Excerpt:

The cargo plane that carried 33 lions from Lima, Peru, to Johannesburg, South Africa, over the weekend broke more than records. It broke chains. For good. The lions, all rescued from illegal circuses in Peru and Colombia, were part of the biggest exodus Animal Defenders International (ADI) has ever organized. Rescuers say it was the biggest lion transport ever. But more importantly, the passage to South Africa, dubbed Operation Spirit of Freedom, represents a new beginning for lions who had been languishing in circus cages for years, their lives seemingly forfeit to profit.On Sunday, they arrived at Emoya Big Cat Sanctuary in Vaalwater, South Africa.

This is a great story about research being conducted in Peru at Punta San Juan on the Pacific coast, focusing on the wildlife in the reserve (Humboldt penguins, Peruvian fur seals, sea lions, numerous species of marine birds). In addition, the research partners are working with organizations based in the local area to reopen the reserve to the local community (San Juan de Marcona), to educate the school kids (on site and in the classroom) about their preserve, and to generate an economic benefit to the local community through research activities and tourism.

The article includes two embedded videos, one explaining broadly what the organizations are doing at the reserve and the local communities, and the other focusing on specific research activities to benefit wildlife.

The research is focusing on the effects of El Nino and climate change on the wildlife, as well as their natural life cycles, trying to understand the relationships among the drivers to help in preservation and conservation activities.

The lead organization is the Chicago Zoological Society, the owner and operator of Brookfield Zoo and Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago and the Chicago area. Its U.S.-based partners include the St. Louis Zoo, the University of Illinois, the Florida Institute of Technology and the National Marine Mammal Foundation. In addition, funding for educating the local school kids is provided by the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund.

One of the videos explains how the researchers are using clinical techniques in the field at Punta San Juan based on research done at Brookfield Zoo in the Chicago area. So, here’s an example of the benefit of a well-organized, well-funded, zoo using its research to benefit species and people around the globe. In addition, because Brookfield Zoo has a substantial base of local financial support in the Chicago area from membership through general philanthropy, what goes on in places far away from Chicago is brought home to educate and inform the locals in the Chicago area about pressing environmental issues. That is all good stuff. (Disclosure: our family has been a supporter and member of Brookfield Zoo and the Chicago Zoological Society for more years than I want to disclose. So we like and support and encourage their work. So if I seem a little biased, yep, I am.)

For nearly a decade, Brookfield Zoo and its parent, the Chicago Zoological Society, have been sending researchers to Punta San Juan in Peru to assess the health of sea animals and create conservation awareness in the region.

A group of Humboldt penguins stands on the beach Nov. 19, 2015, at the Punta San Juan coastal reserve near San Juan de Marcona in Peru. About 6,000 of Peru’s 25,000 endangered Humboldt penguins reside at Punta San Juan. (Anthony Souffle / Chicago Tribune)

MaryAnn Duda, veterinary technician for the Chicago Zoological Society, laughs as she high-fives Dr. Megan Watson, dressed as a penguin, during the beach cleanup event.  (Anthony Souffle / Chicago Tribune)

Zoologist Patricia Majluf, who pioneered the transition of the Punta San Juan region from guano site to protected reserve, at her home in Lima, Peru.  (Anthony Souffle / Chicago Tribune)

The link is to a series of videos about Ringling Bros. Circus. Instead of shoving them in your face by posting the videos directly, you can choose to enter and watch them, or not. I watched part of the first and part of the second and couldn’t watch anymore. Not gruesome, but depressing to show how mean circus life is to elephants. (And how ugly humans can be.)

Horrific conditions of captive bred lions on a captive lion breeding farm in South Africa. Photos provided to Humane Society International by an anonymous source.

Excerpt from this Smithsonian story:

Last month, 108 lions were found in deplorable conditions at a farm in South Africa’s North West province, shining a damning light on the country’s captive lion-breeding industry.

According to National Geographic’s Rachel Fobar, the National Council for Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA), which enforces animal welfare in South Africa, was alerted to the situation at Pienika Farm through an anonymous tip. When inspectors arrived at the facility, they were greeted by a horrific scene. The lions had been packed into filthy, overcrowded enclosures, they had not been provided with any water, and 27 of lions were afflicted so badly with mange—a skin disease caused by parasitic mites—that they had lost nearly all their fur. Two cubs at the facility appeared to be suffering from neurological conditions that rendered them unable to walk. One was ultimately euthanized by a veterinarian.

Tigers, leopards and caracals, a mid-size wild cat, were also found at the facility in similarly dire states. Senior inspector Douglas Wolhuter told Naledi Shange of Times Live, a South African publication, that the caracals were so obese that they could not groom themselves.

South Africa’s legal but controversial captive-bred lion industry generates tens of millions of dollars each year, Adam Welz reported for Yale Environment 360 in 2018. Concrete numbers are hard to come by, but it has been estimated that as many as 14,000 lions are being held on hundreds of farms. And from birth to death, critics say, the lions are exploited for profit.

Cubs are taken from their mothers and hand-raised by volunteers from abroad, who pay for the opportunity and are often under the mistaken impression that the lions will be released to the wild. Farms also charge tourists to take photos with the cubs and, when the lions are a little older, to go on walks with them. Once the animals get too big to safely be around humans, they are sold off for “canned” hunts, which take place in fenced areas that the lions cannot possibly escape. Many trophy hunters who participate in these events are from the United States, according to Humane Society International.

But Ian Michler, a journalist and conservationist, tells Fobar of National Geographic that the Pienika Farm lions were most likely destined for the bone trade. While lions that interact with tourists and hunters need to look healthy, the same cannot be said for animals that are being reared for their skeletons. “If you’re breeding lions for the lion bone trade, they don’t care what those lions look like,” Michler explains. “Because at the end of the day, all they’re going to do is end up in a sack, a bag of bones that’s going to go to Asia.”

Excerpt:

According to David Hill at The Guardian, wildcat mines are hitting parts of Peru particularly hard, with miners moving into Amazon conservation areas, cutting down forests, polluting rivers and digging up large swaths of land.

Recently, the Peruvian government is setting up military posts and raiding mining camps along the Malinowski River in the Tambopata Nature Reserve in the southern part of the country.

As recently as a year ago, Daley explains, Tambopata was virtually untouched. Now, satellite photos show large areas of deforestation and reveal that miners have diverted the river, polluting it so much it that it now runs a milky brown. Daley reports that rangers say the fish from the river is gone.

Mercury from gold processing has poisoned the surrounding Madre de Dios region. In May, the government declared a health emergency across three provinces because of the roughly 40 tons of mercury dumped into the region’s rivers by miners every year, writes Colin Post at Peru Reports. Health officials found more than 40 percent of residents in 97 villages in the area suffered from heavy-metal poisoning. Daley reports. The miners also cut down about 250,000 acres of forest each year, and create lawless zones where human slavery and sex trafficking take place.

Here’s one of the popular images of the Tambopata National Reserve:

Here’s what the illicit gold miners are doing to it: