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Armed with a wooden stick, a bucket and a headlamp, Philippine construction worker Johnny Manlugay hunts every night for the eggs of sea turtles on the pristine beaches of the northern province of La Union. The 55-year-old can easily spot nesting sites, having been trained in his youth by his grandfather how to track the animals and their eggs, which his family traded at the time or ate. But his egg-stealing days are over. Now Manlugay has turned his skills to helping protect marine turtles on the provincial beaches favoured by the endangered Olive Ridley species to build nesting sites.

A lion at Ghana’s Accra Zoo mauled an intruder to death after he climbed a fence in an alleged attempt to steal a rare white cub, officials said.At around noon local time on Sunday, security guards on patrol at the zoo noticed that the middle-aged victim had scaled a 20-foot-tall mesh fence and entered the enclosure housing a lion, a lioness and two cubs.“The intruder was attacked and injured by one of the lions,” Ghana’s state Forestry Commission said in a statement, adding that the unnamed man had died from wounds he sustained in the attack.Authorities said they have not...

Officials at a South African national park said yesterday that a man who was suspected of being a poacher was killed by a herd elephants on Saturday. The men were running from rangers when they ran into a “breeding herd of elephants.” The men were reportedly attempting to poach rhinoceros. Only through discipline, teamwork and tenacity will we be able to help stem the tide of rhino poaching in KNP.”

A suspected rhino poacher was killed in an elephant stampede at a South African national park on Saturday, officials said. The man was among three suspected poachers spotted by rangers at Kruger National Park, the parks service said in a Sunday press release. The trio fled when they were seen, and during their escape, ran into a breeding herd of elephants, authorities said.

The man was one of three suspected rhino poachers whom park rangers were chasing through Kruger National Park at the time, SANParks said in a news release. "When they realized they had been spotted, the suspected poachers dropped an axe and a bag with their provisions in an attempt to escape from the rangers," SANParks said. The rangers pursued the three suspects with dogs and air support. They eventually caught up with one who said his accomplice had run into a herd of breeding elephants, but he did not know what happened after that. Rangers went to the spot where...

Kenya’s only female white giraffe and her calf have been killed by poachers, conservationists have said, in a major blow to conservation of the rare animals found nowhere else in the world. The bodies of the two giraffes were found “in a skeletal state after being killed by armed poachers” in Garissa in eastern Kenya, the Ishaqbini Hirola Community Conservancy said in a statement. Their deaths leave one surviving white giraffe – a lone male borne by the same slaughtered female, the conservancy said. “We are the only community in the world who are custodians of the white giraffe,” said...

The Kenya Wildlife Service was called to the reserve after it was reported the giraffes hadn’t been seen in quite a while. Upon finding the bones, wildlife officials estimated they had been there for at least four months. “This is a very sad day for the community of Ijara and Kenya as a whole. We are the only community in the world who are custodians of the white giraffes,” said Mohammed Ahmednoor, manager of the reserve in Garissa County, Kenya, in a news release. The animals got their unique coloring from a condition known as leucism, which is a genetic...

Down the road from the crocodile ponds inside Nepal’s renowned Chitwan National Park, in a small clearing shaded by sala trees, sits a jail. Hira Chaudhary went there one summer night with boiled green maize and chicken for her husband, Shikharam, a farmer who had been locked up for two days. Shikharam was in too much pain to swallow. He crawled toward Hira, his thin body covered in bruises, and told her through sobs that forest rangers were torturing him. “They beat him mercilessly and put saltwater in his nose and mouth,” Hira later told police...

Early in September, international news was awash with the claim that 87 elephants had been “killed by poachers” in Botswana. The story originated from the NGO Elephants Without Borders, which received massive publicity – and presumably donations – as a result. Even the beleaguered UK Prime Minister tweeted the story, while a petition calling for wildlife guards to be re-armed surpassed 150,000 signatures. I know a little of Botswana. A few years ago, I was declared “public enemy number one”, threatened by a government spokesman on television, and banned from the country. This was because Survival International was instrumental in...

At least three suspected rhino poachers have been killed by a pride of lions after they broke into a game reserve in South Africa. Rangers discovered human remains around 4:30 p.m. local time on July 3 in the immediate vicinity of the lions’ territory at the Sibuya Game Reserve in Kenton-on-Sea in the Eastern Cape, more than 24 hours after an anti-poaching dog alerted her handler that something was amiss. The ranger however did not examine the disturbance further because it was not unusual to hear the lions at night. When members of the anti-poaching unit investigated, they recovered human...

