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” […]
Some people make collages of family pictures, but a group of friends in Kuwait compiled these images after killing a wolf with a shotgun. In response to yesterday’s post about the only two countries in the Middle East that offer wolves any kind of legal protection, a Kuwaiti reader forwarded a link to a story […]
The wolf pictured above is an Iranian wolf, which exists is dwindling numbers throughout Israel, Iran, and Turkey. Our fear of the wolf is historically as deep-seated as our survival instinct, which may explain why only two countries in the Middle East have established official bans against hunting them. Two subspecies of the Gray Wolf […]
According to K's PATH, poaching in Kuwait has reached epic proportions, and it is not uncommon to see men shooting at animals from moving vehicles.
2,000 miles away from the nearest continent, thousands of baby albatrosses are dying. The cause? Plastic. Over the years, we have watched plastic take a terrible toll on our fauna and flora. We’ve seen it kill our camels, pollute our waterways, and fill the belly of a very sick turtle. The plastic issue is so […]
African wild asses in a Basel Switzerland zoo. Perhaps the only hope for their survival of this animal which once roamed North Africa. Wild animals in North Africa and which are/were also found in the Middle East are threatened: there is the Arabian Oryx,a species of leopards and even baby crocodiles. One particular hoofed mammal, the […]
A lion cub belonging to a suspected criminal was shot dead during a police raid in Egypt The Egyptian police officers who raided the house of wanted suspect in the village of Kafr Essam in north Cairo were probably expecting some resistance but they definitely weren’t expecting a lion to be unleashed on them. According […]
We speak to Ibrahim Al Zu’bi from the Emirates Divers Association about why the ban on shark finning in the UAE hasn’t worked and what ordinary people can do to stop the horrific trade In 2008, shark finning in the United Arab Emirates was banned. For many environmentalists and conservationists this was a time to […]
Karl Ammann (center) explains why wildlife trade in the Middle East goes unregulated. In 2007, Karl Ammann appeared on Time Magazine’s Heroes of the Environment List, and for good reason. Since discovering 2,004 smoked primates and 1,000 fresh carcasses on board Zaire river boats in1988, he has devoted his life to exposing both the bushmeat […]
The vulture (which may actually be a bald eagle) captured in rural Saudi Arabia will be released. Following widespread (and embarrassing) news coverage, the vulture captured in Saudi Arabia and reportedly “arrested” on charges of espionage will be released. Israelis told Sky News that associating the migrating vulture with Mossad – one of Israel’s intelligence […]
In the alien and isolated landscape of the Socotra Island, just off the coast of Yemen, biodiversity is in a struggle for survival Declared an UNESCO world heritage site in July 2008, the Socotra Archipelago which is located in the northwest Indian Ocean is home to some of the rarest species in the world. According […]
Despite best intentions, Saudi’s Mahazat as-Sayd reserve fence led to the deaths of hundreds of animals between 1991 and 2008 After realizing the damage that plundering humans have had on wildlife habitat, conservationists have developed schemes aimed at reversing some of that damage. Recent programs include tagging turtles in Qatar to better understand their habitat, […]
These soldiers escort conservationists protecting the lapwing bird in active Al Qaeda territory. The Middle East’s conservation warriors are diving to restore coral and boating to protect sharks in the Red Sea. But in the western Iraqi desert, where Al Qaeada operatives are active in a region called the “triangle of death”, Omar Fadhel and […]
Wait, what? Whales in the desert? Fossils of earliest suborder of now extinct whale sheds new light on evolution. Even though human population expansion and over-exploitation of natural resources has accelerated the rate at which climatic change wreaks havoc, nature has always been in flux. Few things drive this concept home more concretely than a […]
Not in the Pacific, but near Abu Dhabi: Bu Tinah island is small paradise for birds and marine life Increasing salinity and higher water temperatures may be causing problems for wildlife in many parts of the Persian Gulf. But in one location at least on Abu Dhabi’s Bu Tinah islands, located 130 km west of the […]