Foreign News
One ant for $220: the new frontier of wildlife trafficking
The ants are flying in Kenya at the moment
During this rainy season, swarms can be seen leaving the thousands of anthills in and around Gilgil, a quiet agricultural town in Kenya’s Rift Valley that has emerged as the centre of a booming illegal trade.
The mating ritual sees winged males leave the nest to impregnate queens, who also take flight at this time. This makes it the perfect time to chase down queen ants to sell on to smugglers who are at the heart of a growing global black market, that taps into the pet craze for keeping ants in transparent enclosures designed to observe the insects as they busily build a colony.
It is the giant African harvester ant queens, which are large and coloured red, that are most prized by international ant collectors – one can fetch up to £170 ($220) on the black market, which tends to operate online.
A single fertilised queen is able to create a whole colony and can live for decades – and can be easily posted as scanners do not tend to detect organic material.
“At first, I did not even know it was illegal,” a man, who asked not to be named, told the BBC about how he had once acted as a broker, linking foreign buyers with local collection networks.
Also known as Messor cephalotes, these ants are native to East Africa and known for their distinctive seed-gathering behaviour making them popular with ant collectors.
“A friend told me a foreigner was paying good money for queen ants – the big red ones which are easily seen around here,” the former broker said.
“You look for the mounds near open fields, usually early morning before the heat. The foreigners never came to the fields themselves – they would wait in town, in a guest house or a car, and we would bring the ants to them packed in small tubes or syringes they supplied us with.”
The scale of the illicit trade in Kenya became apparent last year when 5,000 giant harvester ant queens – mainly collected around Gilgil – were found alive at a guest house in Naivasha, a nearby lakeside town popular with tourists.
The suspects – from Belgium, Vietnam and Kenya – had packed the test tubes and syringes with moist cotton wool, which would enable each ant to survive for two months, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).
The plan was to take them to Europe and Asia and put them up for sale.
This trade in ants has caught scientists and the authorities by surprise.
The East African nation is more accustomed to high-profile wildlife crimes involving elephant tusks and rhino horns.
UK based retailer Ants RbUs described the giant African harvester ant as “many peoples dream species” – though the queens are currently out of stock, with the site explaining that it is very hard for retailers to source them.
“Even I, as an entomologist, have been surprised at the extent of the apparent trade,” Dino Martins, a biologist based in Kenya, where there are around 600 kinds of ants, told the BBC.
However, he can understand the fascination with East Africa’s harvester, with colonies created by a “foundress queen”, who can grow up to 25mm (0.98 inches) and who produces eggs throughout her life.
“They are one of the most enigmatic species of ants – they form large colonies, engage in interesting behaviours and are easy to keep. They are not aggressive.”
During the swarming he says the queens mate with several males.
“Then that is it for the males – their job is done… most are eaten by predators or die,” the entomologist says, going on to explain how the queen then scurries away to dig a small burrow and begin laying eggs to start her empire.
Her workers and soldier ants, those that protect the nest, are all female and will eventually number in the hundreds of thousands.
“Nests can live for over 50 years, perhaps even up to 70 years. I personally know of nests near Nairobi that are at least 40 years old as I’ve been visiting them for that long,” said Martins.
This means the queens live that long too – because as soon as she dies, the colony collapses and any surviving workers will look for another nest.
Kenyans who have had to deal with ants raiding their crops or invading their houses know this well – and to get rid of a colony someone is sent in to locate the queen, often hidden deep in one of the tunnels or chambers of an ant mound.
The former broker said ants could also be harvested by gently disturbing the mound and collecting them as they tried to escape.
“It was only when I saw the arrests on the news that I realised what I had been part of – and I immediately quit,” he said.
Those arrested were convicted on charges of biopiracy and ordered to pay fines or serve 12 months in jail – they opted to pay the $7,700 fee and the foreign nationals left the country.
