Seven dead tigers found in car in Vietnam

Yahoo – AFP, July 26, 2019

Three Vietnamese men were arrested after police found seven dead tigers
in their car (AFP Photo/Nam GIANG)

Hanoi (AFP) - A haul of frozen tiger carcasses found in a car in Hanoi has led to the arrest of a key wildlife trafficking suspect, Vietnamese state media said Friday, as the country tries to tackle a well-worn smuggling route from Laos.

Nguyen Huu Hue, who is believed to have smuggled animals in from neighbouring Laos for years, was arrested Thursday with two other people after seven dead tigers were discovered in their vehicle at a parking lot, according to Cong An Nhan Dan newspaper.

"Hue set up a company... which sells building material as a cover for the illegal trading of tigers and wildlife," Cong An Nhan Dan, the official mouthpiece of the Ministry of Public Security, reported.

All seven tigers appeared to be cubs, according to photos of the seizure.

It was not immediately clear if the dead tigers had come from the wild or from the many illegal tiger farms in Laos, which supply much of Asia's demand for tiger meat and parts.

Police have previously busted several other members of the same wildlife trafficking ring, which has been running for several years from a central province which shares a border with Laos.

Vietnam is both a consumption hub and popular smuggling route for illegal wildlife -- from tigers to elephant tusks, pangolins and rhino horn.

Some of it is destined for domestic consumption in Vietnam, while the rest is smuggled on to China.

Tiger parts are used for traditional medicine or jewellery in Vietnam, where the once-large population of the endangered cats has dwindled dramatically.

Their bones are commonly boiled down and mixed with rice wine to make an elixir believed to treat arthritis and promote strength.

The smugglers' arrest in Hanoi follows a record seizure in Singapore this week of nearly nine tonnes of ivory and a huge stash of pangolin scales destined for Vietnam.

Hanoi has long vowed to crack down on the illegal wildlife trade, though conservationists say the black market persists thanks to weak law enforcement.

Manmade ruin adds 7,000 species to endangered 'Red List'

Yahoo – AFP, Patrick GALEY, July 18, 2019

The Roloway Monkey of Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana has fewer than 2,000 left in the
wild (AFP Photo/SEBASTIEN BOZON)

Paris (AFP) - Mankind's destruction of nature is driving species to the brink of extinction at an "unprecedented" rate, the leading wildlife conservation body warned Thursday as it added more than 7,000 animals, fish and plants to its endangered "Red List".

From the canopies of tropical forests to the ocean floor, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said iconic species of primates, rays, fish and trees were now classified as critically endangered.

The group has now assessed more than 105,000 species worldwide, around 28,000 of which risk extinction.

While each group of organisms face specific threats, human behaviour, including overfishing and deforestation, was the biggest driver of plummeting populations.

"Nature is declining at rates unprecedented in human history," said IUCN acting director general, Grethel Aguilar. "We must wake up to the fact that conserving nature's diversity is in our interest."

In May the United Nations released its generational assessment of the state of the environment. It made for grim reading.

The report warned that as many as one million species were now at risk of extinction, many within decades, as human consumption of freshwater, fossil fuels and other natural resources skyrockets.

It found that more than 90 percent of marine fish stocks are now either overfished or fished to the limit of sustainability.

The IUCN singled out a number of sea and freshwater fish that now occupy its highest threat category of "critically endangered" -- the next step on the Red List is extinction.

Wedgefishes and giant guitarfishes, known collectively as Rhino Rays due to their elongated snouts, are now the most imperilled marine families on Earth.

The False Shark Ray is on the brink of extinction after overfishing in the waters off of Mauritania saw its population collapse 80 percent in the last 45 years.

Seven species of primate are closer to extinction on the new list, including the Roloway Monkey of Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana, with fewer than 2,000 individuals left in the wild.

Prime culprits are humans hunting the animals for bushmeat and "severe habitat loss" as forest is converted to land to grow food.

40 percent of all primates in West and Central Africa are now threatened with extinction, according to the IUCN.

"Species targeted by humans for food tend to become endangered much more quickly," Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the IUCN Red List Unit, told AFP.

"Species in environments with lots of deforestation for agriculture end up being impacted."

'Millions of years of evolution'

The updated list shows that over half of Japan's freshwater fish and more than a third of Mexico's are threatened with extinction due to the loss of free-flowing rivers and increasing pollution.

More than 500 deep-sea bony fish and molluscs have been added to the list for the first time posing something of a conservation conundrum as the space they inhabit -- 1,000 metres (3,280 feet) beneath the surface -- is often beyond national boundaries.

"The alarm bell has been sounding again and again concerning the unravelling crisis in freshwater and marine wildlife," said Andrew Terry, director of conservation and policy at the Zoological Society of London.

"Many of these ancient marine species have been around since the age of the dinosaurs and losing just one of these species would represent a loss of millions of years of evolutionary history."

