The global pet trade moves hundreds of millions of animals annually, with wild-caught individuals experiencing capture stress, mortality during transport, and unsuitable captive conditions.
The global pet trade welfare crisis spans capture, transport, and captive keeping. Capture involves netting, trapping, and manual collection causing injury and acute stress. Transport in cramped, dark, often temperature-extreme conditions causes mortality that is absorbed as a cost of business. Animals that survive reach keepers who frequently lack the knowledge to maintain them. The trade in exotic animals is connected to zoonotic disease risk, invasive species risk, and enormous welfare harm.