Stolen Wildlife V - The EU’s role as destination for wildlife traffickers – an update

The European Union is one of the biggest importers of wildlife, including illegally sourced species. Only a very small fraction of the species in trade are actually covered by international and/or EU legislation. However, many species in trade, which are protected in non-EU countries under domestic legislation, have nonetheless been captured and exported in violation of the country of origin’s national laws. The lack of EU legislation prohibiting imports of such illegally obtained wildlife undermines the conservation efforts of range States. The present report is the fifth edition of the “Stolen Wildlife” series. It gives many examples of the trade in such illegally sourced wildlife in the EU.

Since 2014, these reports have documented the flourishing trade in species that are nationally protected in their country of origin, but not at the international level. The initial focus was reptiles (Altherr 2014), but the range of species documented has broadened considerably since then: amphibians, ornamental fish and invertebrates are also targeted to meet an increasing demand for new and rare species from those trading in or collecting exotic pets (See “Stolen Wildlife” IIIV: Altherr et al. 2016, 2022; Altherr & Lameter 2020b). Indeed, recent scientific papers and seizures confirm that biopiracy for the exotic pet trade increasingly includes invertebrates, such as tarantulas (Rivera et al. 2024; Law 2019; Ribbit 2017). Invertebrates are also being poached for insect collections (e.g. Doma 2024).