News

A spectacular area of the north-eastern Free State around the village of Memel has become the first in the province to be declared a “protected environment” – for its exceptional natural beauty, diversity of species and significance as a water source area. The 17 456-hectare protected area, known as the Sneeuwberg Protected Environment (SPE), was gazetted […]

For aeons, parents have guilt-tripped children into eating their dinner because less fortunate children are starving somewhere in the world. Children were taught to be thankful for the food they have, and to not let anything go to waste. Judging by the bounty seen in restaurants, grocery stores, at markets and on the streets, it’s

South Africa is one of the most diverse countries when it comes to the animal kingdom. What is surprising, though, is that there are still rare animals being discovered. Researchers in South Africa have found evidence of seven “strawberry” leopards, adding to just a handful of documented cases of these ultra-rare big cats. Most leopards

A WWF survey of African game rangers found many of them weren’t suficciently equipped with the necessities to fight poachers in Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo and were regularly treated by government as a low priority. 75% claim to have been threatened by community members for protecting wildlife and a shocking 54% do

Professor Karen Esler, head of the Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology at Stellenbosch University, will be visiting AEL this week to talk to students about challenges facing humankind, including the conservation of biodiversity, especially in nature reserves, farmland, cities, mining and forestry areas. More about Professor Karen Esler Our guest lecturer, Professor Esler, has

For many years scientists have wondered why scorpions glow under UV light. If you’ve never seen it before, the glow of scorpions radiates a blue-green colour which originates from a substance in the cuticle found in the exoskeleton if the scorpion. It has been speculated that this glow in the dark function works as eyes,

Wildlife officials in nearly 30 African states say they are appalled by an EU decision to oppose a comprehensive global ban on the ivory trade. In a position paper released on 1 July, the European commission said that rather than an all-encompassing ban it would be better to encourage countries with growing elephant numbers to

With rhino poaching being such a serious problem in South Africa, it is understandable that the majority of our attention will be focused on that. However, it is important to be aware of the illegal wildlife trade going on in the rest of the world. Trade of rare animals and their body parts is going