Two men jailed for badger-baiting in Wales

Huntsman David Thomas sentenced to 22 weeks and accomplice to 20 in case RSPCA says shows animal cruelty is rife

Steven Morris

Mon 5 Feb 2018 17.45 GMTFirst published on Mon 5 Feb 2018 16.34 GMT

An experienced huntsman has been jailed after being caught badger-baiting on remote farmland in north Wales. RSPCA inspectors and police also found two foxes in a cage next to a pack of dogs on the farm, a meeting place for the Dwyryd Hunt, and believe they were going to be released for dogs to attack.

The RSPCA said the case showed that badger-baiting, which has been banned since 1835, and other forms of animal cruelty were still rife.

Some animal campaigners claim it also suggests the government’s badger cull has caused the mammals to become “demonised” and led to an increase in cruelty towards them.

Speaking after the sentencing, Ch Insp Ian Briggs, from the RSPCA’s special operations unit, said: “This was a major and landmark investigation in which the RSPCA caught individuals red-handed in the act of using their dogs to barbarically fight with a badger.

“Badger-baiting has been illegal for over 180 years and it is sickening to find people still seeking to spend their time inflicting pain, suffering and misery on animals in this way. This was coordinated and carefully planned cruelty.”

He added: “Badger persecution is rife across the country. There are numerous gangs out to target badgers. The badger is seen as the most worthy opponent, the biggest test for their dogs. But the people involved in this sort of activity just like killing things.

“It’s extremely difficult to detect. These people are going out into secluded woodlands, sometimes on to farmland with permission of the owner, which makes it extremely difficult to investigate.”

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6 jailed in Tanzania for total of 122 years for wildlife trading.

Posted on December 22, 2015 by Kevin Heath

In less than a week the Tanzanian courts have made a bold and strong statement in order to protect the country’s wildlife. Six people involved in wildlife trafficking have been jailed for a total of 122 years.

In one court case, yesterday (Monday 22 December 2015), two ivory traders were sentenced to 21 years each for their part in trying to smuggle 4 elephant tusks out of the country.

Resident Magistrate Odira Amwol sentenced the two to the long jail term after the court had proved beyond reasonable doubt that they committed the offence.

The prosecution told the court that Justin Bruno, 50, a resident of Usevya Village and Philbert Leo, 35, a resident of Ikuba Village, were arrested on Thursday in possession of the haul. The magistrate ignored their pleas for lenient sentencing because they had families to look after.

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Zimbabwean jailed for nine years for eating python meat

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A Zimbabwean man has been jailed for nine years for eating python, a protected species, a Zimbabwean daily reported on Friday.

Archwell Maramba said he had been eating the snake meat for its medicinal value.

"I wanted to eat the python to cure my spine and since I ate my first python I have seen remarkable improvement," NewsDay quoted Maramba as saying during his court case.

Acting on a tipoff, police found the 58-year-old drying snakeskin and python meat stashed in his house.

(Reporting by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Source .

Chinese man jailed for 13 years for eating tigers and making wine from their blood

A businessman from Guangxi and his accomplices oversaw the killing of three tigers in three separate deals, state media says

theguardian.com, Wednesday 31 December 2014 03.57 GMT

A Chinese man has been jailed for 13 years for buying and eating endangered tigers and making wine made out of their blood, state media reported.

The man, identified as a wealthy businessmen with the surname Xu, organised three trips to the southern province of Guangdong last year to buy the tigers, which he then transported to his home region of Guangxi, Xinhua news agency said late on Tuesday.

Xu and his accomplices witnessed the killing of three tigers in three deals with the sellers, one of which was killed by an electric shock, the report said.

Xu and his friends ate the tiger meat and he was reported to have said: “If anyone asks, say it is beef, horse or big cat meat,” Xinhua reported.

He was arrested after one of his deals was recorded by someone nearby who reported it to the police.

The report did not say where the tigers came from, only that they were suspected of being smuggled into the country.

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Record sentence for rhino poacher

In a rare decision a poacher from South Africa has been sentenced to the heaviest penalty available, 77 years, for committing wildlife crimes, after being arrested in the Kruger National Park (KNP) in 2011 for killing three rhino calves.

