A decision by South Africa’s government to include more than 30 wild species—including rhinos, lions, and cheetahs—on a list of animals that can be improved by breeding and genetic research could cause considerable damage to their genetic diversity, scientists warn today in the South African Journal of Science.

The global focus of the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) has correctly been on preventing further human-to-human spread, treating those who are infected and finding the animal source from which the virus “jumped” into humans.

Wildlife campaigners across the globe from animal charity Humane Society International have called for an urgent worldwide ban on the wildlife trade after China’s announcement that it will prohibit the buying and selling of wild animals for food in light of the mounting threat associated with coronavirus.

Last December, camera traps installed in Brazil’s Iguaçu National Park captured an image of a new member of the jaguar population resident in the region, raising hopes of a sustained resurgence in numbers of the big cat there.

There are four critical facets of pandemic prevention, according to Lee Hannah, senior scientist at Conservation International. Three of them make immediate sense against the backdrop of our current emergency: stockpile masks and respirators; have testing infrastructure ready; and ban the global wildlife trade, including the open animal markets where Covid-19 may have first infected people. 

Wildlife species will die out and natural ecosystems collapse in the near future if the climate crisis goes unchecked, scientists have warned, as new research shows that the natural world is at far greater risk from climate breakdown than previously thought.

Take, for example, the Cyclocephala nodanotherwon, which is a type of rhinoceros beetle in the scarab family that was described by Ratcliffe in 1992.

Anecdotes about wild animals seemingly getting drunk after eating rotting fruit are widespread.

Tourism has become an important economic sector for most African countries in the last two decades. There has been increased investments in product development and enhancement, aggressive marketing, coupled with appropriate business-friendly socio-political reforms.

South Africa’s experiment in ‘wildlife privatisation’ is under threat from the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown measures to contain it.

For more than two decades, M Khairi spent his days working as a park guide, accompanying a steady trickle of tourists keen to trek across the lush forests of western Indonesia or spot an endangered orangutan.

South African traders with China are illegally selling thousands of wild animals threatened with extinction and endangered, under the guise of legal exports, according to an investigation.

While there is general scientific consensus that the novel coronavirus is of zoonotic origin and various groupings are advising that wildlife markets must be closed, the South African government has been putting forward legislation that could massively expand the wildlife industry to become mass meat suppliers to the world.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic there is heightened public interest in the risk factors that lead to such events.

The illegal wildlife trade is one of the highest value illicit trade sectors globally, threatening both human well-being and biodiversity. A prominent example is ivory poaching, leading to an estimated 30% decline in African elephant populations between 2007 and 2014 and costing African states an estimated US$25 million annually in lost tourism revenues.

There are times of spectacular policy myopia – and promoting a revision to the Meat Safety Act by the South African government is surely one of these moments.

Intensive farming and the wildlife trade are driving the “alarming” emergence rate of zoonotic diseases, the World Wildlife Fund has warned. 

This month, the Victorian government announced on-the-spot fines for trespassers on farms following an upper house inquiry into how animal activism affects agriculture.

hould we manage wildlife based on our feelings about animals or the need for pragmatic solutions to real-world problems? Answering this question has ramifications for conservation practice globally and in Namibia. 

In February of this year, the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, Thoko Didiza, proposed an amendment to the Meat Safety Act to include a number of wild animals, including giraffes, rhinos and elephants.