Wildlife Conservation – Page 2 – PROTECT ALL WILDLIFE

Should Wildlife Tourism Be Banned In India?

Tiger T42 – Fateh. A dominant tiger of Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve, he rules over Qualiji area. He is named after the legendary conservationist, synonymous with Ranthambhore, Fateh Singh Rathore-A tribute to a great man.

Wildlife Tourism in India has always been a controversial matter. In 2010, a Public Interest Litigation was filed by tiger activist Ajay Dubey, claiming that the industry was becoming unsustainable and exploitative. As per the 2006 Amendment of the Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972, “critical Tiger and wildlife habitats” must be inviolate for the vital growth of tiger populations. Any form of human activity was deemed a threat to Tiger conservation. It was on this basis that, on the 24th of July 2012, the Supreme Court ordered a temporary ban on tourism in the core zone of Tiger reserves. The ban stirred significant debate amongst conservationists.

More about the wildlife tourism ban

The underlying principle of the order was questionable. Tiger populations grew remarkably in reserves such as Kahna, Bandhavgarh and Ranthambore, despite substantial amounts of wildlife tourism. Contrastingly, Tiger populations in less popular Protected Areas, such as Buxa and Palamu Tiger Reserve, have depleted immensely despite a lack of tourism. Associating wildlife tourism to the depletion of Tiger populations remains a baseless claim.

The Supreme Court hoped that the ban would instigate the establishment of buffer zones in Protect Areas for wildlife tourism, in accordance with the November 2011 NTCA guidelines. However, despite the Supreme Court mandate, numerous states were reluctant to comply with the guidelines. Tourism in buffer zones was not the most practical alternative. These regions are used extensively by bordering villages for cattle grazing and the collection of forest produce. Habitat degradation would lead to inferior wildlife sightings, hence attenuating the attractiveness of wildlife safaris.

Fortunately the MoEFCC and NTCA redrafted guidelines, allowing for wildlife tourism in up to 20% of the critical Tiger habitat of a reserve. The revised guidelines encouraged states to form their own ecotourism policies. Following this, on the 16th of October 2012, the Supreme Court allowed for the recommencement of tourism in core areas

Are there any benefits of wildlife tourism?

There are numerous benefits to wildlife tourism, particularly for the local communities. Following proper practices, ecotourism brings substantial economic benefits. With over 1 million people visiting tiger reserves annually, a lot of revenue is generated in the form of entry fees, guide salary, lodge bookings amongst others. This provides significant employment opportunities for the local communities and has ripple effects as locals will associate a monetary value with wildlife. This would increase the general acceptance of wildlife, hence reducing human-wildlife conflict. Furthermore, this would prevent locals from turning to game hunting for sustenance. Entry fees would also provide the Forest Department with much required funding for conservation works! It is estimated that in the Fiscal Year of 2019, wildlife tourism in Madhya Pradesh attracted nearly 2 million visitors, generating 27 crore rupees. An organization, TOFTigers, estimated that nearly a quarter of the state’s Forest Department Budget consists of park entry fees in 2017. Moreover, the industry generated an additional 2,500 full time jobs out of which 82% were given to locals. With the industry growing at a healthy 15% annually, local economies stand to benefit immensely, particularly in the North East where the wild wonders are relatively unexplored.

Tourism also has a plethora of benefits in the management of the reserve. With the Forest Departments heavily under resources and understaffed, patrolling Protected Areas is a daunting task. Parks certainly benefit from watchful tourists. Detection of forest fires, illegal activities and injured animals improves with the participation of tourists. In fact, with the development of citizen science software, tourists can contribute even further towards wildlife research. It is no surprise therefore, that within 6 weeks of wildlife tourism shutting down due to the pandemic in 2020, the cases of poaching increased by 151% across India.

Unethical Practices Cloud wildlife tourism

However, in the past, there have been concerns regarding whether the economic benefits of wildlife tourism actually reach local communities. Wildlife tourism may also lead to some atrocious practices. For example, both captive elephants, and dancing bears, undergo immense torture while being trained for tourist purposes. Similarly, Kopi Luwark, the world’s most expensive coffee, is a major attraction in Indonesia. However, most people are oblivious to the fact that it sponsors the illegal wildlife trade. Snake charming also is equally diastorous.

