IFAW's Animal Rescue Blog

IFAW India: Handraised Clouded Leopards Undergo Night Acclimatisation

This post was filed by the International Fund for Animal Welfare's team in Assam, India.

Kokrajhar (Assam), March 19, 2010: Moving to the next phase in the ongoing rehabilitation of the two handraised clouded leopards in Greater Manas, the Bodoland Territorial Council – International Fund for Animal Welfare – Wildlife Trust of India (BTC-IFAW-WTI) has initiated their night acclimatisation.

“This is perhaps the first time that orphan clouded leopard cubs are being handraised and rehabilitated in the wild in India. As the clouded leopard is a predominantly nocturnal felid we have started night acclimatisation,” said Dr Bhaskar Choudhury, Assistant Manager of Wild Rescue programme, WTI.

The two cubs were rescued by the Assam Forest Department a year ago. The cubs were handraised at the BTC-IFAW-WTI Mobile Veterinary Service field station in Kokrajhar for six months, before being moved to the wild in Sanfan Range, Kachugaon Forest Division for a prolonged pre-release acclimatisation.

IFAW Africa: Three Elephant Poachers from Tanzania Killed in Tsavo Park

This post was filed by Liz Wamba, our Communications Officer in the International Fund for Animal Welfare's East Africa office.

Three elephant poachers were killed late last week (13 March 2010) and one escaped with injuries after an exchange of fire with Tsavo West Park’s anti-poaching unit. The poaching gang from neighbouring Tanzania is suspected to be behind the killing of eight elephants in the Park in the last six months.

The anti-poaching unit had laid an ambush after the gang had just killed yet another large bull near the Kenya-Tanzania border. The tusks of the bull were recovered before they could be hacked off by the poachers.

The anti-poaching rangers confiscated two professional hunting rifles mainly used to kill elephants as well as nine bullets, an axe and an elephant tail. The axe is normally used to hack off tusks.

“It is a good moment for both the Park’s staff and the elephants. Luckily, we have suffered no casualties on our side,” said Daniel Woodley, Senior Warden of Tsavo West National Park.

“We were contacted by herdsmen who heard gunshots and suspected that poachers were in the area. Due to the rapid response by our rangers, they got to the area just in the nick of time, before the poachers could kill two remaining bulls. “Last year, we came across an armed gang in the same area, but they escaped. We recovered two hunting rifles, ammunition and tusks then and we believe that the poachers we just killed are one and the same as that of last year’s as they operated in a similar manner,” said Woodley.

Tsavo is home to the single largest elephant population in Kenya, and its sheer size and proximity to Somalia and Tanzania make the elephants there vulnerable to poaching. For almost five years, IFAW has been supporting Tsavo anti-poaching patrols by providing the vehicles, fuel, tyres and radio equipment they need to protect elephants from armed poachers.

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For more information on IFAW's work in Africa, please visit www.ifaw.org.

Opportunity lost to help polar bears

What a disappointment - today is a day that I suspect many CITES Parties will look back on in shame. The world had a chance to take immediate action that would have saved hundreds of polar bears each year, but chose instead to support unnecessary trade which is taking its toll on polar bears along with climate change, pollution, and poaching. Another case of politics and short-sighted economic gain winning out over science and precautionary conservation.

Many countries in the Middle East and Africa spoke out passionately in support of saving the polar bear, however Canada, the European Union, Iceland and several other European nations vocally opposed the proposal. The United States proposal which was defeated would have provided polar bears with stronger international protections -- in particular banning commerical trade in polar bears and their derivitives.

I was listening to Dr Sylvia Earle speak last night at a reception on shark conservatin here in Qatar and she said that she can understand why people didn't act to save the Dodo - they didn't understand what they were doing. But we do understand - we can see the declines in populations - we can see the polar ice disappearing and yet we still seem prepared to sacrifice species for small short term profits.

I will look back on this day and know that myself and my IFAW colleagues did all we could do to help save the polar bear, but unfortunately I know that others will not be able to say the same.

