Category: animal welfare

Poacher Trampled By Elephants While Trying To Shoot Rhino, South African Parks Officials Say

“Elephants are extremely intelligent and, as people say, they never forget,” a parks spokesman said.

A poacher looking to kill a rhinoceros for its horn was trampled by elephants, whose fury was so great that they reduced him to “a very large bloodstain around the clothing he was in,” South African parks officials said.

Two men illegally entered Kruger National Park on Sept. 11 and walked six kilometers into the Pafuri area, a section on the far north end of the park that features diverse wildlife between two major water sources, the Limpopo and Luvuvhu rivers.

The men were tracking rhinos and were carrying high-powered rifles and an axe, SANParks spokesman JP Louw said. They did not realize that a herd of elephants was moving parallel to the rhinos toward the same water source, and when one of the poachers raised his rifle to line up a shot, the infuriated elephants charged him.

The surviving poacher ran in another direction. When he made it home and reported his partner was missing, he told police he heard the man screaming. He’s been arrested and faces charges of attempted poaching and illegally entering the park.

Rangers found the tracks left by the men and followed them to the site where the elephants charged. They had trampled the poacher so thoroughly that there was little left besides his pulped body and the remains of his clothes, authorities said.

A group of elephants walking towards the camera near a water source in a dry landscape.
Credit: Wayne Lubbe/Pexels

Rangers also found a dead buffalo, which they believe the men killed before their fatal encounter with the elephants.

Rhinoceros horns can fetch about $13,500 from middlemen in South Africa, who then smuggle them into China where they can command as much as 20 times that amount. The demand comes from the traditional Chinese “medicine” market, where animal parts like horns and big cat bones are used in folk elixirs. People believe the elixirs can grant a range of supernatural powers, from immortality to restored “chi energy,” and some elixirs are sold as remedies for everything from common colds to viruses, gastrointestinal issues and baldness.

Traditional Chinese “medicine” is based on concepts invented in deep antiquity and targets a system of “meridians,” pathways said to exist in the body that practitioners claim are the conduits for chi energy.

Chi energy and meridians are both inventions of the human imagination, but what is real is the impact on animals. Poaching has had dramatic impacts on animals like elephants, rhinos, tigers, leopards, lions and pangolins. More recently, because authorities in Africa and India have gone to greater lengths to protect their surviving wild animal populations, Chinese poachers have turned their efforts toward South America and the Amazon jungle. In recent years jaguar poaching has skyrocketed to fulfill demand from China.

In a dramatic example from October of 2025, fishermen in Brazil rescued a severely wounded jaguar who had been shot by poachers and had made a desperate escape into the Amazon river. The fisherman found the wounded big cat bleeding and barely clinging to a piece of debris.

That jaguar’s story had a happy ending: veterinarians were able to save him despite 30 lead fragments embedded in his head and neck among other injuries, and he was released back into the wild after he recovered. Sadly, most jaguars who are targeted by poachers do not survive.

Instances of poachers killed by elephants aren’t novel either. In another incident in Kruger National Park, a poacher was trampled by an elephant, then eaten by a pride of lions.

“Elephants are extremely intelligent and, as people say, they never forget,” Louw said. The elephants knew what a man raising a rifle means “and may well have witnessed poachers before sneaking up on rhinos and went to protect them.”

This Is What Happens When People Demonize Cats

Cats were poisoned, shot with a handgun and killed with blow darts in separate incidents this week.

It’s been a while since we touched on the topic of thinly-veiled cat hatred masquerading as academic rigor in studies blaming cats for killing improbable numbers of birds and small mammals in countries like the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand.

Unfortunately those “studies,” which have little relationship with reality, have serious consequences. In places like New Zealand, it’s the widespread government-sanctioned slaughter of felines and the rise of vigilantism by creepy people who clearly enjoy killing cats.

Now that sort of thing is happening with greater frequency in the US.

In Brooklyn someone poisoned a group of at least seven community cats. A man who cares for the colony of strays found the felines dead under his deck, where they usually sleep. The cats were all bleeding from nose and mouth, and authorities believe someone put rat poison in their food.

