Save the Pangolin from the dinner plate

Save the Pangolin from the dinner plate

We all love the Panda for its cuddly bear looks, we all love the Giraffe for its gentle majestic looks, and we all love the Elephant for its family virtues and as a mastodon of earth but lets find a place for those that are not know,unloved or cared about. This poor creature needs as much help as it can get. One may thinks it is odd or ugly or strange (So are we to it) but it is also a mother living on earth and deserves every right we give to others

Conservationists are battling to save the pangolin, the most illegally traded animal in the world, before it is “eaten to extinction”

Prince William recently quipped that the bizarre creatures, which are the world’s only scaly mammals, run “the risk of becoming extinct before most people have even heard of them”

Pangolins are a protected species in Namibia, yet poaching, primarily for a growing local and international market in "traditional" medicines, has led to a dramatic drop in pangolin numbers. Some neighbouring countries have recorded a "huge increase" in pangolin trafficking over the last ten years, mainly to supply a growing Chinese market. The problem with assessing the damage to the pangolin populations is a lack of research due to the difficulties involved in monitoring these nocturnal rare and endangered animals.

Hong Kong celebrity Sharon Kwok's tragic pangolin encounter
Activist actress recounts her experience on the front line of the fight to stop pangolin poaching and return rescued specimens to the wild.

It is my first trip to Sumatra, in Indonesia. I received a call from a friend on April 25 saying there had been a large, pangolin-related seizure and that this would be a good chance for me to do some research. So I hopped onto a plane and, on April 27, I am at a press conference being held at the scene of the crime: a seafood warehouse in Medan.

Upon arrival, we are greeted by members of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Wildlife Crimes Unit and officials in police or forestry department uniforms. A cocktail of smells assaults my nose - seafood, unwashed bodies, cigarettes and an unfamiliar stench: that of pangolin excrement and death. Frozen pangolins and parts are stored in two freezers, bags of scales are in a storeroom and the largest room holds 50 or so plastic poultry crates, the festive colours at odds with the cruelty being suffered by the 100 or so creatures inside.

I've never held a pangolin and I learn that these domestic-cat-sized animals must be handled with care. I pick up a large male, probably the strongest specimen of the lot, which was perhaps not the wisest choice: my wrists are now crisscrossed with small scratches from his scales.

These gentle forest animals never attack. If threatened, they roll into a ball for protection. This may protect them from lions or leopards but it's no defence against their greatest predator: man.

Why Hong Kong must embrace its wild side

After the press conference, the living pangolins are loaded onto a truck, to begin a four-hour trip to freedom. At a midway stop for food and fuel, I check the animals and find several more have died - the stress of captivity tends to kill pangolins, which is why you rarely find them in zoos - while those still alive are either too weak and traumatised to move or are extremely parched and greedily lap the water I provide. I take a baby away from a mother that appears too traumatised to care for her young, to safeguard it from being crushed.

At dusk we stop, but the crates still need to be carried deeper into the forest. I return the young pangolin to his mother and am happy to see he is strong and immediately starts feeding. His mother is still not doing very well, though.

Ninety-four pangolins are set free and the last I let go are the mother and baby I looked after. I carry them into bushes and lay them down gently. She is curled up tightly but he manages to squirm into the hollow of her belly - and that is the last I will see of them. It is an image I will never forget.

PANGOLINS ARE SHY, nocturnal animals that live in forests. They don't have teeth but they do have sticky tongues that are longer than their bodies, which they use to feed on termites and ants. Their sharp, strong claws help break apart wood and other hard surfaces beneath which their food can be found. Due to their unique diet, they control pests and help maintain the soil quality of forests.

Pangolins are the only mammals fully covered in scales, which are made of keratin, the same material present in our fingernails and hair, and in rhino horns. Although there is no supporting scientific research, some traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioners claim that when dried and roasted, pangolin scales can relieve palsy, stimulate lactation and help drain pus.

The scales can sell on the black market for more US$3,000 a kilogram and the whole animal is eaten in dishes popular in Vietnam and China. As a result, all eight species of pangolins now feature on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of animals threatened with extinction.

