With over 150 dog fighting complaints in Cheshire in the United Kingdom in the last four years alone, it is quite clear that the illegal dog fighting trade is alive and persisting. Across the UK, 2018 saw a record 1,583 complaints of dog fighting, according to statistics released by the RSPCA.

In 2015, there were 43 complaints, and a year later it rose to 45. In 2017 and 2018, that number dropped to 34 and 29 respectively. Individuals and groups continue to host events that pit innocent animals against each other in a bloody carnage, all in the name of making a quick buck.

David Barritt, of animal welfare organisation, Network for Animals (NFA), said that most dogs involved in these fights are discarded, never to be found again.

“For those dogs who are lucky enough to be rescued, most of them are never able to recover, be it mentally, physically or both. Most of these dogs are also found to be banned breeds so they are never able to be legally adopted by a loving home. This is part of the tragedy.”

Barritt estimated that 16,000 dogs are killed each year in organized dog fights.

“That number is only growing. This is not a sport, it is a sickness. It is not only isolated to the United Kingdom and the United States, but epidemic on a global scale. We need to stop dog fighting in its tracks, but we also need to tend to the welfare of all those poor dogs who have been rescued from such bloody servitude. They still deserve a shot at life.”

Mike Butcher, a dog fighting expert from the RSPCA and Special Operations Unity chief inspector told reporters that: “It’s staggering that something which has been illegal for almost 200 years… is still so rife.”

The sad reality is that most fighting dogs never find peace, but there are some lucky ones. In March 2017, Kali the staffie was rescued during a dog fighting investigation in Hertfordshire. She was bleeding and full of scars, and found cowering in the bushes of a residential garden.

“It’s incredible that Kali has recovered from her awful ordeal and gone on to a loving new home where she’ll be safe and cared for,” said Butcher.

“Sadly, the reality is that for many dogs, this will never happen. Dogs who win fights are prized and are often treated like Kings. But those who refuse to fight or lose are often abandoned or barbarically killed.”

Butcher reiterated that the world of dog fighting is a “dark and frightening place”. He said that the next fight could be happening in an inner-city warehouse right next to your office or on a rural farm in your quiet village.

A 20-year-old man from Missouri recently confessed to actively seeking out cats sold or given away on Craigslist just so he could take them home and brutally mutilate and murder them in the most sick and twisted ways.

An affidavit filed in court by St. Charles County police said Kaine Louzader admitted to searching wanted adverts on Craigslist for cats or kittens before taking the animals back to his home, where he strangled them in a bathtub or while on a patio. He also admitted to killing some of the felines by stomping on their heads.

This all occurred between January and May 2019, during which police found one dead cat and three mutilated kittens reportedly uncovered near Wild Deer Lane. This was conveniently close to the Louzader’s home.

According to local news outlet KSDK, “Police identified Louzader to be driving a car that fit the description and contacted Louzader. Louzader eventually admitted in a police interview that he had killed multiple cats since January 1.”

Once police brought him in for questioning, they noticed numerous cuts and scratches on Louzader’s body, which he said was from an elderly patient at the hospital he works at. Upon further inquiry, Louzader openly admitted that the marks came from his most recent victim, a cat desperately fighting for its life as he strangled it to death.

Louzader has only been charged with two counts of animal abuse. These charges are considered felonies and not misdemeanors because the cats were tortured alive, so it can only be hoped that the punishment will be harsher. Right now, Louzader is being held on a $50,000 bond.

“It is a horrible crime committed by a cruel and twisted individual. Unfortunately, these kinds of sadistic people are all too prevalent in today’s society. Everyone should be wary of giving animals away for free on the internet.”

Barritt emphasized that websites like Craigslist are a hot bed for serial killers like Louzader. If you visit the “pets” section of Craigslist one can find dozens of dogs and cats advertised as “free to a good home.” Even though Craigslist does not allow animals to be sold, they can still be given away for free. This is the perfect place for demented psychopaths to find their next victims.

“There have been numerous cases of animals acquired from Craigslist and then tortured. Cats killed in Kentucky, puppies mutilated in West Virginia, dogs decapitated in Nevada, and now cats mutilated in Missouri. And these are just the American examples. You can bet that other websites in other parts of the world are accomplishing the same gruesome ends. Rather entrust an animal to shelter or someone you know who is going to take care of it. Their welfare should always come first.”