The long sentence has been handed out partly because the South African court held the poacher, Mandla Chauke, responsible for the death of his accomplice who was killed by park rangers in a shoot-out. As a result, Chauke was also convicted for murder.

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Three men from Colne jailed for badger and cat cruelty

12 July 2014 Last updated at 12:13

Three men who set dogs on a badger and a cat have been jailed after video of the cruelty was discovered on one of their mobile phones.

Footage showed a badger being attacked and a cat being shaken from a tree, while barking dogs waited below.

Joshua Varey, Shaun Mullens and Paul Ashworth, all from Colne, near Burnley, were jailed at Burnley Magistrates' Court on Friday.

The RSPCA said it was unclear if the badger or cat survived the attacks.

Inspector Carroll Lamport said: "These men were responsible for a vicious, deliberate and vindictive level of animal cruelty.

"We'll never know whether the cat or badger in these clips survived, or whether they were torn to shreds by the dogs set upon them."

'Untold suffering'

Varey, 24, of Duke Street, was sentenced to 126 days in prison while 22-year-old Mullens, of Leach Street, was jailed for 114 days.

Both admitted fighting a dog with a badger, and were banned from keeping animals for 10 years.

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China hopes to take rare animals off the menu with tough jail sentences

People who knowing eat products made from 420 species classified as endangered face of up to 10 years or more in prison

Jonathan Kaiman in Beijing

theguardian.com, Friday 25 April 2014 12.30 BST

Chinese diners who enjoy bear bile, tiger bones and pangolin meat now have a new reason to lay down their chopsticks.

China's top legislative body passed a new "interpretation" of the country's criminal law on Thursday that will allow authorities to jail people who knowingly eat products made from rare wild animals. Prison sentences for the offence range from under three years to more than a decade, the state newswire Xinhua reported.

Beijing classifies 420 species as rare or endangered, including giant pandas, golden monkeys, Asian black bears and pangolins – scaly, slow-moving anteaters which curl into balls to avoid their predators. While China already promises harsh fines and jail sentences for people who catch, kill, traffic, buy and sell the animals, it has until now remained unclear on the potential consequences for eating them.

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Heathrow wildlife traffickers jailed for 12 months

Posted by: Kevin Heath / 2 days ago

2 Romanian women who were caught trying to smuggle 13 endangered iguanas through Heathrow airport have been jailed for 12 months. The women were caught during border checks at Terminal 5 on 3rd February. The discovery was made as the women transferred from their Bahamas flight to their connection to Dosseldorf in Germany.

Border Force officers found the 13 iguanas stuffed in socks in suitcases. 12 of the reptiles had survived while 1 had died during transit. Romanian nationals Angla-Alina Bita, 26, and Vitora-Oliva Bucsa, 24, were arrested by officers.

The iguanas were identified as San Salvador rock iguanas and only a few hundred of them now remain in the wild.

They appeared in court on Thursday 3rd April at Isleworth Crown Court when they pleaded guilty to trafficking in endangered species covered by CITES regulations. The judge jailed them for 12 months.

Grant Miller, head of the Border Force CITES team, said: “The rarity of this particular species made this an incredibly significant seizure. The iguanas are critically endangered and in effect priceless.

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Jail time for theft from UK ivory stockpiles

Posted by: Kevin Heath / 1 day ago

A thief who broke into a zoo and stole an elephant tusk that had been loaned out by the UK Border Force has been jailed for 120 days by Folkestone Magistrates Court. Craig Deane broke into Wingham Wildlife Park on September 9th 2013 and stole the elephant tusk worth about £2,500.

Craig Deane, 39, admitted to the theft when he appeared in front of magistrates and was sentenced to 120 days prison. The tusk has not been recovered. He appeared before magistrates on 2nd April 2014.

The tusk was part of the UK’s seized ivory stockpile and had been loaned out the Wingham Widlife Park as an educational exhibit at their museum. 