Unruly visitors are not avoidable

Enforcement of rules and regulation also remains a dark spot in the wildlife industry. I personally have witnessed numerous accounts of wildlife harassment. Unruly tourists littering, wearing excessively bright colours and making excessive noise has made a few safaris unpleasant. Furthermore, in the lure of tips, guides are often overly enthusiastic during a safari. A critical protocol which is frequently ignored during a direct sighting is the minimum distance requirement between two jeeps. Though legally, animals have the right of way in forest roads, this behaviour by jeeps often obstructs their paths and causes distress to the animals. I witnessed this with the dominant male Rudra in Tadoba Tiger Reserve in October 2020 and in my first visit to the park in 2017, where a jeep did some off-roading to show the guests tiger cubs feeding on a kill. Not only did the family flee, the jeeps shamelessly continued chasing them off-roading. Littering is also a prominent issue. On the same trip, I visited the Tipeshwar Tiger Reserve where visitors, despite being confronted by both forest staff and guests, continued to litter in the park. I can name plenty of such personal anecdotes from forests all over India! Seeing the popular tiger of the park overwhelms tourist and guide alike!

The impact of such behaviour has had an observed impact on wildlife. Tigers and other wildlife of popular parks are far more accustomed to jeeps than in the smaller reserves. Despite this, tigers do witness increased stress levels. This is proved by a study of 341 samples of tiger scats by the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Bandhavgarh and Kanha National Park. The study found that tigers had higher concentrations of the stress hormone, faecal glucocorticoid metabolite (fGCM), during the tourism season than prior.

This behaviour could be rectified by improved education. While an underlying purpose of ecotourism is education, only 30% of India’s Protected Areas have visitor orientation centres. Private lodges also are not very proactive in the field.

Wildlife tourism has to become more sustainable

Another issue with wildlife tourism is that lodges are not truly eco-friendly. A nationwide study of 10 of India’s major wildlife tourist destinations was alarming. 85% of tourist facilities were within 5km of the park. 93% of the lodges used local wood while the dependency on local borewells varied from 40% to 100%. Swimming pools in the lodges of Central India prove costly for local communities in the dry summer months. The fragile ecosystem of Ladakh is witnessing widespread decimation in recent years due to scores of tourists flocking to the state following the release of the movie “3 Idiots”.

The same study found that in the 10 parks, 95% of the revenue went to private operators. Only 4.5% and 0.5% went to the park and locals respectively. In fact, only 0.001% of the locals within a 10km buffer of PA were employed. This accentuates the fallacies of India’s wildlife industries!

Larger mammals steal the limelight

Although only 10% of India’s 500 Protected Areas are Tiger Reserves, they account for 32% of wildlife tourism. Spotting charismatic species such as Tigers, Elephants, Rhinos and Lions still remains the sole interest for most visitors. Much of India’s natural beauties are unheard of by the general public. This is in sharp contrast with countries such as Australia, US, South Africa and Europe. Unlike India, ecotourism is not limited to safaris solely. These countries offer a wide array of sustainable activities across their natural landscapes including bird watching, camping, adventure sports, and natural history museums. Although it is essential to not damage the natural ecosystem, the ecotourism industry in India could be further developed. In fact, developing more activities in the lesser known parks could help distribute tourism more evenly across the country. There is much scope to expand. India could also adopt a private-public partnership in a few regions, much like the Private Game Reserves of South Africa!

All in all, the wildlife tourism industry is still fairly young and has much growth left. It has various benefits to wildlife but there are many issues for India to iron out such that the industry can bolster conservation efforts.

This article was first published on Think Wildlife Foundation.

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Drought Forces Zimbabwe To Relocate 2,500 Wild Animals To New Reserves

The effects of climate change are outpacing poaching as the No. 1 threat to wildlife. In Zimbabwe, officials are now moving more than 2,500 wild animals from a reserve in the southern part of the country further north due to an ongoing drought. Rangers are relying on trucks, cranes and even helicopters to move the animals from the drought-stricken area.

“Project Rewild Zambezi,” the operation has been dubbed, involves moving animals to the Zambezi River valley, which will also help improve wildlife populations in that area. It is one of the largest live animal relocation projects in southern Africa, with more than 2,000 impalas, 400 elephants, 70 giraffes, 50 each of buffalo, wildebeest, zebras, and elands, 10 lions and 10 wild dogs, among other animals, being moved north.

The animals are being relocated from the Save Valley Conservancy to the Sapi, Matusadonha and Chizarira conservancies in the north. According to officials, the project is necessary to avoid a crisis.

“We are doing this to relieve pressure. For years we have fought poaching and just as we are winning that war, climate change has emerged as the biggest threat to our wildlife,” Tinashe Farawo, spokesperson for the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, told The Associated Press. “Many of our parks are becoming overpopulated and there is little water or food. The animals end up destroying their own habitat, they become a danger unto themselves and they encroach neighboring human settlements for food resulting in incessant conflict.”