By Hailey Gaunt

President of Botswana, Mokgweetsi Masisi, is moving closer to lifting his country’s moratorium on hunting. The ban, which was instituted in 2014 by former president, Ian Khama, had gained Botswana a reputation as a conservation leader and Khama a hero for putting an ethical, sustainable tourism model above short-term profits.

But let’s be honest, the ban is also paying dividends for tourism – the second largest contributor to the country’s GDP.

Now, all that currency – reputational and actual – is quickly draining away while Masisi considers reinstating trophy hunting and other abhorrent practices laid out in the Hunting Ban Social Dialogue Report. The report is a culmination of investigations he set in motion last year in June, a few months after he took office.

Back then, the Botswana government quoted its elephant population at 230,000. Since then, they’ve adjusted the figure to a more realistic 130,000. Despite the wild and unexplained disparity, however, the government asserts that Botswana is overrun by this species, and drastic measures must be taken. To address the supposed overpopulation, the report suggests:

• lifting the trophy hunting ban
• instituting regular elephant culling
• using elephant meat in canned pet food
• closing off wildlife migratory routes “not beneficial to the country’s conservation efforts”

Even those who argue for culling as a necessary tool for conservation, are critical of these recommendations. Environmental journalist, Tony Weaver, called the recommendations “disturbing” and “fatally-flawed.”

Human-wildlife conflict would appear to be the fuel igniting the recent flame of contention - even for a sparsely populated country roughly the size of France, that has only 2.2 million people. This argument says that many people rely on crops to feed their families and elephants raid these crops, endangering human life in the process.

However, there is no basis for the claim that incidences of human-wildlife conflict are up since the ban was imposed. In fact, very successful measures have been implemented in places where these interactions are most tense. Botswana-based organisations like Elephants Without Borders (EBS) have used state-of-the-art technologies to monitor elephant movements and clever, non-harmful deterrents to help protect people’s crops.

Other critics of the ban have suggested that politics and elections are driving the change in policy. “It’s a political feud over the sovereignty to practice wildlife management without meddling from the West and is being used by the government as an election campaign,” wrote Louise de Waal, sustainable tourism consultant and environmental activist.

The proposal has distressed many well-respected conservation activists, including Dereck Joubert, wildlife documentary maker and eco-tourism stakeholder. Joubert is calling the proposal “Botswana’s Blood Law.”

Dr. Mike Chase of EBS has been a judicious critic of the government’s recent approach to wildlife management. It’s an approach that has also included the dismantling of anti-poaching units last May and bold-faced denials of poaching. In September last year, the BBC reported that 87 elephant carcasses were discovered in and around Botswana’s wildlife sanctuaries – most of them the result of recent poaching crimes (done within the previous three months).

David Barritt of animal welfare organisation, Network for Animals (NFA), said that Botswana would face international revulsion if it allowed elephants to be turned into pet food. “It shows that the Botswana president is unaware of the rising depth of feeling against killing elephants around the world. This is an idea that, if turned into reality, would see Botswana internationally reviled. NFA urges him to reconsider and maintain the status quo, under which elephants are protected.”

In March, at his party’s regional congress, the president criticized Western conservationists. He fumed: “Where do they get the guts to tell us how we should take care of our wildlife when they do not have anything?”

For a country whose economy is essentially powered by outsiders, this statement represents a fatal miscalculation. One that will have devastating implications for humans and wildlife alike.

Cites, the United Nations organisation which regulates wildlife trade, meets in Sri Lanka in May for its 18th session. First on its agenda should be its chronic inability to conserve the world’s natural resources. It’s a discussion the organisation has been avoiding for years. Here’s why its approach is failing.

The obvious way to protect the natural world is through cautionary, conservation-based principles and conventions. Instead, Cites attempts to do this on the basis of trade.

It hasn’t worked for the past 40 years of the organisation’s existence, but signatory countries still believe trade is the way and refuse to be persuaded otherwise. Challenging their premise is a waste of time.

Conservation NGOs which should be highlighting Cites’ failures aren’t doing so. When asked why not, their response is generally “We know the system isn’t great, but it is all we have.”

When pushed, some admit they don’t want to upset the Cites secretariat or the parties as they don’t want to be uninvited to the working group meetings in Geneva or to the Conference of Parties, which would rob them of the status of “having a seat at the table”. While signatories (governments) have an automatic invitation to Cites meetings and working groups, conservation NGOs are invited by the “grace and favour” of the formal stakeholders.

Conservation NGOs are also concerned that if the Cites trade permit system is seen as flawed by the general public, it would reflect very badly on them for having allowed this to go on for decades.