Two weeks ago, a Chinese national – the alleged mastermind behind last year’s ring and who is said to have escaped using a different passport, was arrested at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyata International Airport with another 2,000 queen ants packed in test tubes and tissue rolls.
For Zhengyang Wang, who was part of a team of researchers who published a report on the ant trade in 2023 focusing on China, this is a worry and could “wreak havoc” with local ecosystems.
“Initially, we were very excited when we learnt that many people have taken up keeping ants,” Wang, assistant professor at Sichuan University, told the BBC.
“A colony of pet ants are often kept in a formicarium, which is basically a transparent plastic box so that keepers can observe colonies at work, digging tunnels, collecting food, and guarding their queen. I’d say it’s quite charming and… can be a good way of educating people about insects and their behaviour.
“But then we realised, wait, isn’t keeping invasive species incredibly dangerous?”
Monitoring online sales – of more than 58,000 colonies – in China over six months, the researchers found that more than a quarter of the traded species were not native to China – despite it being illegal to import them.
“If the trade volume of invasive ants continues to grow, it’s only a matter of time before a few escape from their formicaria and become established in the wild,” said Wang.
The study he worked on, published in the journal Biological Conservation, explained what could happen in the case of giant African harvester, one of the most traded species in China: “For example, Messor cephalotes, an East African native, is among the largest seed harvesters in the world and could potentially disrupt predominantly grain-based agriculture in south-eastern China.”
The environmental consequences are also a concern in Kenya.
“Harvester ants are both keystone species and ecosystem engineers. They harvest seeds of grasses, and other plants and in so doing also help to disperse the seeds,” said Martins, adding that the insects “create a more healthy and dynamic grassland”.
Mukonyi Watai, a senior scientist at Kenya’s Wildlife Research and Training Institute, shares these fears.
“Unsustainable harvesting – particularly the removal of queen ants – can lead to colony collapse, disrupting ecosystems and threatening biodiversity,” he told the BBC.
It is possible to collect ants legally in Kenya – in line with various international treaties – with a special permit, which would require the buyer to sign a benefit-sharing agreement with the local community involved to split any profits.
But, according to the KWS, so far none have been applied for – with the paperwork also requiring details of how many ants are being collected and their destination.
formicarium allows collectors to see the workings of an ant colony (BBC)Some conservationists are now calling for greater trade protections for all ant species under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), the global wildlife trade treaty.
“The reality is that no ant species is currently listed under Cites,” Sérgio Henriques, a researcher into the global ant trade, told the BBC.
“Without international treaties monitoring these movements, the scale of the trade remains largely invisible to policy makers and the global community,” he said.
But for the KWS the real problem is more immediate – how to monitor and clamp down on “under-reported” insect trafficking, with the agency suggesting better surveillance equipment at airports and others border points would be a good start.
Martins agrees: “It is likely only a fraction of the actual ants being traded that are being detected, so one can only guess at the scale for now.”
Journalist Charles Onyango-Obbo argues that Kenya is overlooking a significant global revenue opportunity.
“The ants are not finite items like gold or diamonds. They are biological assets that can be bred and farmed, and their production can be scaled up to thousand a day. Yet we treat them like stolen artefacts,” he recently wrote in Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper.
In fact, Kenya’s cabinet did approve policy guidelines last year aimed at commercialising the wildlife economy, including the ant trade.
“The guidelines seek to promote sustainable use trade of wild species such as ants to generate jobs, wealth and community livelihoods across all the counties,” said Watai.
With careful monitoring in place, it could be that future farmers around Gilgil will have special formicaria on their land expanding the yields from their fields and orchards – full of vegetables and fruits – to include lucrative queen ants.
But the debate over the dangers of exporting ants to hobby collectors in different parts of the world is yet to be settled.
A massive ‘megatsunami’ wave created when part of an Alaskan mountain crumbled into the sea is the second tallest ever recorded – and a reminder of the risks posed by melting glaciers, say scientists.
Last summer a giant wave swept through a remote fjord in southeast Alaska leaving destruction in its wake.