One other option was to cull some of the animals to reduce competition for resources among the wildlife, but Zimbabwe has not had a culling since 1987. Conservationists argue that culling is a cruel and unnecessary solution.

The “Project Rewild Zambezi” is one of the largest in Zimbabwe. The country’s last mass relocation of wildlife occurred from 1958 to 1964, as hydro-dam construction led to rising water that ultimately created Lake Kariba. More than 5,000 animals had to be relocated at the time.

Drought is becoming an increasing threat in Zimbabwe and across Africa, reducing food and water available for wildlife, including vulnerable rhinos and giraffes. But hunting and poaching have also taken their toll. In Sapi Reserve, a UNESCO site, wildlife populations quickly declined from the 1950s until 2017, when it was taken over by the non-profit Great Plains Foundation. Relocating animals from areas affected by drought will also help in the foundation’s efforts to rewild and restore populations in Sapi Reserve.

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The Bloody Truth Behind The Taiji Dolphin Drive Hunt

A new season started on September 1. Entire families of dolphins will be devastated for aquariums to draw crowds.

**THE BLOODY TAIJI DOLPHIN DRIVE HUNT** **CREDIT: INTERNATIONAL MARINE MAMMAL PROJECT**

Just after 6am, a fleet of 11 fishing boats left Taiji harbour on Japan’s southern Pacific coast. Within an hour, the boats were lined up in a formation, encircling a pod of 18 Risso’s dolphins and forcing them into a cove. Nets were set to trap the dolphins, and soon after, seven dolphin trainers from the Taiji Whale Museum arrived.

One by one, the divers caught the dolphins and took them under grey tarps that were meant to shield their work from the scrutiny of outside observers. Under the tarps, the dolphin trainers examined the sex and size of the dolphins, estimated their age and selected two for sale to aquariums — appearance and suitability for training are usually key factors. They were placed on stretchers and taken to sea pens set in a nearby bay.

Just an hour earlier, these dolphins had been swimming freely in the ocean with their family. Now, they were facing a life in a small concrete pool, performing tricks to entertain people who rarely think about how the dolphins ended up there.

The fate of the 16 unchosen dolphins was even more cruel. Hunters struck them with a sharp metal spike into their necks just behind the blowholes, making them suffocate in their own blood, turning the ocean water around them red. Their dead bodies were dragged into Taiji fishing port, soon to become meat products.

In a matter of a few hours, an entire family of dolphins was destroyed as part of what some local fishermen and Japanese politicians call a “tradition”.

Inconvenient truth

On September 1, a new season of cruelty will begin. The small town of Taiji made global headlines after the 2010 Academy Award-winning documentary film, The Cove, highlighted Japan’s little-known dolphin hunting practice. While the film was highly acclaimed worldwide, it received a backlash in Japan as conservatives called it an attack on the country’s culture.

More than a decade has passed and the world has changed. Climate change is considered humanity’s biggest challenge. Governments and corporations around the world are working towards sustainability goals, including wildlife conservation. Sadly, in Japan, dolphin hunts continue as they did earlier, while the world’s attention has faded away.

During the six-month hunting season each year, I’m confronted with a truth that’s inconvenient for many people considering the enormous popularity of dolphins at aquariums. Dolphins form strong family bonds, moving together to protect the young and old who cannot swim fast enough when chased by hunters. Dolphins are also generally gentle and do not attack humans even to defend themselves. This makes it easy for hunters to catch entire pods.

Our investigation revealed that at least 563 dolphins were taken from the wild in Taiji alone during the 2021-22 season, of which 498 were slaughtered and 65 were kept for aquariums. The dolphin hunts are conducted across Japan, often using spearfishing. Taiji is particularly notorious because hunters here usually catch entire pods, leaving no chance for families to recover and causing a devastating impact on the dolphin population.

**2021/2022 STATISTICS COURTESY OF THE DOLPHIN PROJECT**

Already, the number of dolphins that hunters are trapping is declining — it has dropped almost to a quarter of the 2,077 dolphins caught in 2000 — even though they go out to the ocean searching for their prey every day during the season. Today, hunters are unable to meet the annual government-set catch quota of 1,849 dolphins.

**2021/2022 STATISTICS – TYPES OF DOLPHIN COURTESY OF THE DOLPHIN PROJECT**

A wild animal exporting industry

It’s a little-known fact that hunting really started only in 1969 with the establishment of the Taiji Whale Museum in order to display live dolphins. This was around the time when the United States was booming with dolphinariums driven by a popular TV series Flipper, in which a dolphin was a lead character.

A live dolphin is sold for as much as JPY 5 million ($36,000) overseas, while it only fetches JPY 50,000 ($360) as meat.