Let's talk about gay penguins: Munich zoo joins Pride week

Yahoo – AFP, Pauline CURTET, July 13, 2019

Biologists say giraffes are bisexual. In some groups, 90 percent of the acts
observed are in fact homosexual in nature (AFP Photo/Christof STACHE)

Munich (Germany) (AFP) - Organisers of this year's Gay Pride week in Munich have a group of rather wild partners -- penguins, giraffes and lions at the city zoo where tours are being run about same-sex love in the animal kingdom.

The Munich zoo has joined Pride week with an unusual look into the intimate lives of all creatures great and small, seeking to boost tolerance among humans.

"It is important for us to talk about" homosexuality in the animal kingdom and show that same-sex love has its place in Nature, said Munich zoo spokesman Dennis Spaeth.

"Because unfortunately in Germany we see more and more people from the reactionary right attacking LGBTQI rights."

While even mostly-Catholic Bavaria has grown more accepting and lawmakers legalised gay marriage in 2017, non-heterosexuals are sometimes still a target for violence.

Police recorded 91 attacks based on the victim's sexual orientation last year.

In the safe confines of the zoo, the first stop on the Pride tour is the giraffes. The blotchy animals spare visitors only occasional curious glances from behind their long eyelashes as they enjoy a meal of hay.

"Giraffes are bisexual. In some groups, 90 percent of the acts observed are in fact homosexual in nature," explained biologist Guenter Strauss.

The Munich zoo has joined Pride week with an unusual look into the intimate lives

of all creatures great and small, seeking to boost tolerance among humans (AFP 

Photo/Christof STACHE)

A few enclosures down, there is little to distinguish a male-male couple of black-faced Humboldt penguins squatting together from other, mixed pairs.

That is until the guide points out that with no egg to care for, the pair has taken to brooding a rock instead.

This is no one-off fling, as "penguins conduct homosexual relationships that can last a whole lifetime, something very rare in the animal kingdom," said Strauss.

Scientific taboo

In fact, hundreds of animal species, from elephants to snakes and birds, display homosexual behaviour.

But unlike most humans, the sexual preference of our four-legged or feathered friends is often quite fluid.

"Among people, we grow up with a specific sexual orientation. That's often not true for animals," said Strauss.

Unlike most humans, the sexual preference of our four-legged or feathered friends 

is often quite fluid (AFP Photo/Christof STACHE)

"They are in fact bisexual. They adopt certain sexual behaviour at specific moments."

One case in point are lions, and the zoo's male big cat greets the group with a loud roar.

"Servus!" responded Strauss in a regional greeting redolent of traditional, conservative Bavarian culture.

"Eight percent of sex acts among lions are homosexual. As for lionesses, they only show lesbian behaviour when they're kept in captivity," he explained.

While same-sex love among animals is commonplace, the topic was long a taboo for scientists of more hidebound eras.

"On one expedition to the South Pole at the start of the 20th century, a doctor saw males (penguins) copulating -- but he left out the pages dealing with the behaviour when he published the results of his research," Strauss recounted.

Considered unpalatable back then, the valuable pages were only rediscovered "eight or nine years ago" in a library in Britain, he added.

Times have changed since then.

London Zoo, for its contribution to Pride week, mounted a banner above its penguin beach, declaring: "Some penguins are gay. Get over it," a nod to a human anti-homophobic campaign.

Nine deer dead in Japan after eating plastic: wildlife group

Yahoo – AFP, July 10, 2019

Tourists are forbidden from feeding the deer any food other than the crackers
(AFP Photo/Behrouz MEHRI)

Tokyo (AFP) - Nine deer have died after swallowing plastic bags in Japan's Nara Park, a wildlife group said on Wednesday, warning that a surge in tourism may be to blame.

The Nara Deer Preservation Foundation said that masses of plastic bags and snack packets were found in the stomachs of the deer which died between March and June this year.

"The biggest litter found in one of the nine amounted to 4.3 kilograms (9.5 pounds)," foundation official Yoshitaka Ashimura told AFP.

"We were surprised. It was so big," he said.

The picturesque park in Japan's ancient capital is home to more than 1,000 deer, which can even be found roaming the streets in search of special tasty crackers offered by tourists.

Tourists are forbidden from feeding the deer any food besides the crackers but Ashimura said some visitors offer the animals other types of snacks.

"The deer probably think that the snacks and the plastic packs covering them are both food," he said, adding the animals normally eat grass and acorns.

"They might also eat plastic bags dropped on the ground," he said, adding that he believed such cases had increased recently "due to the growing number of visitors".

"The only way to prevent this is to remove all the garbage."

The sprawling park that also includes wooden temples and shrines built centuries ago is a major tourist attraction.

The number of tourists visiting Nara city where the park is located has increased in recent years, with 16 million visitors in 2017.

The deer at the park -- numbering on average about 1,200 -- are protected as a national treasure.