©Fauna and Flora International

Head to the jungles of Liberia, and you’ll find the absolutely adorable pygmy hippopotamus.  

They enjoy spending their time bobbing along rivers, plodding up the riverbank and searching for tasty leaves.

Enter a group of illegal miners.  They’ve hacked and hammered their way deep into the ancient forest, hunting for rare metals.  They brought about rampant deforestation and poaching all around them and the hippos have nowhere to run to.   

All but 3,000 are dead.  They are heading towards extinction.

But there’s a chance to enable local rangers to protect the hippos’ home - and making it impossible for the mining to ever return in the future.

They are working with local people who want to protect the ancient forests as much as Fauna and Flora International do.  

Please help the pygmy hippos and keep them free to romp and stomp around their home in peace.

Will you donate £3 to help Fauna and Flora International and keep the forests free from illegal mining and care for the pygmy hippos and keep them safe

Please go to Fauna and Flora's website to donate

Do you agree with the statement:

Rhino horn belongs only to rhinos?

If you do agree with it, please sign the African Wildlife Foundaton’s pledge, saying “Rhion horn belongs only to rhinos”. 

World Rhino Day takes place on 22 September, and the AWF says we must make one thing clearer than ever:  Rhino horns are not for sale.

Let’s make it very clear: Rhino horns do not cure cancer or hangovers or any ailments.

But the demand for rhino horn is there, as people believe it has medicinal benefits and is a symbol of high social status.

Rhino horn is made of keratin – as human nails are – and it is as effective as curing cancer as chewing on your fingernails is.

RHINO HORN BELONGS ON A RHINO.

There are less than 6,000 critically endangered black rhinos left.  Unfortunately, poachers, traffickers and consumers don’t care.   We must stop them.

Please give rhinos your support on this World Rhino Day.   Join one of 50,000 wildlife advocates and fight for these rhinos.

Sign the AWF’s pledge if you agree that rhino horn belongs on a rhino.

All I can say about this petition is PLEASE READ IT, SIGN IT AND SHARE, SHARE, SHARE.

How can anyone shoot animals for SPORT for goodness sake?  The organisers of the petition have asked people to share the text below this banner.

I signed a petition on Action Network telling Donald Trump, President of the United States to STOP Shooting Endangered Black Rhinos.

BACKGROUND The US government has issued a permit to US trophy hunter Chris D. Peyerk of Shelby Township, Michigan to shoot a Namibian black rhino for ‘sport’ and bring back its skin, skull and horn into the US.

Black rhinos are critically endangered. Just 5,000 remain in the wild.

It follows a case brought by trophy hunting lawyer John J Jackson, who runs an organisation called ‘Conservation Force’. Jackson is a former President of Safari Club International, the world’s largest trophy hunting group.

‘Conservation Force’ campaigns for hunters to bring home trophies of threatened species. It also lobbies for changes in the law to make it easier to hunt vulnerable species - including lions, leopards, cheetahs, elephants and polar bears, as well as rhinos.

It sued Delta airlines when they previously refused to carry a black rhino trophy. It also sued the state of New Jersey when it tried to stop hunting trophies of threatened species coming in through its air and sea ports.

Jackson has been on at least 38 elephant hunts alone. His trophy room includes the heads and bodies of giraffes, zebras, bears, buffaloes, cougars, leopards, rhinos, lions, wolves, and numerous species of deer and antelope. Several large elephant tusks form the centrepiece of his collection.

He has written the following about trophy hunting:

“Nothing has been so consistently fulfilling to me as my hunting.

“It has stirred an insatiable appetite for more. Without it I would somehow be incomplete.

“I can plainly see the African lion that has leaped into the air the moment its head snaps backward and explodes with smoke from my bullet.”

‘Conservation Force’ has made a number of donations to IUCN and has secured positions on key IUCN committees. Despite not being a scientist, Jackson has been a member of IUCN’s Lions specialist group.

IUCN, through it’s ‘Traffic’ initiative, lobbied CITES delegates to vote AGAINST the proposal to protect giraffes at the recent Geneva wildlife trade conference – as did Safari Club International. The Species Survival Network, an alliance of 80 conservation groups around the world, strongly supported the measure which was proposed by a number of African nations.

The conference also voted to double the number of black rhinos that can be shot by trophy hunters for so-called 'sport'. John Jackson and other ‘Conservation Force’ lobbyists were present at the CITES conference.

Join me and take action  

These animals need our help and all our voices. 

Basking sharks love Scotland (and who can blame them – it’s stunning).  

They head to the rich waters off the west coast every summer and they take a long journey to take there, coming from as far away as the Canary Islands.

There’s an opportunity to really make a difference to basking sharks.

The Scottish Government has launched a consultation on Marine Protected Areas – including one specifically for Basking Sharks.

They are now considered vulnerable.  Although they have been a protected species I Scotland since 1998, they face threats in Scottish seas from fishing gear, boat traffic and micro-plastics.

Back in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, 100,000 basking sharks were hunted in the North Atlantic……   so there aren’t as many of them left as there used to be.

The proposed Sea of the Hebrides Marine Protected Area will give extra protections to basking sharks and other species such as minke whales. 

Currently, it is proposed that 4 new Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) be added to Scotland’s exiting MPA areas.   These areas will protect important habitats and large mobile species such as Risso dolphins, Minke Whales and Basking Sharks.

Find out more and give your support here.

Do you ever hear of an appeal and wonder how many people sign up to it?

Well, National Geographic had a Big Cats Appeal in honour of World Lion Day on 10 August.  They asked people to help protect lions, cheetahs and other Big Cats.  Big Cats are in trouble because of habitat loss, degradation and conflict with humans.

3,100 people responded to an appeal for Big Cats.

And they raised an incredible $199,000.   That money will go straight to fund innovative solutions and technology protecting wildlife and wild places.

©National Geographic Society

National Geographic has identified 20 populations across 18 countries as priority areas for lions.  These populations encompass almost 1.25 million square kilometres – it’s estimated they have 83% of Africa’s known lion population.

And they help communities too, as they create conservation programmes which help protect wonderful Big Cats and employ local people too. 

Find out more and support their work here

Derek and Beverly Joubert are conservationists and film makers who have been working to help save big cats and other key wildlife species and their habitats for over 30 years.    The Jouberts and National Geographic founded the Big Cats Initiative in 2009 to try to halt the decline of big cats in the wild.

The Big Cats Initiative supports scientists and conservationists who are working to save big cats.   They have built over 1,800 livestock enclosures to protect livestock and so save big cats from retaliatory killings. 

The Big Cats Initiative takes a three pronged approach to big cat conservation:

It assesses

It assesses and maps big cat populations, and it analyses the success of measures put in place to help protect them – this knowledge helps guide the protection efforts the Big Cats Initiative chooses to fund.

It protects

The initiative supports protects designed and implemented by people living in areas where they are big cats, creating ways in which local communities and big cats can co-exist

It communicates

With Nat Geo WILD, the Big Cats Initiative spreads the word about the big cat decline, thus encouraging the public to find out more through free education initiatives and programming on Nat Geo WILD.

Find out more about the Big Cats Initiative here

3 ways to help and get involved:

1. Donate
2. Spread the word
3. Sign up for the newsletter so that you can get updates from the field