Tigers, elephants and pangolins suffer as global wildlife trafficking soars
1 min read
The two young women who arrived at Heathrow in February 2014 en route to Düsseldorf were carrying nondescript luggage. Customs officers were suspicious nevertheless and looked inside – to find 13 iguanas stuffed into socks inside the cases. Astonishingly, 12 of the highly endangered San Salvador rock iguanas had survived their transatlantic journey. […]
In addition to pangolins, other endangered trafficked animals include elephants, rhinos, European eels and seahorses. Finding ways to halt the widespread loss of these creatures is now becoming a desperate problem, say conservationists, and will be the focus of a meeting, “Can surveillance technology and social science address rule-breaking and wildlife crime?”, to be held this week at the Zoological Society of London. […]