Pangolins are currently the most commonly trafficked type of wildlife. Last year, it was estimated that more than 100,000 pangolins were being poached annually. Judging by the number of seizures so far this year, it could be much more than that now. The past few weeks alone have seen several large confiscations of pangolin scales across the mainland, and, in June last year, three tonnes, worth HK$2 million, were discovered after they had been smuggled into Hong Kong from Kenya. Media reports from India and Pakistan indicate a lot of smuggling is going on across the borders with China.

THE DAY AFTER the pangolins were set free, the contents of the freezers along with other recent seizures of trafficked pangolins are destroyed. A large pit is dug and filled roughly four deep with dead animals. It is impossible to do an exact count - some animals have already been chopped into pieces - but about 4,000 dead pangolins go up in flames; 4,000 fewer members of a unique, vital and ancient species that faces extinction due to greed, misinformation and indifference.

It is easy to point fingers but these animals are being taken from the wild by people who have little to no income. It is difficult to control poaching when a single pangolin can bring in enough money to feed a family for months.

Also, the pangolin's habitats are disappearing at an alarming rate due to deforestation for palm-oil plantations.

The answer to saving the pangolin from extinction lies in urgent education and responsible government.

There are alternatives to using pangolin products in TCM, even if one believes the ingredients are effective. We can read labels carefully to spot and avoid products that contain palm oil or purchase only those labelled as containing sustainable palm oil. Last but not least, governments need to put a stop to continued extensive habitat destruction in order to protect and preserve biodiversity for future generations. (Taken from an article at http://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1831649/hong-kong-celebrity-sharon-kwoks-tragic-pangolin-encounter)

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Why shoot a 14ft gentle giant - Giraffe

Why shoot a 14ft gentle giant - Giraffe

The iconic Giraffe Manor, located in Nairobi, Kenya should be on everyone's bucket list. Sharing your breakfast with the endangered Rothschild Giraffe is an incredible, totally unique experience. When planning your safari it is the perfect start or finish to what will undoubtedly be a magical trip.

Facts
Giraffa camelopardalis

The closest related animal to the giraffe is the okapi.

Also on the endangered list

Giraffes primarily eat leaves, especially from acacia, mimosa, and wild apricot trees. Their long, bluish, and flexible tongues can extend up to 18 inches to pluck leaves. Because they obtain moisture from the breakdown of leaves during digestion, giraffes can go for months without water.

Giraffes are born after a gestation of 15 months. Newborn giraffes can stand on their own within about 20 minutes and may be 6.5 feet tall at birth. The calves double their height within a year. Male giraffes are larger than females and can grow to 17 feet tall and weigh between 1,200 and 4,250 pounds.

Giraffes can live up to 25 years in the wild and even longer in captivity.
The giraffe has one of the shortest sleep requirements of any mammal, averaging less than two hours per day. It also has the longest tail—at about 8 feet.

Giraffes are essentially silent animals but can grunt, snort, whistle, and bleat.

There are nine subspecies of giraffes in Africa, each distinguished by geographic location and the colour, pattern and shape of their spotted coats.

The animals in Niger are known as Giraffa camelopardalis peralta, the most endangered subspecies in Africa. They have large orange-brown spots that fade into pale white legs.

Ten years ago, an estimated 140,000 giraffes inhabited Africa, according to Julian Fennessy, a Nairobi, Kenya-based conservation expert. Today, giraffes number less than 100,000, devastated by poaching, war, advancing deserts and exploding human populations that have destroyed and fragmented their habitats. Around half the giraffes live outside game parks in the wild, where they are more difficult to monitor and protect, Fennessy said.

Giraffe hunting is prohibited in many countries. And some, like Kenya, have taken giraffe meat off the menu of tourist restaurants that once served them up on huge skewers. Even so. The plight of giraffes has largely been overlooked in conservation circles.

Is this really fun for all the family? The giraffe hunters who pay £10,000 to shoot the gentle giants with guns and bows for sport.

Tourist trophy hunters are paying thousands of pounds to go and shoot giraffes with high-powered guns and bows.

The gentle giants are loved around the world for their comical appearance and gentle nature.

But shocking images show how scores of big-spending men and women - and even families - travel from across the globe, some even from Britain, to kill them for sport.

 

Not all Giraffe are the same

The latest statistic show the number of giraffes in the world have nearly halved since 1988 from over 140,000 to less than 80,000.

Dr. Julian Fennessy produced the report for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

Another recent IUCN report suggests the giraffe may already need to be listed as a threatened species - because some populations are being decimated in places like West Africa and DR Congo.

