Divers found a dead dugong in the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt early this week, according to the environmental advocacy group HEPCA. Immediately after Colona Dive Center alerted HEPCA about the dead marine mammal discovered between Magwaish Island and Gotaa Magawish, the latter sent a patrol boat out to investigate, according to a [...]
An investigation is underway to determine the deaths of dozens of sea turtles that washed up on Egypt’s Mediterranean shore last week. Initial forays prompted suspicion that the turtles had eaten deliberately poisoned fish in Lake Bardawil, but conclusive results have not yet been published. Minister of State for Environmental Affairs Mostafa Hussein Kamel established [...]
A man in Israel has been sentenced to spend seven months in prison for possessing a porcupine. Dubbed by locals as a “serial porcupine hunter,” Rami Fahmawhi has a longstanding track record of hunting porcupines, which are listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as a protected species of least concern. The [...]
A disturbing video of an enormous Great hammerhead shark (Sphyma mokarran) being hauled out of a truck in a Dubai fish market reveals once again the failure of authorities to monitor shark fishing in the United Arab Emirates. In the UAE, it is officially illegal to kill sharks with the sole purpose of harvesting their fins, but [...]
This Arabian sand gazelle in the United Arab Emirates is now six days old! While some zoos in the Middle East and North Africa have a terrible track record when it comes to their treatment of animals, Al Ain Zoo in the United Arab Emirates functions as a leading wildlife conservation center that specializes in [...]
The donkey’s ancestor, African Wild Asses once lived all over North Africa, but now they are critically endangered. Donkeys aplenty can be found roaming fields and mountains all over Africa, but their ancestor the African Wild Ass is critically endangered. Equus africanus used to be found as far north as Morocco’s Atlas Mountains and as [...]
A leader in conservation, IUCN aims to demonstrate that nature has the solutions to our upcoming water crisis. Thousands of people will gather for the 6th World Water Forum in Marseille, France between the 12th and 17th of March, 2012 in order to address the escalating challenges presented by water shortages, pollution, and population growth. [...]
These tiny Egyptian Tortoises are a hot commodity among illegal wildlife traders. They are also facing extinction in the wild as a result. Fantapants is a “postaholic member” of a reptile forum in the United Kingdom. In January 2008, when gold star member Jay Kickboxer asked where he could buy an Egyptian Tortoise for his “missus” [...]
Bluefin Tuna fishing stakes have risen with the adoption of a new electronic monitoring system that will make it harder for frausters to fudge their catch numbers. Although considered largely unsuccessful at preventing the nearly inevitable extinction of the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna at last week’s International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) gathering in [...]
This juvenile cheetah is paraded in front of several onlookers in the streets of Dubai. Trafficking illegal drugs in the United Arab Emirates can earn offenders a death sentence, but trafficking wild animals that are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) apparently goes unnoticed if committed by a rich Emirati. [...]
A sedated leopard cub less than two months old was among a variety of animals stashed in a suitcase bound for Dubai. Along with a monkey, gibbon, and bear, two sedated leopard cubs were found in an Emirati man’s suitcase at the Suvarnabhumi Airport in Thailand. All of the animals were younger than two months old. [...]
Forty green tree pythons headed for the UAE were confiscated in Indonesia over the weekend. Despite Interpol’s tough stance against trafficking, traffickers have no trouble finding customers in the Middle East. Karl Amman talked to us earlier this year about private wildlife collections in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other Middle Eastern countries and last year [...]
Leopards in Egypt are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. During certain periods of ancient Egyptian history it was illegal to kill cats, any cats. The punishment for said infraction? Death. Cats were considered so sacred that only the Pharaoh was permitted to own them. Now, not only [...]
These two babies Monk Seals were rescued after 48 hours of floating on a stormy Mediterranean Sea Development is rampant all along the Mediterranean, whether in Egypt, Israel, or Lebanon, where scuba divers find no life. But building projects in Turkey put additional stress on Mediterranean Monk Seals (Monachus monachus) already listed by the International [...]
Authorities erroneously killed two sharks not responsible for the Red Sea attacks last week Last week off the coast of Egypt’s tourist resort town Sharm al-Sheikh, three snorkellers were attacked by an Oceanic White Tip shark. Scientists claimed that such attacks are extremely rare for this species and sought to investigate the cause of its [...]