The Problem

• With the planet reeling from a mass extinction crisis, the world’s biggest markets for illegal wildlife products and exotic pets are located on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and China’s WeChat.

• In just a few clicks, it’s easy to find pages, groups and postings selling big cats, reptiles, birds, primates, and insects for the exotic pet trade, as well as wildlife products made from endangered species such as elephant ivory, rhino horn, pangolin scales and marine turtle shells.

• Social media offers wildlife criminals and unscrupulous traders with an unprecedented global customer reach, as well as anonymity and payment systems.

• This vast, unregulated trade in live animals and their parts exacerbates risk of another animal-human spillover event, such as the ones that caused Ebola, HIV and the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Several social media platforms, including Facebook, are also home to private groups where animal torture content is traded and sold, including videos and live events featuring things like dog fighting and baby animals being clubbed to death.

• Experts agree that monitoring online animal markets offers significant opportunities to interdict criminals and save animals.