Deane though will not spend any extra time in prison as his sentence for stealing the tusk will run alongside a prison sentence of 35 months that he was already serving for breaking into a house.

http://wildlifenews.co.uk/2014/jail-time-for-theft-stealing-from-uk-ivory-stockpiles/

Breakthrough as plantation workers jailed for killing orangutan

Conservationists at Sabah in Malaysia are celebrating a breakthrough sentence which has seen 2 palm oil plantation workers jailed for 2 years for killing an orang-utan. The Sabah Wildlife Department have also described the sentence as a ‘landmark decision’.

The two workers pleaded guilty to killing the great ape with a parang – or machete type knife – at Felda Sahabat on Jan 29th 2014. They claimed they killed the orang-utan because it had damaged palm oil plants.

The Sabah Wildlife Department disputed this and said the workers were poaching the animal for the bush meat trade.

Assistant director Dr Sen Nathan from the department said that there was a local demand for bush meat of all types.

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Chinese ivory traders receive sentences of up to 15 years

The CITES office in China has released details of a number of cases involving ivory importing and trading. In the most recent case 8 people accused of illegal ivory trading received prison sentences of between 3 and 15 years. The recent case involved the import of 3.6 tonnes of ivory between 2010 and 2012.

The traders had bought the ivory online through an auction website and imported it into China marked as shipments of calligraphy brush canisters or sewage pipes. The ivory was then sold to customers in China through an online shop.

The leader of the group was sentenced to 15 years in prison and order to forfeit his $500,000 in cash. The sentences were handed out by officials in east China’s Anhui Province for smuggling.

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Hwange elephant poisoning update - Death toll now 81 elephants

Largest elephant poisoning on record

September 2013. Since the original discovery of 41 elephant carcasses in Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park last week, a further 40 carcasses have now been discovered in what is believed to be the worst mass poisoning of elephants on record. Zimbabwe's Minister for Tourism, Walter Mzembi, visited the site of the massacre in Hwange National Park and announced that the death toll had now reached 81 elephants, and a large amount of smaller game, and that it was still possible that more would be found.

Zimbabwe Government officials have (again) vowed to crackdown on poaching.

It is highly likely that more wildlife, especially scavengers, will have eaten some of the carcasses will have died in addition to the elephants over a much more wisdespread area, and the full extent of the damage may never be known.

More arrests

Five Zimbabwean nationals were originally arrested in connection with the use of cyanide in Hwange National Park, and reports now indicate three more people have been arrested. Ivory, cyanide and a leopard skin were all recovered from the alleged poachers.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/hwange-elephants.html

Zimbabwe poachers jailed 15 years for elephant poisoning

Harare (AFP) - A Zimbabwe court on Wednesday sentenced three poachers to at least 15 years in prison each for poisoning and killing 81 elephants, state radio reported.

A provincial magistrate sentenced 25-year-old Diyane Tshuma to 16 years in prison for poisoning elephants with cyanide at in Hwange National Park, in the west of Zimbabwe, Spot FM reported.

His co-accused Robert Maphosa, 42, and Thabani Zondo, 24, were each sentenced to 15 years.

"The parks and wildlife management authority has hailed the sentences saying they will be a deterrent to would-be poachers," Spot FM reported.

Tshuma was ordered to pay $600,000 (440,000 euro) to the Zimbabwe Wildlife and Parks Authority for killing the animals, while Zondo must pay $200,000 by the end of the year.

Elephant's tusks are highly sought after for Asia's ivory trade.

The three were among nine people arrested on suspicion of poisoning watering holes in the game park.

However, Jerry Gotora, chairman of the Zimbabwe parks department board of directors on Tuesday said the poison had been "put at places where elephants graze, not in water".

Two years ago nine elephants, five lions and two buffalo died from cyanide poisoning in Hwange National Park.

Just 50 rangers patrol the 14,650-square kilometre (5,660-square mile) park, and wildlife authorities say 10 times that number are needed.

There are more than 120,000 elephants living in Zimbabwe's national parks.

http://news.yahoo.com/zimbabwe-poachers-jailed-15-years-elephant-poisoning-172555271.html

Victory for justice as ivory poaching kingpin gets five year jail sentence in Congo

Poaching kingpin had ‘influential connections'

July 2013. Conservationists are celebrating following the news that Pépito, the kingpin of an ivory poaching and trafficking ring in Republic of Congo, was sentenced to five years in jail this week.

