Attention: this article might contain disturbing images and information.
Generating around 7–23 billion USD each year, wildlife is the fourth most lucrative global trafficking market after drugs, arms and humans (1). Not only does it facilitate the spillover of deadly viruses between wildlife and humans, but it also eradicates the gene pools of thousands of species, liquidating their biodiversity to the point of a Sixth Mass Extinction. We ceaselessly butcher and pervert wildlife for monetary profit. The African Elephant population alone has decreased over 20 times in the past century. Despite all the evidence, much of the multi-billion dollar wildlife trade is hidden from the public eye and wilfully overlooked. Its three components — live animal, bushmeat, and wildlife parts trade — weave their criminal traces into the furthest corners of the globe. The wildlife parts trade Poaching is decimating wildlife. Victims of sky-rocketing ivory demand, the African elephant population alone has decreased over 20 times over the past century. Ground tiger bones for strength or carved hornbill casques and bracelets: the illicit uses in Asia for animal parts are endless. For their scales, pangolins have become trafficked wildlife species. All eight pangolin species are being driven into a dead end: extinction. Their scales are consumed by the tons. More than 330 tonnes have been seized from 2015 to 2021 (2). And those are only the seizures. Traditional medicine in Vietnam and China attributes several medicinal uses to animal parts such as rhino horns (made of keratin, the same substance as our fingernails) and pangolin scales: longevity, cure for cancer, reducing fever, an aphrodisiac. On top of that, young people see ivory as a way to portray their status of wealth.
The most recent trend to show off wealth: rhino horn powder mixed with red bull as a hip party drink (1). The live animal trade Many wild animals are more valuable when sold alive. Reptile-obsessors develop heart-eyes at the chance to hold an endangered earless monitor lizard in captivity (1). Still existing sparsely in India, Pakistan and Nepal, so-called “Dancing Bears” are muzzled and held in captivity, forced to dance their way out of freedom. Circuses such as the Harlequin Travelling Circus in Russia still force bears to perform dressed up in glittering scarves and ballet tutus (3). Having wild animals as pets as a status symbol is especially enticing for the wealthy in Gulf countries (Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates): cheetahs are captured and shipped across Africa, advertised and sold as pets on social media. They are traded as one would trade ice-cream for money- just another commodity and symbol of wealth. Captive cheetahs pose like an accessory next to Porsches, in front-seats and swimming pools on Instagram feeds. From 2010 to 2019, 3600 live cheetahs were on the market, open to pet markets in the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf countries (4). For weeks, cheetahs are smuggled on trading routes through the Horn of Africa and into Gulf countries. Only a few cheetahs — mostly cubs — survive. And those few are sold into a life of captivity. The bushmeat trade The meat of rare animals is sold for economic profit, distorting prior subsistence hunting into large-scale commercial hunting. In the African Congo and South American Amazon, a total of six million tons of bushmeat is consumed annually (5).
In the Peruvian rainforest city of Bélen, only accessible by boat, flourishes the largest illegal bushmeat market. There is a ban on selling bushmeat in Peru, but it is not enforced. Police do not dare near the bushmeat market of Bélen, as they fear the sellers’ machetes and knives. In Peru, no-one has even been sentenced to jail for wildlife trafficking. On sale are gutted yellow-footed tortoises — classified as vulnerable bc IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) — South American tapirs, yellow-spotted river turtles, sloth, leopard hides (6). Killing and selling animals that live right on their doorstep with the convenience of stinted law enforcement is a golden jackpot for natives. And the problem is growing exponentially: the more animals are poached, the less there are. As a result of the decreasing population, more animals are killed before reproduction age. Unable to reproduce at the rate they are being poached at, the species are left little chance for survival. Not only wildlife markets serve bushmeat. In restaurants in Vietnam you can order Pangolin à la carte, paid by “season time”. It’s as easy as asking for the “jungle menu”.
Pangolin is regarded as a delicacy and a symbol of wealth in Vietnam. In many restaurants, other wildlife is easy to find: king cobras, sea turtles, skinned frogs, macaque monkeys — they are often killed in plain sight, cubbing their heads off for the bemusement of the restaurant clients’ and served as a dish a few minutes later (1). How is this macabre spectacle possible in plain sight? To serve wildlife in restaurants and sell it on markets, criminals seek loopholes in the law to smuggle wildlife: in 2016, Indonesia alone labeled 4 million exported animals as captive bred — which is legal by law. In reality, nearly all of them were illegally captured from the wild (1). The impact Ecosystems will crumble with the absence of keystone species such as elephants: their dung is rich in seeds, helping dispersing plants. Elephants’ perpetual roaming for food through brush and forest creates pathways for smaller animals, while uprooted trees in the savannah make animals such as the zebra thrive. During the dry season they dig up water holes with their tusks, creating a water source for other animals as well (7).
Ecosystems are forged through interdependence between species. As we are removing such species, one by one, we are destroying the interdependence the ecosystem is founded on. The cycle goes on and on. More animals are added to the list, as present-day species become extinct to poaching: tigers are becoming too rare to be hunted on a large scale for their bones, lion bones come as a convenient “substitute” to provide for the beliefs of Traditional Chinese Medicine that tiger bone powder makes you strong. South Africa has lion farms all over the country where lions are bred and starved to death for their bones to be exported to Asia. Hunters pay thousands to trophy hunt a lion on the farm, later hanging the lion’s head to glorify their kill (8).
The human species is in a commensalism — a one-sided symbiotic relationship — with planet Earth. As it gives, we take. And as we take too much and decimate ecosystems, we destroy the commensalism we are nurtured upon, like a helpless child being breastfed by its mother. By destroying the species that keep the ecosystems that nurture us alive, we are poaching ourselves to death.
References:
1. Nuwer, Rachel Love. 2018. Poached: Inside the Dark World of Wildlife Trafficking. Brunswick, VIC, Australia: Scribe Publications.
2. “Asia’s Unceasing Pangolin Demand — Wildlife Trade News from TRAFFIC.” TRAFFIC. Accessed May 7, 2022. https://www.traffic.org/news/asias-unceasing-pangolin-demand/.
3. Stewart, Will, Chiara Fiorillo. 2021. “Bear Forced to Perform in Circus Mauls Trainer in Front of Horrified Crowd.” Mirror. July 19, 2021. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/bear-forced-perform-circus-mauls-24565139.
4. Bale, Rachael. 2021. “How Trafficked Cheetah Cubs Move from the Wild and into Your Instagram Feed.” National Geographic. August 17, 2021. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/how-trafficked-cheetah-cubs-move-from-the-wild-and-into-your-instagram-feed.
5. Morcatty, T. and Valsecchi, J. 2015. Social, biological, and environmental drivers of the hunting and trade of the endangered yellow-footed tortoise in the Amazon. Ecology and Society, 20(3). DOI: 10.5751/ES-07701–200303.
6. Daly, Natasha. 2021. “Notorious Wildlife Market, Largest in Peruvian Amazon, Back in Business after Pandemic Hiatus.” National Geographic. October 12, 2021. http://nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/notorious-wildlife-market-largest-in-peruvian-amazon-back-in-business-after-pandemic-hiatus.
7. Western, David. 1989: 42–45. The ecological role of elephants in Africa. Springer Verlag. https://www.poachingfacts.org/docs/Pachyderm/pachy12.pdf#page=43
8. Fobar, Rachel. 2019. “Exclusive: Inside a Controversial South African Lion Farm.” National Geographic. November 21, 2019. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/lion-farm-south-africa.