The event went largely unreported at the time, but a new scientific analysis shows it was caused by a massive landslide.
An incredible 64 million cubic metres of rock – the equivalent of 24 Great Pyramids – splashed into the water below. The sheer power of that amount of rock plunging into the fjord in under a minute created a gigantic wave almost 500 metres tall.
Only the time it happened – in the early hours of the morning – prevented tourist cruise ships being caught up in the devastation, say the researchers.
Dr Bretwood Higman, an Alaskan geologist, who saw for himself the damage at Tracy Arm Fjord, said it was “a close call”.
“We know that there were people that were very nearly in the wrong place,” he said. ‘I’m quite terrified that we’re not going to be so lucky in the future.”
These huge waves, labelled megatsunamis, happen when a landslide caused by either an earthquake or loose rock hit water below. They are usually localised and dissipate quickly.
The other type of tsunamis happen in the open ocean and are directly triggered by earthquakes, or occasionally other powerful events such as underwater volcanoes.
They, like the 2011 Japan tsunami, can travel for thousands of miles, hitting populated areas and causing widespread devastation and loss of life.
The biggest megatsunami was in the 1950s and was over 500 metres. This latest megatsunami was the second largest.
Dr Higman arrived on the scene a few weeks after the tsunami hit at the Tracy Arm Fjord – a destination popular with cruise ships exploring the natural wonders of Alaska.
He found broken trees littering the mountainside and hurled into the water, and vast swathes of scarred rock stripped of soil and vegetation.
Alaska is especially vulnerable to megatsunamis because of its steep mountains, narrow fjords and frequent earthquakes.
Now new research published in Science suggests glacier melt driven by climate change is making such collapses far worse.
The team combined field work, seismic and satellite data to reconstruct a domino chain of events and trace the height of the wave.
Dr Stephen Hicks of University College London said the glacier was previously “helping to hold up this piece of rock”, and so when the ice retreated, it exposed the bottom of the cliff face, “allowing that rock material to suddenly collapse into the fjord”.
He and his colleagues have studied tsunamis for decades and are worried.
“More people are now going to remote areas – often these tourist cruises are going to see the natural beauty of the area to actually learn more about climate change – but they are also dangerous places to be.”
Dr Higman said there is little doubt that the risks of megatsunamis are increasing.
“At this point, I’m pretty confident that these are increasing not just a little bit, but increasing a lot,” he said.
“Maybe in the order of 10 times as frequent as they were just a few decades ago.”
The scientists are calling for wider monitoring of hazards in parts of Alaska that might be vulnerable to megatsunamis.
Some cruise companies have announced they are to stop sending ships into Tracy Arm amid safety fears.
[BBC]
Vivek Ramaswamy won the Republican nomination for Ohio governor on Tuesday, putting the staunch ally of Donald Trump on a path to running the Rust Belt state.
In unofficial results, he defeated Casey Putsch, a car designer with an automotive-themed YouTube channel, for a place in the general election, according to US media reports.
Ramaswamy, a health-technology entrepreneur, gained national recognition during his unsuccessful run against Trump for president in 2024. He later threw his support behind Trump.
In the Ohio primary, even as he ran against Republicans, he focused on Democratic nominee Amy Acton, the former Ohio public health director who guided the state’s response to the Covid pandemic and ran unopposed.
During a victory speech, Ramaswamy thanked Ohio voters “for getting us to this point”, adding, “The real destination is in November.”
Acton, who will face Ramaswamy in the general election, said during her own victory speech that she is running for governor to make Ohio more affordable again.
“It shouldn’t be this hard,” she said. “It is time to put working families first.”
Ohio’s current governor, Republican Mike DeWine, cannot run for re-election because of term limits.
Trump boosted Ramaswamy in a social media post on Tuesday: “I know Vivek well, competed against him, and he is something SPECIAL. He is Young, Strong, and Smart!”
