Thousands of endangered animals supposedly protected by law are being traded openly on the Internet and sold as "exotic pets," say wildlife crime investigators working with an international animal charity.
An investigation of nearly 100 Web sites based around the world found a "shocking" selection of rare and endangered animals for sale. They included a hand-reared Siberian tiger (US$72,300), an adolescent gorilla (US$8,100) advertised as being in London, and other rare primates, falcons, seahorses and whole shells of turtles.
One of the most expensive was a "sweet-natured" two-year-old giraffe being sold for US$16,270 in the US.
"He has never been bad tempered with me. A loving home is a must," the anonymous owner said.
The Internet has revolutionized shopping for books, DVDs and airline tickets, but it has also opened up great opportunities to deal in illegal wildlife which, according to the UN, is worth billions of dollars a year and now rivals the arms and drug trades in scale.
"Within one week we found over 9,000 wild animal products and specimens, and wild animals for sale, predominantly from species protected by law," says the report for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). "More than 100 traders were identified, each advertising an unnamed, unspecified number of items," the authors of the report said.
The range of live endangered animals for sale could have set up whole zoos, and the parts of dead animals found on the Web would have stocked streets of Chinese pharmacies.
"They included some of the world's most endangered species," the report says. "There were live Amazonian parrots, wild cats, a green turtle which the seller claimed was captured from a southeast Asian rainforest; even a live pet lion."
A total of 146 live primates were found in a week, some being advertised before they were even born. Commercial trade in any primate species is either prohibited or subject to strict controls.
Moreover, the range of health products made from endangered animal body parts was "alarming and seemingly unlimited," the report says.
"We found tiger bone tonic pills and other traditional Asian medicines containing derivatives from black bears, leopards and rhinos, shark fins and ivory products," the authors wrote.
The gorilla for sale in London may not have actually existed, an IFAW spokeswoman said. "Possibly it was a Congo-based operation which would capture an animal to order."
Guaranteed to be real were the hawksbill turtle shells, shahtoosh shawls from the Tibetan antelope and taxidermy specimens of lions and peregrine falcons (a protected British species) which were found, along with a stuffed polar bear which was billed as being Victorian but looked suspiciously fresh.
Quantity does not appear to be a problem for the sellers, who IFAW found range from individuals hoping to make money on a one-off exotic pet to professional traders and companies who appeared to have access to a regular supply. One man selling some elephant skin wallets claimed he could get more easily from his supplier in Thailand.
Neither did the fact that it is illegal to trade in the species worry the sellers.
"Many sellers seem to be fully aware that they are acting illegally and deliberately mislead potential buyers. But not all buyers and sellers are knowingly breaking the law," the report says.
Ifaw chose to look for only a few groups of animals and said it uncovered the tip of a vast trade that spans continents and is far greater than the authorities or anyone else imagines. According to the UN's International Union for the Conservation of Nature, exploitation by traders is one of the greatest stimulators of species loss.
"This trade has devastating implications for both wildlife conservation and animal welfare. Entire populations of certain species risk being wiped out by over-exploitation. Millions of animals suffer immensely during hunting or in transit and captivity. Many die and this results in more being taken from the wild," the report says.
The result is a cyber black market where the future of the world's rarest animals is being traded away.
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