Lab tests and necropsy results are pending. St. Vincent Feline Rescue and state Sen. Steve Chan, a former police officer, are offering a $2,500 reward for information leading to the identification and arrest of the person or people responsible. Cats from two other nearby colonies have gone missing and authorities believe they may have met the same fate.

The deaths have taken a toll on Albert Vincent Berto, a Brooklyn man who has been caring for and feeding the strays for years.

“ It gave me purpose. It gave me something to get up in the morning for,” he told The Gothamist. “ I’m just bewildered. I’m just, I feel lost. I’m so lost right now.”

Two cats eating on the ground, one white with brown patches and one grey and white.
Credit: Pexels

Meanwhile a man in West Palm Beach, Fl., has been shooting cats.

A local rescue managed to get footage of the man during his latest attack. The video shows the man riding up to the exterior of a closed flea market at night and taking shots at cats with a hand gun.

A cat named Zoe survived a gunshot wound, but the bullet shattered a front leg, which had to be amputated.

Staff at a local rescue stressed that the flea market shooting isn’t the first of its kind. They believe the same person may be responsible for shooting other cats in the West Palm Beach area.

“This is not an isolated incident from what we know,” Gabby Gluck of Furry Friends told WPBF, a local ABC affiliate. “This is just the incident that we have footage of.”

Furry Friends has announced a $5,000 reward for anyone who can help police identify the man in the video footage. The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office is handling the investigation.

Those weren’t the only similar incidents this week. In Tennessee, three people were arrested after killing several cats and severely injuring a kitten with blow darts. In Hawaii, two men face murder and assault charges after allegedly attacking a man and his sister, who were feeding stray cats in Maui. Alfred Kailihiwa, 71, who was well known as a caretaker of local strays, was rushed to the hospital after the attack but died of his injuries a short time later. And in Rochester, NY, a local shelter’s outdoor cat homes were smashed by cat-hating vandals the week prior, and not for the first time.

Wordless Wednesday: 300 Humpback Whales Meet For Incredible ‘Supergathering’

On the verge of extinction in the 1980s because of commercial whaling, humpbacks have rallied and are now spotted in increasingly larger gatherings.

Back in the 80s, whaling had brought whale species to the brink of extinction.

A gobal outcry prompted action to save Earth’s largest animals, resulting in the 1986 global ban on commercial whaling by the International Whaling Commission.

While some species continue to struggle, humpbacks are among the species that have come roaring back. Thanks to South African photographer Chris Fallows, we’ve got a prime view of a “supergathering” of some 300 humpbacks who met off the west coast of South Africa:

Fallows called it a “Manhattan skyline” of whale breath plumes, and said it’s clear evidence the species has benefited from the ban.

Humpback whales can grow up to 60 feet long and weigh up to 40 metric tons. They’re known for their long, haunting conversations in whalesong, with “phrases” that can last as long as 30 minutes. Despite their massive size, humpbacks are filter feeders who subsist on small fish, krill and plankton.

Photographer David Edgar captured this dramatic image of a curious humpback whale in 2019 in Tongatapu, Tonga. Credit: David Edgar

Six Cops Storm Woman’s Home, Break Door Down With An Axe To Seize Cat

Now the cat’s caretaker is suing to get her pet back and says she’s worried the authorities will have the tuxedo shorthair euthanized. The RSPCA says it responded to serious concerns about the cat’s health.

Usually when complaints about UK police hit the headlines, it involves sheepish constables knocking to talk to a “suspect” about a social media post that offended someone.

This seems to be a whole different level of crazy, and neither the police nor prosecutors are denying that six police officers and an official from the RSPCA showed up at the North London home of Katherine Theodotou, chopped up the front door with an axe and charged in.

The 79-year-old Theodotu, through her attorney, said she was recovering from breast cancer surgery and couldn’t make it to the door quickly. The police, she said, came through the door just as she was reaching it and knocked her over.

They also provided images of the door after the May 27 “raid” on Theodotu’s home:

Theodotu says the police searched her entire home and an adjoining Greek school, which she founded.

