From the top to the bottom, there are members of the force that are fighting to stop the wildlife trade, which are perpetuating it and indeed financially growing rich on the back of it.
Police, prosecutors, airlines and even diplomats are involved in the smuggling of rhino horn in south east asia. The sanctity of the diplomatic bag is incredibly important, however, when it is being used as a way to smuggle animal parts out of the country things need to change.
The Coronavirus is thought to have emerged in one of the wet markets of Wuhan, China. Much of what went on in these markets was never fully legal. Indeed this $13 billion a year trade has often operated in the grey areas of the law.
However, it has become clear that these are actually rather dangerous. It is one thing to enter a wild area to see the animals that live there. However it is something quite different to go in and kill animals to eat. These wild areas often harbour odd viruses or bacteria and by taking animals alive or dead out of these ecosystems you bring out these threats so that we can contract the illness.
Everywhere on the planet can have wildlife – even the most nature depleted country do still have wildlife. We aim to allow you to list sightings from all over the world, wherever you encounter them, from encounters on walks to sightings in the headlights of a car.
When you arrive in a wild place, it can seem overwhelming. You are given a large area to explore (even the small reserves are usually several hundred square miles, and while this doesn’t seem big, where do you go?). The aim of these pages is to change this. Often, the main reason that you hire a guide, is that they know where the animals are most likely to be.
Over time, by using this map, and putting down your sightings, we will build up a map of where animals are often found and when. It will also be possible to see where animals have been seen recently, though sighting will not appear instantly. While you might think this is not good, it actually makes sure that the person making the initial sighting gets to enjoy the animal to themselves for a while. While in theory this would allow day visitors to zoom around and tick off the big 5 in a couple of hours, this has been built for more interesting reasons.
Importantly, I am keen that this is not a tool for poachers. As such, it is possible for us to remove animals from being chosen to appear on the map, so you can feel confident in listing sightings of animals such as black rhino. If you see news of a poaching epidemic somewhere, let me know. In the long term I hope to create these sightings boards for all destinations.
Click on the maps below to go to the relevant sightings board.
Serengeti, Ngorogoro, Massai Mara Mau forest and other wild regions
In the near future, before many people have found the map, it can operate very well as a personal guide to where you saw animals. Like us, animals have regular habits, and so if you find them in one place on one day, and put up the sighting, they are likely to be near the sighting on future days. However, as the sightings data builds up, there is likely to be a change in how you can use it. Of course you can continue to look at what has happened recently, however the filtering options have been designed so that you can look at the pattern of sightings – the hope is that with a little planning homework, you can give yourself information on wildlife habits, and become your own expert wildlife guide.
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Apart from the big 5 I have included wild dog and cheetah, jackals, and hyena. I have also included the rarer antelope – these tend to be found in specific parts of the park, so knowing where to look can help in finding them. Finally I have listed some rarely seen nocturnal animals, like pangolins and aardvarks. It is unlikely that these are ones other people can look at, though if we get lots of data in this field, it may allow scientific study of these rarely seen creatures.
In many parts of Africa and Asia and South America poor communities get virtually all their protein from wild mammal species that live nearby. As the human population increases and as people organise themselves to sell excess meat in markets this can become a threat to human life as has been shown through covid 19.
The majority of the Natural World is supported by tourism. As such, the current situation that is sweeping the world is not good.
Corvid 19 is thought to have originated in the wild animal markets of Wuhan, China. Why is this notable? These wild markets keep a huge range of animals, often kept alive in squalid cramped conditions close together.
The rainforests in much of west Africa have been devastated over the last few decades, however in small regions worker saved ecosystems from the chainsaw.
Sapo national park in East Liberia is one of the most important remaining fragments of rainforest in West Africa. However having been expanded only a few years ago the locals are fully behind a further expansion of this important protected area. More than 40% of Africa’s remaining upper Guinea rainforest lies within Liberia and so any increase in the protected land can only be positive.
One of the most important protected parts of the west african rainforest
Several years ago there was significant poaching within the park and the surrounding area. After the clashes with locals the people who ran the park engage properly with the locals and the surrounding area. As in many other parts of Africa, the locals don’t get much benefit from being next to this large tourism destination, in the past this has led to hunting and mining.
As the Education of locals improved the situation and they stopped taking part in these activities that damage the park authorities found that people were coming in from further afield.
A sensible solution was found for this problem. A team of people were employed in the vicinity of each entry point. Their job was to keep an eye out for Hunters and Miners going into the park and make sure that any news got back to the authorities. For this they were paid $50 each month which meant that they no longer needed to hunt themselves to be able to survive.
This solution lead to both the local people having a greater level of financial security and and greater security for the park with the locals invested in the long term pricing of the wildlife that they live alongside. This is a wonderful solution, though probably works better in places like this where the park is remote and a local population is small, while there are other projects like this we should hope that more of them are set up as they are very successful in reducing poaching where they exist.
The fact that the rhino poaching of South Africa has fallen for 5 years in a row is something to celebrate. However, despite this there is a lot that we still need to be concerned about.
In 2019 594 Rhinos were killed within the Kruger National Park by poachers. In 2015 a little over 1300 rhino were lost to poachers, in the same area. As such, cutting the poaching by more than half in the space of only 5 years is impressive ( though, it should be noted that the rise was more rapid than the fall has been), 594 Rhinos killed is still a huge number.
South Africa hosts over 90% of the world’s remaining Rhinos, which means that any poaching here has a large impact on the world’s population. It should be noted that the 594 Rhinos lost last year in South Africa Is the equivalent of 4 times the total world population of Sumatra and Java Rhinos that remain.
The British government introduced a law which banned the sale of Ivory whether new or antique, as you can imagine this this is not liked by antique dealers as it makes it very hard if not impossible to sell any item that has ivory in it.
This group of Southern African countries are once again raising the prospect of them selling the ivory that they have accumulated over the years. In the majority of African countries that have wild elephants it is standard practice when Game Wardens come across dead elephants to remove the tusks. This is because it has been clearly shown that feeding the demand for ivory is a very strong way of increasing demand and to avoid people going looking for dead animals the tusks must be removed.
As is well known globally, the Kruger National Park in South Africa has had a very serious problem with rhino poaching over the last decade or so. A significant proportion of the remaining wild white rhinos live with in the Kruger so it is not a surprise that this is where much of the white rhino poaching has gone on.
At the same time, there has been a significant issue of man-eating lions within the Kruger National Park.