They are already thought to be extinct in Angola, Mali and Nigeria.

It is without doubt that many animals on planet earth are under threat by humans, all that some of us can do is create awareness in anyway we can. 

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Save our wild Scottish cat

Save our wild Scottish cat

The Scottish wildcat is going extinct: an irreplaceable feature of our natural and cultural heritage, and our only surviving native feline, it has survived centuries of intense deforestation and persecution. It is losing the battle to hybridisation: cross-mating with feral domestic cats, which outnumber wildcats by 1000:1 across the Highlands.

There may only be 35 pure Scottish wildcats left, which face an impossible task finding each other to produce the next generation.

Over the last ten years statutory agencies have spent half a million pounds of public money talking about saving the wildcat, whilst over the last five years Wildcat Haven has spent less than £100,000 of grants and donations from the US, China, commercial sponsors and the international general public creating a vast, threat-free haven where the Scottish wildcat can thrive again.

This is the only chance that the pure wildcat has, and over the next five years we will expand to over 800 square miles and start bringing the true wildcat back.

These cats matter: evolved by nature for millions of years to fit perfectly into our ecology, we are losing them to apathy, indecision and irresponsible ownership of pet cats: a species that heavily over-populates putting intense pressure on native species and greatly damaging the environment.

Report a Sighting

Sighting reports from the general public, crofters, farmers and gamekeepers are valuable data for a rarely seen species. Whilst it is exceptionally rare for people to glimpse truly pure Scottish wildcats, sightings and assessments of hybrids do allow some estimation of where wildcats still remain and the potential size of the population.

We are particularly interested in sightings in the West Highlands, though if you think you may have seen one somewhere else we're always interested in hearing about it.

Please do read through the identification details below: hybrids look extremely similar to wildcats and we often receive sightings which look very little like wildcats! If you think what you saw came close then please e-mail any details you can remember about the cat and location, along with any photos or video, to:
sightings@wildcathaven.co.uk

Your name, email address and all details provided to us will be held in perpetuity on a database maintained by us and utilised for identifying areas with potential for pure wildcats. The data will be shared with legitimate research efforts benefiting wildcats by recognised experts and organisations who commit to respecting data protection and privacy laws in their use of the database.

Identification
Telling Scottish wildcats from domestic cats is simple, but telling them from hybrids which can take many forms is very difficult. Text books, news articles and research papers are littered with images of hybrid cats labelled as wildcats.

You can help them and every penny/cent counts.

Here is where I have set up a crowd fund project for them

http://www.nextlevelafrica.community/project_details.html?projid=MTUzNQ%3D%3D

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Are you engaged in saving wildlife

Are you engaged in saving wildlife

Would you take the poll please

http://vote.pollcode.com/35837839

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Technology can help - DRONES

Technology can help them - DRONES

Air Shepherd Drones

Stop
Elephant & Rhino
Poaching

Extraordinary Increase in Elephant and
Rhino Poaching Deaths Threatens

EXTINCTION

40,000 elephants and over 1,200 rhinos killed by poachers in a single year. 

At that rate both will be extinct within 10 years. In the last half-dozen years there has been an exponential increase in the killing of elephants and rhinos by poachers, Throughout Africa, over 100,000 elephants were killed between 2010 and the end of 2012 – 40,000 in 2013 alone.

Illegal poaching: $70 billion dollars a year and growing. Elephants are slaughtered for their tusks, then their ivory is carved into trinkets. China and the U.S. lead the countries that are driving the demand for ivory tusks. A single tusk can be worth more than US$ 75,000.

Rhino horns are worth over $65,000 per kilo on the black market. Criminal gangs are involved as it’s worth more than gold. The skyrocketing values of tusks (up to US$ 150,000) and horns (as much as US$ 500,000) generate extraordinary profits.

The problem is new, and accelerating rapidly 

Vietnam’s thirst for powdered rhino horn is a new phenomenon. It didn’t exist 10 years ago. This isn’t based on an age-old tradition or eastern medicine.

Opportunists making outrageous claims regarding the power of rhino horn have created a booming market based on ignorance and greed. The rapid increase in the Chinese middle class is fueling the huge demand for carved ivory. Rhinos used to roam in the jungles of Vietnam. But not one rhino is left. They have all been slaughtered for their horns, and the Javan Rhino is now extinct.

