Green Options

A large network of Brazilians illegally trafficking in wild animals has been arrested. The network included smugglers, hunters, sellers, and middle men.

Though 72 have been arrested, 102 arrest warrants were issued and the investigation is ongoing. Federal polize in Brazil used 450 agents in a coordinated sting operation. Several suspects may currently be in Europe. The police raid was the largest anti-animal trafficking effort in ten years there.

Embarrassingly, our family is still working our way through the piles of chocolate we received for Christmas, and cut flowers? I’m not a fan. 

Instead, our family will opt to support wildlife this year for Valentine’s Day by symbolically adopting a wolf couple.

If wolves aren’t your favorites, there are many other ways to protect animals and their habitats- there is certain to be a deserving organization that fits your family and your budget.

‘Intelligent’ elephants in Africa are getting tech-savvy and are using cellphone text messages to report their own encroachment on farms in a novel experiment local conservationists believe will help avoid human-wildlife conflict.

Rangers at a wildlife conservancy in Kenya are getting accustomed to blips on their phones each time an elephant attempts to cross a virtual ‘fence’ that triggers an automatic text signal using Google Earth software.

AP reports that SIM cards on elephants’ global positioning system (GPS) collars beam messages to rangers on duty whenever they approach the “geo-fence” that mirrors the 90,000 acre Ol Pejeta Conservatory’s boundaries. The rangers then use spotlights to frighten the elephants back inside the protected area.

Almost nine in ten Americans or 89% use the cell phone, and this can translate into lots of “junk” that needs throwing away, because the average American is not known to own a handset for more than two years at least.

And according to a survey just released, only 40% of the US population actually recycle their cell phones while another 10% simply toss them into the bin while singing away…

But recycling your old cell phone could also be more than a green thing to do. You could be saving the highly endangered and rare Eastern lowland gorillas, also called Grauer’s gorillas.