Wildlife crime encompasses poaching, illegal trade, and trafficking of live animals and animal parts. It causes enormous direct welfare suffering while driving many species toward extinction.
Wildlife crime causes welfare suffering at every stage: the often prolonged and painful capture methods, the stressful transport conditions with high mortality, the conditions of holding facilities, and the lives of animals who reach destination markets in inappropriate captivity. For wild-caught animals like parrots, reptiles, and primates who survive to reach buyers, the stress of capture and transportation may have lasting psychological effects. For animals killed for parts — elephants, rhinos, sharks, pangolins — the killing methods range from instantaneous to prolonged. Addressing wildlife crime requires tackling demand, improving enforcement, and providing alternative livelihoods for communities engaged in poaching, all of which have both conservation and welfare dimensions.