We’ve developed a proven way to stop poaching. In one location in South Africa where up to 19 rhinos were being killed a month, none died during the six months that we flew there. The poaching stopped.

At the present rate of killing, all elephants and rhinos will be dead within ten years, but you can help us assure that that doesn’t happen. You can literally help save these magnificent animals from extinction.  

Someday you will be able to tell your grandchildren, “Elephants and rhinos are still here because I helped to fund the program that saved their lives.”

We have the technology, we have the people, we have the experience, we know it works.  Now, we just need your support. 

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The last stronghold until extinction - Virunga

The last stronghold until extinction - Virunga

Intro about the Virunga park

 VIRUNGA IS THE INCREDIBLE TRUE STORY OF A GROUP OF BRAVE PEOPLE RISKING THEIR LIVES TO BUILD A BETTER FUTURE IN A PART OF AFRICA THE WORLD'S FORGOTTEN AND A GRIPPING EXPOSE OF THE REALITIES OF LIFE IN THE CONGO

 A small corridor in a great continent lies the last Silver back

Colony of Apes

Without the rangers there would be no park. Over 130 have been killed protecting
the park leaving wives and children behind in the name of conversation.
This is just not about just the Ape but all species of Fauna and Flora

Meet the Rangers who risk their lives to protect gorillas and other wild life
as they fight to keep the park safe




The sting operation

Click image to website

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YOU WILL BE NOT JUST DONATING TO THE PARK
BUT FOR ALL INVOLVED IN ITS

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Elephants the last Mastodons

 Elephants the last Mastodons

 

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Unless Western and African nations can turn things around fast

In order to protect the 400,000 or so left

Then the elephants of Africa, pretty much all of them, 
will soon be gone.

This is just Africa

(Courtesy of http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/

2014/08/140818-elephants-africa-poaching-cites-census/)

12 million elephants south of the Sahara in the early 1900's, We have executed more than that have died naturally, and average age is 60/70 yrs so there is no hiding the fact that we are totally responsible.

How many of us have or have had a Ivory product? well I am guilty there although not from a elephant but some other animal. The point being is, it was bought by me (many moons ago when I was naive and didn't really know why I bought it in the first place, other than it was fixed in silver and looked nice, how stupid) and in doing so gave premise to keep killing for ivory, profit made by seller, kill more for ivory, sell more product. I gave my stamp of approval. And that does not make me feel very good.

As if elephants do not have enough to contend with 

as this brave little feller faces a lion pack

We take them from there habitats put them in circus's, the elephant escapes (I wonder why) and ends in a world he knows nothing about

Hit by a bus.

Where he should have been

Hit by a train, elephants roam India and are protected species and well into Indian culture

how ever India is a growing country with mass populations and progress

A fatality of such and this is not a unusual site to see.

And man (Past)

And (Present)

All of the pretty things that you can wear, put on a shelf
or hang as a trophy

Oh! look at all these MEMORIES

Is this the representation of our love of the elephant and other creatures. Something magical that must be carved into pieces so that we may remember them when they have gone from the wild. And to be grateful that we can still see them in zoos as a reminder, we did not kill them all. Saving some for generations to see, like live exhibits rather than the stuffed ones in the museums or on someones wall. 

When I was much younger I read many books and movies about the world and was awed by what was around me. The world to me then was a very innocent place and I wanted to see it. As part of my career path I joined the Merchant navy and did see so much of it but not in the way I thought as I saw in books and movies. The real truth started coming out and I saw a different world. Books films and other media will only show what you ask but go out there and let roads take you places and you then realise there is much going on and not all good.

It has been many years since those days and like everyone of us, you also find the same and if it hits you smack in the face you might just realise that you cannot just let it happen ( I speak about wild life, yours could be about hunger). There are many ways to help wildlife even by the spread of the word as this blog is doing, creating awareness of the plight of many. 

Money is not always the answer. Education and the will of all to understand the value of everything put on this earth will be the day when man joins hands together for the benefit of our existence and all others. How can we work with it all instead of removing it as an answer, this is where we are at.

Quote from: Edgar Allen Poe.....

I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect on humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. 

