Killing with Keystrokes: Wildlife Trade on the Internet
The Internet has become the world's biggest marketplace, one that is open for business 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As unregulated and anonymous as it is unlimited, the Internet provides endless opportunities for illegal criminal activities and transactions. Increasingly, the Internet is a means by which the illicit trade in wildlife is conducted: a trade so great that it is now estimated to be second only to rival illegal trafficking in drugs and weapons.
IFAW’s most recent report, Killing With Keystrokes, revealed the results of an intensive investigation into the online trade. The investigation was undertaken, in part, to better understand the volume and value, scope and scale of the illegal wildlife trade and to measure the effectiveness of recent reforms made by Internet platforms and governments.
In the course of six weeks, IFAW was astonished to find more than 7,000 wild animals and animal products for sale online. This figure was all the more alarming because the survey was restricted to trade in only CITES Appendix 1 species and only in the following categories: primates, elephant, reptiles, large wild cat products, rhinoceros, and birds. IFAW tracked over US $30 million worth of advertised animal products and and over US $3.6 million in actual commerce, meaning money that actually changed hands .
Click
hear to learn more about Killing with Keystrokes.