Vice President JD Vance, who previously represented Ohio in the US Senate, travelled to Cincinnati on Tuesday to cast his ballot for Ramaswamy and others.
The state has shifted towards Republicans in recent years, and Ramaswamy benefitted from name recognition and shuffling in the top ranks of the state’s Republican Party caused by the ascension of Vance to the vice presidency.
Ramaswamy burst onto the national political scene in 2023 as a neophyte with a knack for using social media and podcast appearances to bolster his image. His mile-a-minute cadence and brash attacks resulted in viral moments during the 2024 Republican presidential debates, but he dropped out early due to lackluster support from voters.
Ramaswamy went on to serve as a top Trump surrogate during the 2024 presidential race and was involved in the effort to start Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, before ceding control of the project to Elon Musk.
When he announced his run for Ohio governor, Ramaswamy cleared the Republican primary field of most competitors. He has drawn on his personal fortune to help fund his campaign; The Columbus Dispatch reported he loaned his operation $25m (£18.4m).
His victory sets up a general election campaign focused on the lingering fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Acton had a highly visible role as the state’s public health director during the height of the crisis. Under DeWine’s leadership, Ohio took a more moderate approach to the pandemic response than other Republican-controlled states. Still, Ohio suspended in-person dining and postponed its presidential primary in 2020 as the virus spread.
But ongoing political backlash to Covid-19 restrictions, including masking and school closures, has opened up a path for Republicans to attack Acton six years later.
Ramaswamy recently released an ad claiming that Acton “called off Ohio’s election at the last minute, defying a judge’s order and abusing her power.”
DeWine – who has endorsed Ramaswamy – took the unusual step of defending Acton from the ad’s claims.
“I told her to issue the health order,” DeWine told NBC4 news station. “The decision was mine.”
The race promises to get more intense and expensive heading into the general election in November.
Meanwhile, seven Republican senators in Indiana who voted against Trump’s redistricting plan faced challengers in Tuesday’s primary election.
Five of the Trump-backed challengers have beat the incumbents, while one has lost. Results for the seventh race have not yet been determined.
The Indiana Republicans defied intense pressure from Trump last December by rejecting his demands to pass a voting map meant to favour their party in midterm elections, scheduled for November.
In one of the most conservative states in the US, 21 Republicans in the Senate joined all 10 Democrats to torpedo the redistricting plan last year.
Trump warned at the time that Republicans who did not support the initiative could risk losing their seats.
[BBC]
Spanish police have seized what is thought to be a national record haul of cocaine from a ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
Between 30,000 to 45,000kg were found when the Civil Guard intercepted a freighter in international waters, the body’s main union, the AUGC, announced. It called the move a “historic blow to drug trafficking”.
The vessel was intercepted off Spain’s Canary Islands on Friday and around 20 people were arrested, the AUGC told the AFP news agency. It had travelled from Sierra Leona and was on its way to Libya.
The Civil Guard has declined to give details of the investigation for legal reasons.
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told reporters in Madrid that the seizure was “one of the biggest, not only nationally but internationally”.
The Civil Guard shared a photograph on X showing the drugs stuffed into the hold of the intercepted vessel.
“Today history is being written in the Maritime Service of the Civil Guard,” it wrote.
“Intercepted in international waters the largest known seizure: between 30,000 and 45,000 kg of cocaine on board a freighter.”
While the boat was headed to Libya, AFP reported that the pattern of previous operations suggests that it was due to offload the drugs onto smaller vessels for distribution in Europe.
In January, Spanish authorities made its biggest seizure of cocaine at sea from a ship that was carrying almost 10 tonnes.
[BBC]
Trade, Investment and Tourism Cooperation Forum strengthens economic ties between Sri Lanka and Vietnam
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President of Vietnam and delegation departs Sri Lanka
Trump announces three-day ceasefire in Russia-Ukraine war
Heat Index is likely to increase up to ‘Caution level’ at some places in the North-central and Eastern provinces and in Mannar, Vavuniya and Monaragala districts during the daytime
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