The Japanese government has defended the hunt as part of local culinary tradition, but hardly anyone in the country eats dolphin meat. In reality, this is about the trade of dolphins to aquariums for entertainment across the world, hiding behind “tradition”. In essence, it’s an animal export industry.

In fact, our research revealed that as of March 11, 2022, 269 dolphins and small whales were being kept as inventory in a massive set of sea pens in Taiji’s Moriura Bay, waiting to be sold to aquariums across Japan and the world. The hunt only continues because of the demand for human entertainment.

Change is coming

There is reason for hope, though. In March of this year, Sweden’s Kolmården zoo, the largest zoo in Scandinavia, announced it will end its dolphin shows. The decision by the zoo, which holds 12 captive dolphins, is symbolic of a new attitude towards animals around the world. Last November, the French parliament passed a bill that bans dolphin shows as well as wild animals used in circuses. A similar ban has been in place in Canada since 2019.

Coastal countries, such as India, Chile, Costa Rica and Brazil, also ban or restrict the captivity of dolphins. Expedia is the latest among travel agencies to stop selling tickets that include dolphin shows.

In Japan, too, there are signs that attitudes are beginning to shift. In May, a Tokyo-based aquarium became the first such facility in the country to end its dolphin show. It claimed financial burden as the primary reason, but it also mentioned the global trend in recent years. And the following month, another aquarium announced that it will discontinue sea lion shows.

Change is coming, slowly but surely. Until then, I will continue my work in Taiji to tell the people of Japan what we are doing to the animal we claim to love.

This article by Ren Yabuki was first published by Aljazeera on 31 August 2022.

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Trophy Hunting Is Driving The African Lion Into Extinction

**THERE ARE LESS THAN 10,000 WILD LIONS LEFT IN AFRICA**

A leading global Lion conservationist has warned of the impending extinction of lions in Africa where the overall population has fallen below 10 000 from a peak estimate of over 20 000 eight years ago.

In a presentation to the British parliamentary committee debating proposals to ban the importation of African wildlife trophies into the United Kingdom, African Lion specialist Pieter Kat said a recent field study by the organisation Lion Aid, revealed worrying prospects for the survival of African Lions:

“Our conclusion is that there are less than 10,000 wild Lions left in Africa. We base that number on the latest information from the ground,” Kat said.

“The current estimate of 20 000-30 000 Lions (in Africa) as stated by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (Red List) of 2016 is grossly inaccurate and urgently needs to be updated.”

In Africa, wild Lion populations are mostly found in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania and Kenya.

Smaller clustered populations also exist in Uganda, Mozambique, Eswatini and Angola.

While Elephant population estimates can be done effectively by aerial survey, Kat said Lion population estimates can only be derived from small sample counts which are conducted using different techniques to ensure they are not misleading.

Kat said the IUCN 2016 African Lion population estimate was flawed because it included thousands of non-wild, captive-bred and fenced-off South African Lions in the final count.

“What we did in our latest study is to review the number of Lions in what are called lion conservation units,” he said.

“We went back to look at these conservation units in detail.

“Most people agree that Lions should be classified as endangered on the IUCN Red List.

“However, they are not. Instead, they are classified as ‘vulnerable’.

“One reason for this is that the IUCN partly based their estimates on 16 fenced Lion populations in Southern Africa, mostly in South Africa.

“Those fenced populations are not truly wild Lions.”

He said the IUCN estimate was also heavily influenced by trophy hunters who manipulated Lion census data to support their own claims that Lion populations are healthy enough to support trophy hunting business.

Kat said trophy hunting remains one of the biggest contributors to the decline of African Lion populations as well as the depletion of breeder gene pools through its deliberate targeting of big male Lions.

“In order to be able to develop an effective Lion conservation strategy for Africa, we need to know exactly how many Lions are where. We need to know how many lions exist in trophy hunting areas,” he added.

“The best hunting concessions in terms of tenders and bids all happen to be right on the borders of the national parks.

“We know that they are luring the Lions out of national parks to be killed in private hunting concessions, just like Cecil (in Zimbabwe) was.

“More hunting concessions in Tanzania and Zimbabwe are not being bid on anymore because they are no longer profitable. The Lions have all been shot out.”

According to Kat, the claims often made by the trophy hunting lobby to the effect that trophy hunting funds the conservation of African wildlife are grossly inaccurate and deliberately misleading:

“Trophy hunters are allowed to sit on the IUCN committee of lion experts.

“More and more people have been allowed into the group who were not primarily concerned with lion conservation but rather Lion utilisation.

“This causes problems, because whenever politicians want to make decisions on wildlife conservation, the first place they turn to is the IUCN.

