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(January 16, 2025) Scientists Develop First Portable eDNA Test Which Is Able to Detect One of the Rarest of the Rare Wildlife Species, a Swinhoe’s Softshell turtle, in a Massive Body of Water With only two known to exist, the only hope for the long-term survival of this species is finding additional Swinhoe’s softshell turtles to assist in breeding efforts Links to photos HERE. (3 photos: turtle, eDNA kit, person collecting water samples) Link to Study HERE (Pictured above, one ...

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(March 14, 2024) National Dissemination Workshop for “One Health surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 at the Human-Animal-Environment Interface in Viet Nam with a focus on free-ranging and captive wildlife” On March 15, 2024, in Ha Noi, about 45 representatives from Vietnamese government agencies, and international and non-governmental organizations joined the national dissemination workshop for “One Health Surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 at the Human-Animal-Environment Interface in Viet Nam with a focus...

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(September 09, 2022) Ho Chi Minh city, September 9, 2022 - University of Law, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) - Viet Nam Program in collaboration with School of Law - Vietnam National University, Hanoi (LS - VNU), Ho Chi Minh City University of Law and University of Law - Hue University organized mock trials on "Adjudication of wildlife crime cases". The mock trials are a part of the project “Combating Wildlife Trafficking in Viet Nam” funded by the Bureau of International Narcotics an...

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(May 19, 2022) Ha Noi, May 19, 2022: About 60 representatives from Vietnamese government agencies and both international and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) joined the close out and transition workshop of WildHealthNet – a project co-implemented by Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Department of Animal Health (DAH), Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development (MARD) during 2018 - 2022, with the support of the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) - Biological Threat Reduction Prog...

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(March 11, 2022) Findings show that risk from trade in pangolins goes beyond markets in China Authors say live wildlife trade is increasing the risk of coronavirus transmission and potentially amplifying viruses along the trade chain READ THE STUDY Images, Captions and Credit An oral swab is collected from a pangolin by WCS wildlife health professionals at a wildlife rescue center in Viet Nam. NEW YORK (Mar 9th, 2022) – A new study in the journal Frontiers in Public Health&nbs...

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(September 23, 2021) Strengthening international cooperation between Viet Nam and some African countries in combating against transnational illegal wildlife trade Ha Noi, September 23-24, 2021, Viet Nam National University’s School of Law (VNU-LS) and Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Viet Nam Program organize a two-day webinar on "International cooperation between Viet Nam and some African countries in combating against transnational illegal wildlife trade”. There are nearly 150 participants ...

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(December 18, 2020) World’s Most Endangered Turtle Gets Some Good News In 2020Scientists release genetic results confirming a female turtle captured in October 2020 in Viet Nam is definitively the near extinct Swinhoe’s softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei) – also known as the Yangtze giant softshell turtle and Hoan Kiem turtleDiscovery means at least one male and one female are now known to existViet Nam Government leading this effort to prevent extinction of the Swinhoe’s softshell turtle, a...

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(July 28, 2020)   -   On July 23rd 2020 the Vietnamese Government released Prime Minister’s Directive No. 29 on urgent solutions to manage wildlife. Whilst this Directive No. 29 is a positive development, it is not the game-changer that is being reported by some in the global media and that is urgently needed to prevent future zoonotic pathogen outbreaks such as that we are experiencing today. 

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(June 18, 2020) HA NOI (June 17, 2020) – A new study found that animals sampled in the wildlife-trade supply chain bound for human consumption had high proportions of coronaviruses, and that the proportion of positives significantly increases as animals travel from traders, to large markets, to restaurants.The study, which appears in the pre-print journal bioRxiv, is by a team of scientists from WCS, the Department of Animal Health of the Viet Nam Ministry of Agriculture and Rural...

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(March 27, 2020)   -   The current coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic is killing thousands of people globally and causing major impacts to livelihoods, society, and economies across the world. COVID-19 is understood to have originated in wildlife, most probably in a market selling live wildlife in China (Cyranoski, 2020; Lu et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2020; Zhou et al., 2020).

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