Wildlife trafficking is the fourth largest illegal trade globally. The welfare costs to individual animals are enormous, spanning capture, transport, holding, and end-use conditions that cause massive suffering.
Wildlife trafficking inflicts suffering at every stage of the supply chain. Captured animals experience the acute trauma of capture, frequently involving physical injury from traps and nets. Transit involves extreme confinement, thermal stress, dehydration, and starvation over days or weeks. Animals that survive to end markets often face lifetimes of confinement in wholly inappropriate conditions. The trade also poses significant disease transmission risks from wildlife to humans. Combating wildlife trafficking requires enforcement capacity, demand reduction in consumer countries, community-based conservation that makes wildlife worth more alive, and legislative frameworks that impose meaningful penalties for trafficking offences.