Wednesday, October 1, 2025
Summarises welfare concerns experienced by birds and other exotic animals due to human activities. These include habitat destruction, human-wildlife conflict, hunting, trapping, pollution, the impacts of researchers, and the legal and illegal trades in wildlife. Death rates during transit are often very high, and continue after animals reach consumer homes, due to their specialised dietary and other husbandry requirements. The ecological impacts of these trades are also discussed, and law and policy solutions proposed.
nb: When including human trafficking, the illegal trade in wildlife is ranked as the fourth most profitable transnational crime after the drug trade, arms trade, and human trafficking.