The imprisonment of Pépito, whose real name is Ngondjo Ghislain, represents a coup for African Parks, who, alongside Government officials and other NGOs, worked tirelessly to secure the arrest and imprisonment of the notorious poacher who operated around Odzala-Kokoua National Park.

Naftali Honig, co-ordinator of PALF, an NGO that promotes proper judicial process, said Pepito's imprisonment was an "almost unprecedented success" in Congo and could be attributed to the diligence of the regional Court in Ewo. He praised African Parks Network, WCS and the European Union who made the effort to attend the court case in Ewo, which is almost 600 km away from Brazzaville.

‘Sense of impunity'

"For more than a decade Odzala-Kokoua National Park and the Cuvette-Ouest region of Congo were plagued with the crippling presence of Pépito. His sense of impunity expired this week when he was delivered to Brazzaville prison to serve his five-year prison sentence," said Honig.

Leon Lamprecht, African Parks' Manager for Odzala-Kokoua described Pépito's jailing as "a victory for justice in Congo. Pépito allegedly had influential connections that previously secured him immunity against prosecution and we are very relieved to have him behind bars for five years," said Lamprecht.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/odzala-pepito.html

$1 million dollar plus fine and 42 months in jail for smuggling rhino horn

Wildlife agents seize hoard of cash, jewellery, gold and rhino horn from defendants

May 2013.

Vinh Chuong "Jimmy" Kha, 50, and Felix Kha 26, were sentenced in Los Angeles to serve 42 and 46 months, respectively, in prison for crimes related to illegal international trafficking of rhinoceros horn.

$1 million plus fine
In addition to the prison sentences, the two defendants were ordered to pay a total of $20,000 in criminal fines and pay a $185,000 tax fraud penalty and assessment. In addition, Jimmy Kha's Win Lee Corporation was ordered to pay a $100,000 fine. Jimmy and Felix Kha, along with Win Lee Corporation, were also ordered to pay a total of $800,000 in restitution to the Multinational Species Conservation Fund, a statutorily created fund that is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to support international efforts to protect and conserve rhinos and other critically endangered species around the world. The defendants previously abandoned their portion of interest in $2 million worth of rhino parts and vehicles seized in the investigation.


The Khas are among several individuals charged so far with federal crimes as a result of "Operation Crash," an ongoing FWS-led investigation of the black market rhino horn trade named for the term used to describe a herd of rhinoceros.


"The Khas engaged in egregious criminal conduct by taking the horns of a species on the brink of extinction and making millions of dollars in the illegal trade in rhino horns," said Ignacia S. Moreno, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division. "The Khas sentence sends a strong message that those who violate the law by illegally trading in rhino horns will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law."


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Notorious tiger poacher and six accomplices sentenced to 7 years imprisonment

A notorious tiger poacher, who was considered at least partially responsible for the disappearance of all tigers from Sariska, has been sentenced to 7 years in jail.

Responsible for the disappearance of tigers from Sariska
February 2013: A notorious Indian poacher, known as Juhru, along with his six accomplices, has been sentenced to seven years imprisonment and a fine of one million rupees in yet another case of tiger poaching at Sariska Tiger Reserve.
 

The case arises from the killing of a tiger by the ‘Juhru' in 2004, according to the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), who was assisted in the case; the maximum sentence was handed down by the Chief Judicial Magistrate.

‘Juhru' has been accused in at least 14 wildlife crime cases, including six cases of tiger poaching, and he has been convicted on at least two occasions of leopard poaching and in one case of tiger poaching, in 2003 again at Sariska. He was sentenced to five years each in the leopard cases, and seven years for the tiger case.

Responsible for the disappearance of tigers from Sariska
"He was one of the main people responsible for the disappearance of tigers from Sariska," said Ashok Kumar, Vice-chairman, WTI. "Such sentences overlap as per Indian laws. Repeat offenders should be serving consecutive sentence for all these killings."

Tiger poisoned
In a separate incident, a 5 year-old tiger that was found dead near Nagarahole Tiger Reserve was poisoned, probably with zinc oxide, in retaliation for preying on livestock that was grazing inside the park.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/juhru-tiger.html