The legal and illegal wildlife trade causes immense suffering during capture, transport, and captivity of wild animals destined for the pet market.
The wildlife trade inflicts welfare harms at multiple stages. Wild capture using nets, traps, and other methods causes injury, stress, and mortality. Transport in cramped, dark, and poorly ventilated conditions causes further deaths. Animals that survive to be sold face life in captivity environments that cannot replicate the complexity of their natural habitat. Social species kept alone, nocturnal species exposed to constant light, and animals with wide-ranging needs confined to small enclosures all experience chronic welfare compromise. The welfare harms extend beyond individual animals to population-level impacts through removal of wild individuals and disruption of social structures. Reducing demand for wild animals as pets is the most direct way to address these harms.