Poaching, and We Don't Mean Eggs #507
January 04, 2019
We all know poaching elephants for their ivory and pangolins for their scales is wrong, right? Then why do people keep doing it? We speak with Rachel Nuwer, author of the book "Poached: Inside the Dark World of Wildlife Trafficking", to find out, and figure out what can be done to stop it. And we'll talk with Vincent Nijman about why, when scientists find a new or rare species, they might want to keep that exciting information to themselves.
Related links:
- Secrecy considerations for conserving Lazarus species
- Keeping an ear to the ground: monitoring the trade in earless monitor lizards
- Illegal pet trade on social media as an emerging impediment to the conservation of Asian otters species
- Tickled to Death: Analysing Public Perceptions of 'Cute' Videos of Threatened Species on Web 2.0 Sites
Guests:
- Rachel Nuwer
- Vincent Nijman
Featured Book
Poached: Inside the Dark World of Wildlife Trafficking
Guest Bios
Rachel Nuwer
Rachel Nuwer is an award-winning science journalist who regularly contributes to the New York Times, Scientific American, Nature and many other publications. Her reporting for the New York Times broke the news globally about the MDMA Phase III clinical trial and was highlighted by Michael Pollan, Ezra Klein, and Tim Ferriss, among other thought leaders. In 2022, Nuwer was among the inaugural recipients of the Ferriss–UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship. She holds master's degrees in applied ecology and in science journalism. Her first book, Poached: Inside the Dark World of Wildlife Trafficking, investigated the multibillion-dollar illegal wildlife trade. She lives in Brooklyn.
Vincent Nijman
Vincent Nijman's research programme focuses on assessing the impact of human-induced disturbances (logging, fire, fragmentation, wildlife trade) on vertebrates, with primates as one of the model groups. He is furthermore interested in biogeography, hotspot analysis and conservation area selection, and phylogeny and DNA-barcoding.
