The global trade in amphibians for the pet trade and scientific research raises welfare concerns about capture, transport stress, and the introduction of chytrid fungi.
Amphibian trade welfare encompasses both individual animal suffering and catastrophic population-level harm. Transport mortality rates in the amphibian trade can be very high — animals collected from the wild or even from farms experience temperature extremes, dehydration, and crowding stress. At the population level, the trade has been the primary vector for the global spread of chytrid fungal diseases that have caused the most catastrophic wildlife disease-driven extinctions in recorded history. The welfare implications of a trade that simultaneously causes individual suffering and drives multiple species toward extinction are severe.