said. "We are eating - we are consuming - this biodiversity, without any kind of compassion. We were speaking about this in our programs. We want to preserve everything that is still left for as long as possible."

Manuel says that even though the radio show is only a few months old, they're already starting to see results.

"I was with my neighbors. And it sounds kind of crazy but they were like ‘No we don't wanna keep eating red meat anymore,' and I was like 'Oh my gosh! Thank you!'" Manuel said. "A local saying they aren't going to keep eating bushmeat. I think it's great."

Although the pair's passion comes through on air, it remains to be seen if their message will create change fast enough to save the monkeys and other wildlife on Bioko.