Steven Hawkins
I am adding this from Steven Hawkins. You have heard the saying ''What goes around'' ''Comes around''. Stephen Hawking on 'Into the Universe': Stephen Hawking warns that humans should stop trying to talk to aliens, because they may want to destroy us

 Courtesy of
 http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/stephen-hawking-universe-stephen-hawking-contact-aliens-killed-article-1.165374

Please say thank you from the supplier of those lovely objects above

A chainsaw was used on this elephant

UPDATE:  14/03/2015
Something has come along that can help change
the destiny of the Rhino
please watch

Please donate NOW

On my post about Orangutans and palm oil plantations. 

Thankfully for these elephants there is hope

Nature may have taken much from us but do we need to help it

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Tiger-100,000-Less than 3,200 tigers exist in the wild today.

Tiger-100,000 - Less than 3,200 tigers exist in the wild today

If wild tigers are continued to be killed, they could become extinct within 20 years.

The Tiger - Panthera tigris, is one of the largest and most powerful predators to stride our planet.

In the usually dispassionate language of science, the tiger is anointed as a "charismatic species" - In other words, an animal possessed of both beauty and rare mystique.

Yet while the tiger is celebrated in folk legends and mythologies throughout the world, its presence on earth is greatly threatened.

Fewer than 3,200 tigers now survive in the wild, and extinction in our lifetime is a real possibility.

FROM

TO

THIS

Traditional Chinese Medicine: "Nearly every part of this cat, from nose to tail ‎ (eyes, whiskers, brains, flesh, blood, organs and more) has been used to treat a lengthy list of maladies.

Tiger parts are purported to heal the liver and kidneys, to cure everything from epilepsy, baldness, toothaches, joint pain and boils to ulcers, nightmares, fevers, and headaches. They’re also used to treat rat bites and laziness and are thought to prevent possession by evil demons. Tiger penis is said to have aphrodisiac powers.

China formally banned domestic trade of tiger bone in 1993. The next year, some Chinese medical practitioners publicly repudiated the use and efficacy of tiger remedies; today, very few pharmacies still openly carry remedies containing tiger products. But the market slipped underground and shadowy networks still thrive.

Though tiger hunting is illegal everywhere, the killing has continued, and in some places, it’s accelerated.

Prices for tigers, dead or alive, continue to soar as populations collapse. Poaching for their bones (and skins) has become a primary threat to their survival."

NOW CAN ANYONE TELL ME IF THIS WORKS FOR THEM?

Bile: Used to treat convulsions in children
Blood: Used to strengthen the constitution and build willpower
Bone: Used as an anti-inflammatory to arthritis, rheumatism, back problems, general weakness, or headaches; also considered a powerful tonic
Brain: A treatment for laziness and pimples
Claws: A sedative for sleeplessness
Eyeballs: A treatment for malaria and epilepsy, nervousness or fevers in children, convulsions and cataracts
Fat: Prescribed for dog bites, vomiting, hemorrhoids
Faeces: A cure for boils, hemorrhoids and alcoholism
Flesh: Used to treat nausea and malaria, to bring vitality and tone the stomach and spleen
Feet: Used to ward off evil spirits
Fur: Is burnt to drive away centipedes
Nose leather: Used to treat bites and other superficial wounds, for epilepsy and children’s convulsions
Penis: Used as an aphrodisiac or love potion
Skin: Used to cure fever caused by ghosts and mental illness
Stomach: Prescribed for stomach upsets
Teeth: Prescribed for rabies, asthma, and genital sores
Tail: Used to cure skin diseases
Whiskers: Used to treat toothaches

I HAVE NEVER READ SUCH BS AS ABOVE

Wildife crime is a highly organised and violent business.

It fuels a massive illegal trade that has an estimated value of US$19 billion a year and involves organized criminal networks that are often involved in drugs and human trafficking.

Tigers are poached for their fur, bones and organs (which are sold as delicacies in restaurants) or used in traditional medicines and as status symbols.

The illegal tiger trade is growing because of a claim in Far Eastern culture and Traditional Chinese Medicine that tiger parts can cure human illnesses. This is scientifically unproven.

Claims include that consuming a tiger eyeball will help cure epilepsy; or that tiger bone wine will help cure arthritis.

The demand for tiger skins and tiger bone wine is booming as wealthy businessmen buy these goods to prove their wealth. These products are also used as bribes for promotions within corporations.

Running out of home

 

Everyone one of us can help all wildlife you have no excuse not to $1.00 £1.00 + all helps

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