Did you know? Human beings in their conceit think ‘god’ made them in his—isn’t it always his?—image. But many of our fellow members of the club called Kingdom Animalia are gifted with abilities that human beings cannot replicate even with all the technology at their disposal. The series Did You Know? is an attempt to find and share such amazing information that the world of fauna is replete with. If you have an interesting nugget...
At least two Asian elephants died avoidable deaths this week, one in Assam in India and the other on the Indonesian island of Bali. In the first case, an elephant that was part of a herd that emerged from the Dehingmukh reserve forest and was foraging in a paddy field was electrocuted when it raised its trunk and accidentally touched a low-hanging 11 kV power line. The incident occurred on Friday at Madhupur Paroliguri village,...
Film actor-producer John Abraham has backed the campaign of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and called upon the Himalayan republic of Nepal to end the animal cruelty and abuse that is commonplace at the Chitwan Elephant Festival. In a letter to Nepal’s Minister of Culture, Tourism, and Civil Aviation Badri Prasad Pandey, the movie star wrote, “As someone who has witnessed the beauty of elephants in their natural habitat, I can tell you...
In a horrific, but not unusual, incident on November 18, a temple elephant in Tamil Nadu trampled her mahout and a relative of the attendant to death. It is unclear what triggered the elephant’s anger. But the India chapter of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has offered to gift a robotic elephant to the Subramania Swamy temple in Tiruchendur town in return for Deivanai’s release from custody and rehabilitation at a sanctuary, “where...
On the very day that a worrying news report appeared saying India’s elephant population may have dropped by as much as 20% in the five years from the last published census of 2017, a new peer-reviewed study published in the journal Peer J has found that, despite efforts by zoos, captive elephants continue to face serious problems. The study, titled Continuing Challenges of Elephant Captivity: The Captive Environment, Health Issues, and Welfare Implications, represents the...
Less than two months ago, on August 12, conservationists globally observed World Elephant Day. On the occasion, TheSnout.in posted a short article about the state of elephants mostly in Asia. Among other things, the report said 3 out of 5 Asian elephants are to be found in India, and the country has about 27,000 of the 45,000 pachyderms estimated to survive across Asia. Now it appears that the situation of the Indian elephant may have...
IBM, provider of global hybrid cloud, artificial intelligence, and consulting expertise to clients in more than 175 countries, and the World Wide Fund for Nature-Germany have announced that they will work together to develop a solution to help monitor keystone species. The first keystone species to be taken up by the project is the critically endangered African forest elephant. The International Union for Conservation of Nature defines keystone species as those that are critical to...
A new report from World Animal Protection, a global organization working to end factory farming and wildlife exploitation, has exposed the tourism industry’s abusive treatment of animals and accused a popular travel company of being a key partner in this abuse. The report, entitled “Making Memories Misery: How GetYourGuide Profits from Animal Cruelty”, profiles some of the worst animal tourism operators that partnered with it, where captive animals endure abusive training, get inadequate food and...
Last week TheSnout.in reported the encouraging story of how the Iberian lynx has made a comeback from the brink of extinction. Now, halfway around the world in Southeast Asia, the Bornean elephant, the world’s smallest, has been assessed as “endangered”, with barely 1,000 individuals remaining in the wild as human activities in its habitat rise rapidly, according to the latest update to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species. This...
While there has been some success in combating the illicit trade in some iconic wildlife species, and cross-border cooperation and recognition of wildlife crimes have improved, the magnitude of the problem remains large, with around 4,000 various plant and animal species being seized between 2015 and 2021, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime reported in Vienna, Austria, earlier this month. “The global scope and scale of wildlife crime remain substantial as the seizures indicate...