The RSPCA and Metropolitan police tell a different version of the story, although they do not dispute the urgency and violence with which they entered Theodotu’s home. They say veterinarians who examined and treated Rita the cat had serious concerns about her health. Rita, who had a congenital condition, cannot use her back legs and requires special care. Theodotu’s attorney said the former human rights lawyer turned educator can prove she’s paid significant sums for Rita’s rehabilitation and care, including a recent veterinary surgery.

But veterinarians who examined Rita after the RSPCA took her found her condition “extremely concerning and consistent with a significant deterioration since discharge, alongside evidence suggestive of prolonged inadequate hygiene, nursing care, and monitoring within the home environment,” said Mark Townsend, an attorney for the RSPCA.

Theodotu is suing the RSPCA and the police for taking her cat and asking the court to prevent the RSPCA from potentially euthanizing Rita. Let’s hope the courts are able to sort out if the cat was receiving proper care and rule in the animal’s best interests.

In the meantime, the London Metropolitan Police should probably review whichever policy allows its officers to break into homes as if they’re ending a hostage situation, not collecting a cat. Unless a real life Jason Stathamesque character is barricaded in his home and making violent threats, it feels like one cop just to make sure everything stays civil and the temperature remains low would be the appropriate response. Two is overkill. Four is almost comical. But six? With an axe? Chopping the door down? Nah. You’ve gotta revisit your protocols, gov.

Coffee Beans Harvested From Civet Cat Poop Aren’t Just Gross, They’re Unethical

Kopi luwak aficionados pay a premium for the privilege of drinking the brew.

Kopi luwak is the most expensive beverage in the world and a testament to how pretentious people can be about things labeled exotic, wild or rare.

Developing a taste for the coffee, which hails from Indonesia, means taking on a costly vice: “farm-harvested” kopi luwak beans can go for more than $100 per pound, while beans supposedly harvested from the wild can fetch more than $1,000 per pound.

All for a beverage made from coffee beans eaten and shat out by civet cats.

Aficionados claim the beans undergo a partial fermentation process as they travel the animal’s digestive track, breaking down certain proteins in a process said to reduce acidity. The beans are ejected in fecal logs, which are “harvested,” washed and packaged for sale. (That’s right. Your kopi luwak arrives in authentic segments of constipatory excreta, certifying freshness!)

Fecal perfection: kopi luwak is harvested from palm civet turds.

The result, kopi luwak fans claim, is a smoother, smokier, chocolatey brew.

Others disagree.

Kopi luwak tastes like “[p]etrified dinosaur droppings steeped in bathtub water,” a Washington Post writer sniffed, while others insist there’s no meaningful difference compared to most coffee.

Besides the disagreement over the flavor of kopi luwak, there are major ethical issues and the potential for disease transmission vectors.

Civet cats aren’t true cats. The Asian palm civet, which is the species used for kopi luwak, is a viverred and is closely related to genets and oyan, which are ferret-like small carnivores.

In plain terms, it’s a feliform animal that shares ancestry with felids and looks like a cross between a cat and a mongoose, but it is distinct from the familiar felidae family we’re all familiar with. Feliform simply means animals with cat-like body plans.

It’s also a wild animal, and the lucrative kopi luwak market has led to widespread exploitation of the civets. The animals, who are highly mobile and curious, are slotted into battery cages, stuffed with cherry coffee beans, and exist as living food processors for Indonesia’s coffee industry.

A palm civet in a small, filthy cage in a kopi luwak facility. Credit: Wikipedia Commons

In a country known for exploited “dancing monkeys” (topeng monyet), and the destruction of species like the orangutan via the ruthless destruction of irreplaceable old growth jungle, animal rights are way down on the list of priorities.

Buying kopi luwak fuels the industry and perpetuates the cycle of bean harvesters stealing young civets from the wild and subjecting them to miserable lives in cages where they can barely move.

So if you’re the adventurous type who is normally game for unconventional food and drink, you might want to sit this one out and have a cup of Folgers instead.