Jeff Flocken, IFAW DC Director

IFAW CITES: Last Minute Efforts for Polar Bears

This post was filed by Jeff Flocken, the International Fund for Animal Welfare's United States, Washington, D.C. office director from Doha, Qatar where he is attending the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species or CITES.

To our team's great surprise, the Committee Chair announced this morning that polar bears could come up for a vote as early as 3pm today. The polar bear coalition spent the morning scrambling to assist the US delegation on their strategy for shoring up votes, and continued to line-up votes ourselves with different delegations with whom we have been talking all week,

Luckily, at the end of the day the Committee Chair announced there would not be enough time to debate polar bears and adjourned early. We all breathed a huge sigh of relief. This happy respite gives us a few more hours to continue educating and courting delegates before the vote, which will likely happen around 9am Thursday morning here. 

Stay tuned...

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For more information about IFAW's work around the world please visit www.ifaw.org.

IFAW Africa: Elephants and Their Tusks

These stories were submitted by our team on the ground in Africa, working closely with the Kenya Wildlife Service, our partner in Tsavo West National Park. For more information on the International Fund for Animal Welfare's work in Tsavo, please visit www.ifaw.org/kenya

Elephant tusks are at once an amazing biological adaptation and a cause of much misery to these animals. For centuries, ivory tusks have been carved into intricate and beautiful trinkets and works of art. The ugly history of elephant poaching is a direct result of the existence of these elongated incisor teeth, or tusks.

Elephants tusks come in different shapes and sizes. Generally, female African elephant tusks are evenly shaped and have the same thickness along their length, though they can be long and curved. In comparison, the tusks of bull elephants are much heavier and tend to thicken from the tip to the tooth socket.

IFAW Russia: Two New Orphaned Cubs Rescued

This post about two orphaned Russian bear cubs was filed from the International Fund for Animal Welfare's Bear Rehabilitation Center. The notes below come from our staffer Lena Averianova.

On March 2, two bear cubs (female) arrived from the town of Demyansk, Bolshie Louki village, Novgorod region. The people we know called us and told that some villagers in Bolshie Louki were keeping two bear cubs. So we went there.

The head of Demyansk administration, Alexander Pavlovich Fyodorov, met us and showed the way to the village where the bear cubs were kept. People brought these bear cubs to the village after the hunt of January 29 (their eyes already open). This means that the age of these bear cubs should have been between 30 and 32 days already. Men went to hunt not far from Bolshie Louki and came across an adult bear. The bear emerged from her den. One of the hunters managed to climb a tree, while the bear attacked his colleague. Still the second hunter managed to shoot, and eventually killed the animal. The hunters claim the bear was already injured. When they examined the site, they found three bear cubs.

The den looked like a small hollow, its bottom covered with branches. The bear was most likely scared off by someone, and gave birth to her cubs right there. So she had little time to arrange her den properly. The hunters brought the cubs to villagers, who kept them in their own home till March 2. One of the cubs died, however, when it occasionally crawled out of the basket and got entangled in a rope. Two other cubs were taken to the IFAW Bear Rescue Center in Bubonitsy village.

We have not given them names yet – decided to observe the way they behave first. The bear cub with two white spots on her neck weighs 3 kg. 10 g., while the other, spotless, weighs 2 kg. 850 g. We keep them in a wooden box with a heat mat on the floor. After feeding we allow them to play with other bear cubs for a shot while. Both of them feel well.

For more information on the International Fund for Animal Welfare's work around the world, please visit, IFAW.org.

CITES update - polar bears need help

Jeff Flocken here - IFAW's DC Director at the CITES meeting in Doha. It was a busy day today lobbying for the polar bears who need all the help we can give them right now. The Polar Bear Coalition hosted a lunch for delegates assisted by the coalition's stuffy polar bear toys which have proved very popular! We desperately need votes supporting the uplisting of polar bears to Appendix I - giving them protection against international commercial trade.

With only 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears left, they are battling for survival against climate change, pollution, and of course trade. The countries here can take immediate action to stop the threat of international trade, and countries that are serious about conservation must not oppose this proposal. I will keep you posted and hope that polar bears get the chance they deserve.