“They view the IUCN as the organisation that supposedly has the knowledge and information about how to best conserve species in the wild.

“However, many of the “experts” that are being consulted are not the ones who have the right information.”

Kat said there is clear evidence that Lions are being badly affected by trophy hunting since the hunters select the best animals, which are often the biggest-maned male breeding Lions.

“A number of studies in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia have shown this.

“A hunter does not want a young male (although these were hunted in Tanzania when they ran out of the big males).

“The big-maned Lions hunters target are often the leaders in a pride. This way, trophy hunting results in heavy disruptions of Lion prides.

“The females do not produce cubs anymore because new males will come in and say, “that’s not my cub” and kill the cubs.

“The pride structure of Lions simply falls apart as a result of trophy hunting.”

To save Lions from extinction, Africa range states should adopt conservation strategies to save the biggest and the best remaining Lion cluster populations.

They also need to craft holistic conservation strategies that include the use of effective, tried and tested techniques to protect rural communities and keep livestock safe from predators in order to reduce human-wildlife conflicts.

This article by Oscar Nkala was first published by The Standard on 7 August 2022.

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Australian Dad Of Three Young Girls Tries To Explains Why He Is Teaching Them How To Hunt And Kill Deer And ‘Feral’ Pigs In The Bush

JUSTIN WANN, PICTURED WITH HIS DAUGHTER EMILY, 12, HAS EXPLAINED WHY HE TAKES HE HAS TAUGHT HIS THREE YOUNG CHILDREN HOW TO HUNT

The family almost entirely live off wild game, regularly eating what they shoot and kill to teach the children where their food comes from.

**WANN’S DAUGHTER SAMANTHA IS PICTURED POSING WITH A DEER THAT WAS SHOT AND KILLED DURING A FAMILY HUNTING TRIP**

A recent picture uploaded online shows Samantha posing next to a deer which she shot from 45m away, before carrying the animal home.

Emily, ‘not to be outdone by her sister’, shot her first deer just weeks later, while Sophie has also been pictured practicing to shoot with a pink single shot .22 rifle.

**SAMANTHA IS PICTURED HERE WITH THE FIRST DEER SHE SHOT AND KILLED HERSELF WHILE ON A HUNTING TRIP**

Samantha and Emily, who both first learnt to shoot with the same gun, now hunt with bolt action .243 hunting rifles.

Mr Wann learnt to hunt and shoot when he was taken on hunting trips as a child by his grandfather in western New South Wales.

**SAMANTHA AND EMILY ARE PICTURED WITH A WILD DOG THAT WAS KILLED DURING A FAMILY HUNTING TRIP**

‘I strongly believe in firearm education for kids, especially kids in rural areas where there is a high chance they will be exposed to guns at some stage,’ Mr Wann said.

**WANN’S WIFE SARA WITH THEIR DAUGHTER EMILY, WHO WAS 18-MONTHS-OLD AT THE TIME, POSING BEHIND A ‘FERAL’ PIG**

**SAMANTHA IS PICTURED WHEN SHE WAS YOUNGER HOLDING A DEAD RABBIT IN HER HANDS**

Editor’s Note: Misguided Parenting.

Many hunter’s believe it is their parental duty to teach children to use guns. It’s a difficult viewpoint for others to understand. Yet good parenting involves protecting children from harm. Allowing children to do what we do, regardless of age, safety and moral implications, is not protecting them.

Teaching his daughter to hunt has become a war veteran’s purpose in life. He has a dream that his daughter will be the “first four year old in the world to hunt and kill a hog.” It doesn’t seem to matter whether his young daughter wants to hunt.

“I have to be with her for her very first kill… Can’t take that away from me, you know. It’s going to be a huge accomplishment that her dad’s a triple amputee with one arm and he’s got her to where she can hunt herself,” he says in the documentary Kids and Guns. She has already been made to watch him kill a squirrel from his wheelchair, then hold the corpse for photographs and watch the skinning.

A corruption of childhood

Images of children carrying guns or holding slain animals represent a corruption of childhood. Children enjoy pleasing the adults in their life, but they don’t have to kill to earn our approval, unless we make it that way. They can help to prepare food, or feed animals, or grow vegetables. We can teach them how to create and nurture. When they reach adulthood, they can choose whether or not they want to use guns and kill animals, but before then, let’s not force them down a path.

Perhaps we should look more critically at why we teach children the things we do. Is it for their benefit, for society’s benefit, or our own? It’s one thing to dress our children in our favourite football team kit, although better they make their own choice, but it’s a different matter to place a gun in their hand.

