Whale Wars - but on land?

November 14, 2008 9:29 PM

Just finished watching an episode of Whale Wars, and I was wondering: are there any groups that do this sort of thing on land? Meaning, volunteer, nonprofessional or otherwise NGO-type people who confront and interfere with poachers in the wild, head-on and dangerously?
posted by El Curioso to science & nature (6 comments total)

Fox hunt saboteurs? (note: link contains bloody image of dead fox.)
posted by holgate at 12:07 AM on November 15, 2008

What, like ALF and ELF? Not that I'm recommending you get involved with these groups.
posted by sbutler at 1:11 AM on November 15, 2008

I was going to say hunt sabs as well, but I suppose the advantage for anti-whaling activism is that it's outside national jurisdictions on the high seas.

There are group of people who damage and destroy fields of GM crops in the UK, as well as people who use violence against animal testing companies like Huntingdon Life Sciences and all companies connected with HLS. Not quite the same thing though.
posted by WPW at 5:06 AM on November 15, 2008

Nthing hunt sabs--also, the words 'monkeywrenching' and 'ecodefense' might help in your searches.
posted by box at 7:57 AM on November 15, 2008

I've heard tales from a friend about a college friend of his who went to Africa to hunt elephant poachers (or at least physically, violently interrupting the poaching process). He supposedly worked for an NGO.
The distance (geographical, temporal and degrees of separation) make me wonder about the accuracy of the story.
I remember a story in an online magazine about something similar, but I cannot find it.
posted by Seamus at 9:26 AM on November 15, 2008

I spent a good deal of time in a number of parks over in Africa in the last year - in Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, South Africa, and Mozambique. Poaching in the parks is generally regulated by the government and they do NOT treat it lightly. So as far as I came to understand it there wasn't really a need for NGOs to do it because there was a good chance you're going to get your ass shot by a roving band of heavily armed park rangers if you're out in the park poaching.
posted by allkindsoftime at 2:40 PM on November 15, 2008