GOOD KITTY....:)! At least three suspected poachers were apparently killed by lions while hunting rhinos at a South Africa wildlife reserve. Rangers found human remains Tuesday at Sibuya Game Reserve, and police returned the following morning to look for poachers, reported the Sunday Times..... More at link... https://www.rawstory.com/2018/07/lions-kill-eat-least-three-rhino-poachers-south-africa-nature-reserve/?comments=disqus

The Oklahoma Wardens catches another road hunter. The Oklahoma Game Wardens recently busted a hunter who was illegally taking out turkeys with a suppressed rifle. Thanks to a tip from the public (via Oklamoma Game Warden Facebook)that clued in wardens Blake Pearson and Mark Murray to a suspect. On April 13 Game Wardens Blake Pearson (Kingfisher County) and Mark Murray (Oklahoma/ Canadian Counties) seized 5 illegally harvested turkeys from a subject. Warden Pearson had received numerous calls in previous weeks regarding a vehicle that appeared to be road hunting. Pearson was finally able to get a complete tag number from...

Mali’s elephants, Africa’s northernmost herd and adapted to life in the country’s harsh desert, were in desperate need of protection. The animals live in an unforgiving landscape southeast of Timbuktu, enduring sandstorms and blistering temperatures. To survive, they trek in search of food and water across what is thought to be the biggest migratory range of their species, more than 12,400 square miles. But it wasn’t only climate change endangering the elephants. It was also poachers. They were being slaughtered in staggering numbers as ivory traffickers took advantage of a security vacuum in the region, with 163 killed since 2012,...

Central Washington game wardens are looking for tips that lead them to those responsible for shooting up a herd of elk near Ellensburg on Nov. 6, and two conservation groups are offering $4,000 in reward for info leading to a conviction in the case. The incident occurred in Schnebly Canyon north of town between 9 and 11 that morning, the last day of rifle elk season, and began with a report of three dead elk on a hillside. But when officers arrived they discovered even more. "We found four dead calves in a line within 100 yards," said Officer Roman...

The following press release is courtesy of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife: Two Southern California men have been convicted and fined for abalone poaching and other resource crimes, stemming from a September 2015 California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) enforcement case. CDFW wildlife officers assigned to the patrol boat Thresherdiscovered the two men poaching abalone at Catalina Island. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office subsequently prosecuted both individuals. Hee Won Chai, 75, of Los Angeles was charged with taking and possessing six pink abalone. Chai pleaded no contest to all six poaching counts. He was ordered...

A lifetime hunting ban, jail time and thousands of dollars in penalties are the price a Nampa man must pay for last year’s poaching of a trophy bighorn sheep along Idaho’s Main Salmon River. Appearing in Idaho County Court on June 6, Paul Cortez (53) of Nampa stood silent as District Court Judge Gregory FitzMaurice handed down the poaching sentence. In addition to a lifetime hunting license revocation, Cortez received 30 days in jail, a $10,000 civil penalty, fines/court costs totaling $753 and four years of probation. On November 6, 2015 while on routine jet boat patrol along the famous...

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife enforcement division has a limited number of wardens available to cover the entire State. There are approximately 400 wardens responsible for protecting our natural resources from poachers. Considering that there are over three million sportsmen in California, wardens are definitely outnumbered in maintaining order in the outside world. A few years back I decided to pick up a deer tag down in San Diego County, very near my office at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Early the next morning I met Jason at the parking lot near the hunting area. We...

According to "The Clarion-Ledger" four poachers have been caught in Newton County, Mississippi after police caught them shooting at a deer at night. Like many poachers, they shot at the deer from a vehicle, but this was not a typical case. These poachers allegedly shot at the deer from the cab of an 18-wheeler. Officers were watching an area where they'd received complaints of head lighting of deer happening. They were surprised when the 18-wheeler truck showed up at 1:20 a.m. and someone shot at a deer out the window with a shotgun. Read the rest of the story here.

As a massive hockey fan as I am, I have become fascinated with the penalty box, the Ryker's Island of sports, in reality a jail cell where offending hockey players are sentenced in two- to 10-minute increments for charges ranging from cross checking to hooking, slashing to holding the stick (no jokes intended). When you are guilty of said crimes, your pays the price and has to trudge on - a man down mind you – while the player must sit and watch in timeout in a tiny, isolated space. It's one reason why I enjoy hockey so much. Think...

There isn't a clear answer on deterring poachers. The subject itself brings a sharp pain to every landowner’s asses. The right way to handle this is to let the authorities handle this. The following is an excerpt from a landowner on this ordeal and how he handled it. David was a proud new landowner. He bought his 640-acre place in the rural South and started fixing up the old farm house. His land had a garden, fields for planting, built wood duck boxes, and stocked two lakes with bass and pan fish. Life was good for the new country landlord...