Children are highly impressionable. Killing has no place in childhood if we want a more compassionate society. We first need to teach children to respect nature, otherwise what hope is there for preserving the natural world and for protecting humanity in the long run?

A society that promotes killing surely isn’t a healthy one.

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DON’T FORGET YOUR TRUNKS! Baby Elephant Tries To Forget Her Fear Of Water As She Receives Hydrotherapy In Bid To Learn To Walk Again After Injuring Her Foot In A Trap

Staff at a Thai animal hospital take six-month-old orphan Clear Sky swimming to strengthen her leg muscles.

This baby Elephant is trying to forget her fear of water as she learns to walk again after losing part of her foot.

The nervous six-month-old grabbed a keeper for support as she was lowered into the pool at an animal hospital in Chonburi, Thailand.

**CLEAR SKY IS LEARNING TO WALK AGAIN IN A SWIMMING POOL AFTER SHE INJURED HER FOOT.**

The six-month-old is the first elephant to receive hydrotherapy at the Nong Nooch Tropical Garden animal hospital in Thailand

Clear Sky caught her leg in an animal trap laid by villagers to protect their crops.

Staff at the animal hospital are trying to help her strengthen her withered leg muscles.

After surgery she is now having treatment to strengthen her leg muscles.

**STAFFERS USE A HARNESS TO HELP CLEAR SKY INTO THE WATER AND KEEP HER AFLOAT**

**THIS WAS HER SECOND TIME GETTING WATER THERAPY**

Baby Elephants usually love water, but Clear Sky was ‘a bit nervous and scared’, said a vet.

However she appeared to relax by the end of the hour-long session.

Vet Padet Siridumrong said: “She is still a bit nervous and scared of the water.

“Usually baby Elephants love the water.

“If she can do this regularly she will have fun.”

Villagers had found Clear Sky hungry and hobbling, after being separated from her mother in the wild.

Vets hope with more swimming, she won’t need an artificial leg.

The orphaned Elephant was in bad shape when she arrived at the hospital.

She was hobbling, in pain and in dire need of milk.

‘Kampon Tansacha, the director of the zoo that’s now her home, said: “We named her Clear Sky Up Ahead, because that is what she will need while she is with us.”

Elephants are a revered national symbol in Thailand, but their population in the wild has plummeted to an estimated 2,500 in the last century, a result of rabid development, habitat destruction and the ivory trade.

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An American Dentist And Big-Game Hunter Found Guilty Of The Murder Of His Wife On An African Safari.

Larry Rudolp confessed killing his wife on an African safari in Zambia and collecting millions in life insurance.

An American dentist and big-game hunter was found guilty of murder in the shooting death of his wife on an African safari.

Lawrence Rudolph, 67, killed his wife, Bianca Rudolph, with a shotgun and defrauded multiple insurance companies, a federal jury found Monday. Rudolph cashed in more than $4.8 million in life insurance payments after her death almost six years ago.

Rudolph has maintained his innocence and said he believes the gun fired accidentally.

“I did not kill my wife. I could not murder my wife. I would not murder my wife,” Rudolph told jurors when he took the stand in his own defence at a federal trial in Denver last week.

The Phoenix couple shared a passion for big-game hunting and had travelled to the southern African nation of Zambia in September 2016 so Bianca Rudolph could add a leopard to her collection of animal trophies. They carried two guns for the hunt: a Remington .375 rifle and a Browning 12-gauge shotgun.

Two weeks later, as Bianca Rudolph was packing for the couple’s return home, she suffered a fatal blast from the Browning shotgun in their hunting cabin at Kafue National Park. Rudolph told investigators he heard the shot at dawn while he was in the bathroom and believed the shotgun accidentally went off as she was putting it in its case, court documents said. He told investigators he found her bleeding on the floor.

But federal prosecutors at Rudolph’s trial in Denver, where the insurance companies are based, described it as a premeditated crime. Prosecutors argued Rudolph killed his wife of 30 years for insurance money and to be with his girlfriend, Lori Milliron.

Defence attorney David Markus had argued that Larry Rudolph had no financial motive to kill his wife. In court documents, he noted that Rudolph owns a dental practice near Pittsburgh valued at $10 million.

“We are obviously extremely disappointed. We believe in Larry and his children,” Markus and fellow defence attorneys Margot Moss and Lauren Doyle told CNN in a statement after Monday’s verdict. “There are lots of really strong appellate issues, which we will be pursuing after we have had a chance to regroup.”

The jury also found Milliron, Rudolph’s girlfriend, guilty of being an accessory after the fact to murder, obstruction of justice and two counts of perjury based on her testimony before a grand jury, according to the Department of Justice.

