COLOMBO: Sri Lankan police arrested three men Thursday on charges of cruelty to animals after a viral video showed them setting a wild elephant on fire.&nbsp;Police said the suspects, aged between 42 and 50, were taken into custody in the north-central district of Anuradhapura, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of Colombo.&nbsp;They were placed on remand until December 24 pending further investigations into the incident, which sparked widespread revulsion after the footage was shared on social media.&nbsp;Wildlife officials said the animal had first been shot and wounded before being set alight, and that veterinary surgeons&#39; attempts to save its life failed.&nbsp;Elephants are considered sacred in Sri Lanka and are protected by law, but farmers and residents in remote villages sometimes attack wild elephants that destroy crops.&nbsp;Elephants are protected under Sri Lankan law and poachers can face the death penalty for killing one. However, the country has not carried out an execution since 1976 and the death penalty is automatically commuted to life imprisonment.&nbsp;Escalating human&ndash;elephant conflict has claimed around 400 elephant and 200 human lives annually over the past five years.&nbsp;Sri Lanka has an estimated 7,000 wild elephants, regarded as a national treasure in part because of their importance in Buddhist culture.

Wildlife

Sri Lankan police arrested three men for fatally shooting and burning a wild elephant. The viral video sparked national outrage, highlighting the escalating human-wildlife conflict involving the country’s legally protected national treasure.

Sri Lanka arrests three men for burning elephant alive

ABU DHABI: Arctic seals and birds are coming under increasing threat, mainly due to climate change and human activity, according to an updated list of endangered species released Friday by the world&#39;s top conservation body. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said habitat loss driven by logging and agricultural expansion as a threat to birds, while seals were at risk mostly due to global warming and human activities including maritime traffic.The IUCN said it was changing the status of the hooded seal from vulnerable to endangered while bearded and harp seals are now classified as near threatened. &quot;This timely global update highlights the ever increasing impact human activity is having on nature and the climate and the devastating effects this has,&quot; its director general Grethel Aguilar told reporters at its World Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi. The IUCN red list now includes &quot;172,620 species of which 48,646 are threatened with extinction,&quot; it said in a statement. Global warming is destroying the natural habitat of animals including seals that live in the cold parts of the world. Maritime traffic, mining and oil extraction, industrial fishing and hunting are among other risks to the species. &quot;Global warming is occurring four times faster in the Arctic than in other regions, which is drastically reducing the extent and duration of sea ice cover,&quot; the IUCN said. &quot;Ice-dependent seals are a key food source for other animals,&quot; it added. They &quot;play a central role in the food web, consuming fish and invertebrates and recycling nutrients&quot; and are one of the &quot;keystone species&quot; of their ecosystem. Kit Kovacs, a scientist at the Norwegian Polar Institute, raised the alarm about the Svalbard archipelago, halfway between Norway and the North Pole. &quot;When I lived in the archipelago, just a couple of decades ago, we had five months of sea ice cover in areas that are now winter ice-free. It is really hard to express just how rapidly the Arctic is changing,&quot; she said. BirdsThe IUCN said its red list of birds is the fruit of nine years of work by &quot;thousands of experts&quot;. &quot;Overall, 61 percent of bird species have declining populations &ndash;- an estimate that has increased from 44 percent in 2016,&quot; the IUCN said. It studied thousands of bird species worldwide and found that &quot;1,256 (11.5 percent) of the 11,185 species assessed are globally threatened&quot;. This year&#39;s update focused on regions where the destruction of tropical forest poses a growing threat to birds. In Madagascar, 14 species were newly classified as near threatened and three others were labelled vulnerable. In West Africa, five more bird species were found to be near threatened in addition to one more in Central America. The report also mentioned a positive development. The green turtle is no longer endangered, it said, citing &quot;decades of sustained conservation action&quot; that saw its population recover by 28 percent since the 1970s. Nicolas Pilcher, the Executive Director of the Marine Research Foundation, said this success should spur action not complacency. &quot;Just because we have reached this great step in conservation isn&#39;t a reason to sit back and then become complacent,&quot; he said.

The IUCN’s updated Red List warns Arctic seals and bird populations face growing threats from climate change, habitat loss, and human activity, with 48,646 species now threatened, though green turtles show signs of recovery

Articles tagged with "Wildlife"

Sri Lanka arrests three men for burning elephant alive

Seals, birds under threat in new 'red list' of endangered species

Sri Lanka arrests three men for burning elephant alive