Wildlife Crime and Animal Welfare

Wildlife crime — including poaching, trafficking, and illegal trade — causes massive welfare harm to billions of animals annually and drives species toward extinction.

Key Facts

Wildlife trafficking is estimated to be the fourth largest illegal trade globally after drugs, arms, and human trafficking
Live animal trafficking causes significant welfare harm through capture stress, transport conditions, and mortality rates
Approximately 50% of wild-caught animals die before reaching their destination in the illegal pet trade
Ivory poaching kills approximately 20,000 elephants annually — each death involving significant suffering
Wildlife crime enforcement requires international cooperation across source, transit, and destination countries

Welfare Considerations

Wildlife crime is simultaneously a welfare crisis and a conservation catastrophe. Every illegally trafficked animal experiences capture trauma, inappropriate transport, and exposure to unfamiliar conditions — many die before reaching buyers. Those that survive face welfare problems from inappropriate captivity with unknowledgeable owners. At the population level, poaching drives species toward extinction, eliminating the welfare of billions of future individuals who will never be born into wild populations. Addressing wildlife crime requires demand reduction in destination countries, enforcement strengthening in source countries, and international cooperation across the entire trafficking chain.

What You Can Do

Never purchase wild animals as pets without verifiable evidence of legal, welfare-positive captive breeding
Avoid purchasing wildlife products including ivory, exotic skins, and wildlife parts while traveling
Support TRAFFIC, WCS, and other organizations working to reduce wildlife trafficking
Report suspected wildlife trafficking to national wildlife crime units
Advocate for stronger penalties for wildlife trafficking that reflect its scale and welfare impact