Wildlife trafficking is the fourth largest criminal trade globally. The welfare impacts on individual animals - from capture to transport to captivity - are severe and often fatal.
Wildlife trafficking welfare impacts begin at capture and continue throughout the trafficking chain. Animals are often captured by inhumane methods (traps, poisons, nets), transported in cramped, dark, poorly ventilated containers without food or water, and held in inappropriate conditions before sale. High mortality at each stage means that the consumer who buys a surviving trafficked animal has financed the deaths of many others. The welfare suffering is individual and extreme - animals that arrived at their buyer may appear healthy while carrying internal injuries, parasites and psychological trauma from capture and transport.