Milliron, who was tried alongside Rudolph, said the couple had been in an open relationship, according to court documents. Milliron and Rudolph lived together from 2017 until his arrest last year, her attorney, John Dill, told CNN.

“We are disappointed in the jury’s verdict, but that is our system,” Dill said. “Lori Milliron is innocent and we will continue to fight to exonerate her.”

An embassy official expressed suspicion after the shooting, the FBI said

In court documents, investigators alleged Rudolph raised suspicions when he sought to quickly cremate his wife’s body in Zambia.

Rudolph scheduled a cremation three days after her death, according to court documents. After he reported her death to the US Embassy in the Zambian capital of Lusaka, the consular chief “told the FBI he had a bad feeling about the situation, which he thought was moving too quickly,” FBI special agent Donald Peterson wrote in the criminal affidavit.

As a result, the consular chief and two other embassy officials went to the funeral home where the body was being held to take photographs and preserve any potential evidence. When Rudolph found out the embassy officials had taken photos of his wife’s body, he was “livid,” Peterson wrote.

Rudolph initially told the consular chief that his wife may have died by suicide, but an investigation by Zambian law enforcement ruled it an accidental discharge.

Investigators for the insurers reached a similar conclusion and paid on the policies.

But forensic evidence showed Bianca Rudolph’s wounds came from a shot fired from at least two feet away, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court.

“At that distance, there is reason to believe that Bianca Rudolph was not killed by an accidental discharge as stated,” the complaint said.

US Attorney Cole Finegan welcomed the jury’s ruling.

“Bianca Rudolph deserved justice,” Finegan said in a statement. “We can only hope this verdict brings Bianca’s family some amount of peace.”

A friend of Bianca Rudolph’s asked the FBI to investigate

But federal investigators maintained the shooting was premeditated so that Rudolph “could falsely claim the death was the result of an accident.”

Rudolph orchestrated his wife’s death as part of a scheme to defraud life insurance companies and to allow him to live openly with his girlfriend, the FBI alleged.

Larry Rudolph was charged with foreign murder in the 2016 death of his wife.

Bianca and Lawrence Rudolph moved from Pennsylvania to Arizona about four years before her death. Rudolph’s dental practice remained in Pennsylvania, and he commuted back and forth from his Phoenix home.

Federal authorities got involved after a friend of Bianca Rudolph asked the FBI to investigate the death because she suspected foul play. The friend said Larry Rudolph had been involved in extramarital affairs and had a girlfriend at the time of his wife’s death.

Milliron worked as a manager at Larry Rudolph’s dental practice near Pittsburgh and told a former employee that she’d been dating him for 15 to 20 years, according to court documents. Milliron moved in with Rudolph three months after Bianca Rudolph’s death, court documents said.

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Support ‘Protect All Wildlife’ by donating as little as £1 – It only takes a minute but it can last a lifetime for an animal in need. Thank you.

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“Empty Shell” (Brain Damage)

I want my money back I came to see an Elephant I paid to see a conservation ambassador Inspire me to help conserve the species Especially her kind

I saw an empty shell

She looks like an Elephant But what is there to see, not Happy She is a poor teacher of Elephant lessons She is no solitary animal, but kept confined Like all captives, neurones scrambled, brain denied Stereotypy is not a dance – no, a pathetic trance A sign she can’t be happy in mind She’s not right in the head.

She is an empty shell

They have broken personalities All the Elephants with names, captive They are poor Elephant facsimiles They have the stature, the thick skin and bones They are devoid of Elephant spirit, truncated They are subjected to Floydian ‘Brain Damage’ They are all caught on the dark side (“‘As a matter of fact, it’s all dark’*) Cut off from the herd

They are empty shells

We pay the price to see: see the price they pay We fall for the old ‘conservation /education’ story We fail to see the oppression and the damage done We should be able to see for ourselves We could accept they are Sentients like us We could see them better in a sanctuary We could do the right thing Will we?

Collect all the empty shells

Put them back where they can refill Regain their freedom and society Be Elephants again, herd mentality That would be something to see Is it just a Zoological fantasy?

I find myself unhappy for Happy, again

If I find myself outside her enclosure (But I wouldn’t pay to go in anyway) Watching her sway song, groundhog days One day closer to her end of days Inspired to write yet another Happy poem Adding to ‘Not Happy’ ‘Personable’ ‘Elephant Stomp’ After the first setback of her legal person court case What would I do if I were you?