So if we’re stuck with regulating trade as the basis of conservation for the foreseeable future, then at least the governments, agencies and organisations supporting it must demonstrate that the system administering and monitoring this trade is fit for purpose for the species it’s created to protect.

This is not happening and may never have happened. People and businesses that want to maintain trade in wildlife consistently use the statement that they comply with all Cites trade permit rules. How do we know?

For the Cites system to prevent illegal trade, its monitoring system needs to be transparent and provide the ability to track individual items from origin to destination, without loopholes, gaps or opportunities to launder illegal items into the legal market. However, there’s a growing body of evidence that the Cites trade permit system is not managing this and, in many instances, is held in contempt by representatives of agencies who use it.

In reality, the Cites trade and permit system is completely useless in reconciling even the most basic import and export data. Items are not identifiable, not tracked and even quantities recorded are ambiguous (such as “10 units” of ivory, which is meaningless).

Many countries do not require import permits, making reconciliation and auditing impossible. Permits are mostly paper-based and generally not reconciled with customs documents such as lading bills or air waybills.

Following research on hippo teeth trade between Africa and Hong Kong, Alexandra Andersson commented: “A quick scan of the records demonstrates that vast and consistent data discrepancies are clear in many cases, and that the true volume of many traded endangered species is simply unknown. This is alarming, considering the reason all of these species are included in Cites is because they are vulnerable to over-exploitation, and extinction.”

The trade is huge. A 2012 British House of Commons report estimated the annual legal wildlife trade to be $320-billion. A 2017 report by the World Customs Union said the annual illegal trade could be as high as $258-billion.

As the conservation organisations have no power and are not prepared to rock the boat, the focus for activists and the concerned public must be to influence the 183 signatories to Cites. This requires using the language of trade. But there’s no point in continuing to push concerns about the impact of the illegal trade because this only ends up with the same-old, same-old: “We don’t have enough information, we need NGOs to do more research.”

What it’s really saying is: “We don’t want to have a difficult conversation about this with the relevant signatory countries, so let’s put the decision off for another three years, pay for more unnecessary research and then hopefully by then we’ll have sufficient information that we can make a consensus decision so it doesn’t feel uncomfortable and no one threatens to pull out of Cites, because we don’t want too many people in the world to realise that Cites is a toothless regulator.”

Given the evidence that the present trade system is not fit for purpose, there needs to be a moratorium on all new trade – for example rhino horn or additional quotas – until the system is decisively fixed and resourced. This needs to be a part of the agenda at Cites CoP 18 in Sri Lanka and beyond.

To summarise:

• Cites is presently a convention ostensibly dedicated to wildlife protection that does nothing other than enabling trade on a massive scale with minimal regulation and oversight, resulting in plummeting wildlife populations.
• Traders and traffickers alike are making massive profits of both the legal and illegal trade.
• Given the prevalent “free trade” and “economic growth” ideology, traders have ready access to lobby governments, whereas activists and those opposed to trade lack both access and representation.
• Mainstream conservation NGOs are often neutered by relying on government and corporate donations.
• There is no chance of replacing Cites in the short-medium term so we need to fix it. This can only be done with the help of Cites government signatories as only they can make proposals for consideration at CoP meetings.
• Putting pressure on the mainstream conservation NGOs to take a tougher stance on fixing Cites may not be worth the effort.

The beginnings of a solution came in a letter sent to Cites by the NGOs Nature Needs More and For the Love of Wildlife in September last year. A precautionary approach is suggested, based on the reverse-listing of all species that may be traded without damage to the species or their ecosystems. Nothing not on the list could then be legally traded. This would make trade easier to monitor, under the current system 35,000 species are listed for trade restrictions, which is impossible to monitor.

A levy is also proposed on all trade approved under Cites in order to provide the organisation with sufficient funds to create a transparent, traceable and tamper-proof trade system.

Cites, as the key agency and facilitator of trade in fauna and flora, has had over 40 years to evolve and perfect a system vital to the conservation of wildlife. If Cites and conservation agencies want to continue to be relevant to this issue, they should fix the basics or step aside, so a conservation-focused rather than a trade-focused system can be put in place.

This change won’t come from within Cites or even conservation NGOs. The best source of pressure is an informed, concerned and vocal public. Here is some of the information they will need.

Lynn Johnson is a scientist by education, she holds a PhD in particle physics. As a result of her passion for wildlife conservation, Johnson founded Nature Needs More Ltd, a registered wildlife conservation charity in Australia.