Wildlife trade
Global wildlife trade is an inhumane industry that cruelly exploits our planet’s wildlife for financial gain by poaching, farming or breeding them to be used in fashion, traditional medicine or sold as exotic pets and for wildlife entertainment venues.
Wildlife trade is a global multi-billion-dollar industry that makes huge profits at the expense of billions of individual wild animals. Legal or illegal, it’s all cruel. Wild animals are brutally slaughtered for luxury fashion products and traditional medicine, made to endure a lifetime of cruel confinement by being sold as exotic pets or cruelly trained to perform in wildlife entertainment venues.
Each year, thousands of animals are cruelly snatched from their natural habitats or farmed in inhumane conditions just to be sold into this profit-driven industry that couldn’t care less about their welfare. Not only does this trade cause unimaginable suffering to animals, but it also increases our risk of diseases like COVID-19 that can transfer from wild animals to humans.
It is unjustifiable to subject wild animals to such cruelty, especially when there are plenty of plant-based alternatives available that can be used in luxury items and in traditional medicine that are innovative, advanced, and – more importantly – don’t involve animal suffering. And instead of subjecting a wild animal who has complex needs to a life of suffering, we must choose to only adopt animals who have been domesticated over generations and are comfortable living with humans – such as a cat or a dog.
Wild animals should have the right to live a life in the wild, a place where they can express their natural behaviours, and where each moment is not filled with terror, pain and prolonged suffering.
Together, we can give wild animals a life they deserve, a life worth living, and put an end to this horrific exploitation and end the cruel wildlife trade. Forever.
Wildlife news
YHA Australia launch best practice wildlife guidelines
Thanks to your support, YHA Australia - Australia’s largest provider of budget travel accommodation - has worked with World Animal Protection to create a new...
Asiatic black bear breaks free from captivity after two decades
Thank you for being part of the reason bears in captivity have a second chance at life. Na, a sweet Asiatic black bear whose name means ‘custard apple’ was...
Dancing ‘zombie dolphins’ call for answers during Sea World Spooky Nights
Thanks to your support, we held a 'spooky' event in central Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast calling Sea World out on their lack of transparency over the...