Might just as well go to a museum Pay to see a stuffed Elephant This one already is

I want my money back I came to see an Elephant Largest land animal, majestic Social fellow-sentient being Exemplary, salutary

I got an empty shell

*From ‘Brain Damage’ on the Pink Floyd album ‘Dark Side of the Moon’

**From ‘The Needle and the Damage Done’ by Neil Young

For all captive Elephants – Happy, Lucy, Shankar, The Fresno Elephants and so many more.

Written By Anthony Lovell.

What you can do to help wildlife:

Please Sign The Petition To Free Happy From Her Imprisonment At The Bronx Zoo HERE!

Happy the Elephant had her day in court. We humans are better for it.

Support ‘Protect All Wildlife’ by donating as little as £1 – It only takes a minute but it can last a lifetime for an animal in need. Thank you.

Everyone who donates will receive a Certificate of Appreciation as a thank you for supporting wildlife.

An Abandoned Baby Fox Who Can’t Use Her Back Legs Gets A Special Wheelchair

One little fox has been gaining a lot of attention on social media, for one very unique reason. While she may have a disability, the folks at the Kentucky Wildlife Center are determined not to let that stop her.

When you walk through the doors at the centre, you may be greeted by the friendly house cat waiting for an ear scratch, or the curious bunny ready for her close up.

“That’s what we do here. We take care of every animal to the max,” said PK Blankenship.

For some, it’s a place to rest and rehabilitate before being released back into the wild. For others, it becomes their home.

“She’s come a long way, she really has. It used to be that there wasn’t any movement in those back legs at all,” Blankenship said.

Asia the three-month-old Red Fox became a “permanent resident” back in May. She was found by a Boone County couple who immediately called the center’s director, Sam Opp, when they saw Asia try to walk.

“They noticed she wasn’t using her back legs,” Opp said.

It’s a disability Opp believes Asia has had since birth, and something that would have left her defenceless, and eventually dead, in the wild.

“You would never know she can’t use those back legs. She thinks she’s a regular fox. She pounces like a regular fox. She jumps like a regular fox. She crawls over you like a regular fox,” Blankenship said.

But what you may not see on a regular fox is the shiny wheelchair.

“Sometimes it’s funny. We put her in it and she’s like a NASCAR race driver. She takes off,” Blankenship said.

While Asia may have the need for speed, learning to use the chair isn’t always a smooth ride.

“I’m not saying she won’t bump into something, it does frighten her. It’s just like as a child. She would tumble off her mom and shake it off,” Blankenship said.

Still a wild animal, there are days Asia isn’t in the mood for physical therapy.

“If she’s just having a bad day, she’ll get more free time, which is after every session anyways,” Opp said.

With the help of Opp, her handler Blankenship, and the wheelchair, she will most likely be able to walk using her back legs one day.

“She has shown improvement in using those back legs to actually stand on her own. She is a very determined fox kit. She’s not giving up and we’re not giving up on her either. We’re in it for the long haul,” Blankenship said.

What you can do to help animals in need:

Support the work of ‘Protect All Wildlife’ by donating as little as £1 – It only takes a minute but it can last a lifetime for an animal in need. Thank you.

Everyone who donates will receive a Certificate of Appreciation as a thank you for supporting wildlife.

Buttons The Deer Brings Her Babies To Meet G-Pro, Her Dog Best Friend 💚.

A deer and a golden retriever have struck up an 11-year friendship. They’re so close that the deer even brings her babies to meet the dog every spring!

It all started back when the deer, Buttons, was just a few days old. Unfortunately, her mother was hit by a car and killed. Without a mother to protect and care for her, Buttons wouldn’t have survived, so the Brown family stepped in to care for her.

The Brown family already had a few pets of their own, including a friendly golden retriever named G-Bro.

While Buttons is now free to wander off as she pleases, she prefers to stay close to the Brown family and her BFF G-Bro.

Occasionally, Buttons will wander into the woods and one time she came back with babies!

Buttons has babies nearly every spring, and sometimes she brings them to the house for everyone to meet. However, she’s most interested in G-Bro seeing them.

The gentle dog acts like a second mother to the fawns, and gently licks them clean and plays with them. It’s so sweet!

Buttons’ babies eventually grow up and leave, but she sticks around for G-Bro. One of their favorite activities to do together is explore the woods and go on hiking trails. G-Bro also loves to just sit and let Buttons clean him.

While it’s definitely an unusual situation they have, the Brown family is just enjoying and treasuring every moment.

Watch the video below to see Buttons bringing her babies to meet G-Bro:

BUTTONS AND G-PRO

You can follow the Brown family on Instagram to keep up with Buttons and G-Bro @brownhikingtrails.

What you can do to help animals in need:

Support ‘Protect All Wildlife’ by donating as little as £1 – It only takes a minute but it can last a lifetime for an animal in need. Thank you.