With news reports surfacing this morning of yet another rhino been killed on a game farm in the North West, it is good to know that authorities are trying all kinds of methods to curb poaching. One such new weapon, employed by the Pilanesberg Nature Reserve for the first time yesterday, is Russell, a Belgian shepherd dog.
Have you ever been so hungry that you could steal food from a pride of 15 hungry lions? No? Me neither. But for a couple of chaps north of our border it’s common practice. Click through for the sweat-inducing how-to video.
The Arctic is under constant threat from “oil drilling, industrial fishing and conflict” yet very little official action has been taken to curb that, probably because it’s making a lot of people a lot of money. After numerous failed attempts to contact leaders directly, Greenpeace are approaching the masses to convey their message. If this video doesn’t trigger any emotions in you, it’s safe to say that you’re a robot.
The Department of Environmental Affairs (read: the South African government) has welcomed (obviously?) the Council of the Global Environment Facility’s approval of R25 million worth of funding aimed at strengthening the current wildlife forensic capabilities in South Africa. The donation will help combat wildlife crimes like rhino poaching.
More than R40 million worth of rhino horn, as well as elephant tusks and leopard skins were seized in two operations in Gauteng last week. Both operations are linked to a 40-year-old KwaZulu-Natal man, who was arrested, along with six foreigners, during the operations.
This will surprise you. On Friday and Saturday, German solar power plants produced a record 22 gigawatts of energy – the equivalent output of 20 nuclear plants running at full capacity. The country is already a world-leader in solar power, and hopes to be free of nuclear energy by 2022. After the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year, Germany decided to abandon nuclear power, and immediately closed eight plants.
The Robert Swan Voyage for Cleaner Energy yacht, 2041, is due to dock in Cape Town tomorrow at 16h00. The eco-friendly yacht is en-route to the 2012 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, which takes place next month. Robert Swan, 2041’s founder, was the first person to walk to both the North and South Poles.
It’s taken long enough for Japanese officials to step up to the plate and offer South African Authorities their assurances that they will do everything they can to locate the stricken vessel’s owner. After a slight mishap overnight, Samsa confirmed to 2oceansVibe a little while ago that salvage experts were putting the finishing touches together for an operation at lunchtime today.
The Indian government has recently formulated some big plans to re-introduce cheetahs to the wild – in India, that is. The $56 million strategy involved importing cheetahs from Namibia to a wildlife sanctuary in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. Unfortunately it’s just been pointed out that African and Asiatic cheetahs are completely different.
The Hawks raided the home of one Dawie Groenwald this morning, in an “uncapped asset forfeiture” (read: repo raid) worth an estimated R55 million. This is part of one of South Africa’s biggest wildlife cases involving rhino poaching and trade in their horns, and we’ve got photos from the raid, and the police statement, after the jump!
It has been two years since 4,9 million barrels of oil were spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. In the midst of the disaster, BP and its contractors did everything they could to keep people from seeing the scale of the disaster. But new photos released today offer some new insight into just how horrific the Gulf became for sea life. See them inside.
The town of Taiji in Japan, made infamous by award-winning documentary “The Cove”, plans to repair its reputation by building a sea life park in the self-same cove where annually hundreds of dolphins and whales are herded, captured and slaughtered by local fishermen. More on this seaside slaughter after the jump. Images might disturb some readers.
2oceansvibe’s attention has been drawn to this fantastic project, and just in time! Africam.com is attempting to broadcast the life of a litter of cheetah cubs from their birth to their hopeful re-introduction into the wild, through a live 24/7 video camera with sound and infrared night vision. The threatened big cats will be new […]
I believe it’s safe to say that animal poaching has now gotten completely out of hand. This is a scene I’d rather not try and picture – a herd of 22 elephants, were swooped on by a helicopter, and massacred.
The Brazilian Chamber of Deputies has approved contentious new legislation that eases rules on how much land farmers must preserve as forest. Environmentalists are up in arms, and say the new forest legislation will be a disaster, and lead to further destruction of the Amazon.
In the wake of the tragic death of 20-year old Capetonian bodyboarder, David Lillienfeld last Thursday, the City of Cape Town has agreed to implement a shark spotting programme at Kogel Bay, where the young man lost his life.
Wherever humans and wild animals come into close contact with one another, there will likely be negative consequences for one or the other, or both. 13-year-old Richard Turere, who lives in Empakasi, on the edge of the Nairobi National Park, just south of Nairobi, has invented a system that keeps his family’s cattle safe from lions that had previously sought an easy meal from their herd.
Advice from the first official British government report into fracking has been published today. In it, British ministers have been informed that they should allow the controversial process of fracking for shale gas to be extended there, this despite the process having been blamed for causing two earthquakes.
Recently published photos have revealed what is believed to be the world’s first “strawberry” leopard. The big cat was discovered in South Africa’s Madikwe Game Reserve and is an incredibly rare find.
A rather large group of former NASA scientists and astronauts have come together to express their distrust at the way NASA thinks about climate change. They’ve written a letter, in which they criticise the Goddard Institute For Space Studies for telling fibs about man-made carbon dioxide.
Chris Fischer is an American documentary maker whose program, Shark Men, is in the Cape tagging Great White sharks along our coastline. A group opposed to this have lodged a complaint with the Department of Environmental Affairs, claiming the “research” Fischer conducts might make good TV, but is damaging to the sharks. Both sides of the story, after the jump!
During a time where we really cannot afford to lose anymore rhinos, another one has passed away – this time after being hit by a lorry outside Pretoria. Pics of the incident can be seen after the jump.
Green, a female orangutan, is the subject of a powerful new documentary. She was rescued after deforestation in Indonesia left her without a home – and paralysed down her left side. Green’s last couple of hours on earth was filmed and included in a documentary by Patrick Rouxel for Al Jazeera. His aim is to highlight the extent to which deforestation is “raping our planet.”
Zimbabweans will be reminded of the previous times the country has declared a state of disaster as food shortages threatened widespread starvation. A third of Zimbabwe’s current maize crop has just been written off due to a prolonged dry spell, according to reports.
Before you begin to make fun of the headline used for this article, we must tell you that the vermin extractors will also be serving an educational purpose. Johannesburg’s general owl population has been in decline for years as a result of urbanisation, but new owl projects are helping to combat this.
He’s eaten from a zebra carcass, swum across freezing lakes in just his undies to see what it’d be like, and he once slept in a dead sheep’s carcass for warmth. Sadly, it might be a while before we get to watch any of Bear’s antics again. The Discovery Channel set him free for good yesterday by announcing their relationship is over.
A rather large Great White Shark, measuring 4,3 metres in length, was caught 400 metres behind the breakers of Fish Hoek beach yesterday. Local fishermen from Kalk Bay accidentally caught the large female in fishing nets they had set late on Saturday night.
It would appear that authorities are finally starting to make serious inroads into the rhino horn trafficking underworld. A suspected kingpin, and former Mpumalanga police officer, was arrested on Friday in Hazyview. He was found with four rhino horns, and over R60 000 in his possession.
The Hout Bay Residents’ Association will apply for a court interdict to stop construction on the Chapman’s Peak toll plaza in Cape Town, it has been confirmed. Construction has begun at the site, and lawyers representing the movement have been drawing up the interdict to halt the R54 million project.
The 102 turbine Walney Offshore wind farm located approximately 15 kilometres off Walney Island, Cumbria, in the Irish Sea in the UK, is about to start harvesting the wind. It will provide electricity for 320 000 homes and the project has cost £1 billion.