News

Animal welfare in the wildlife trade

A new study led by WildCRU’s Sandra Baker has examined animal welfare in the wildlife trade, a subject that had not been studied before. The review of almost 300 recent wildlife trade articles revealed that welfare was rarely mentioned, despite the evidence that wild animals can suffer greatly in trade.

The literature focused on mammals and on animals killed on site, for use as luxury goods or food, and for traditional medicine. The authors concluded that greater research attention should be paid to the welfare of animals traded alive and in much larger numbers (e.g., birds, reptiles, amphibians) and to those – including mammals -potentially subject to greater impacts through live use (e.g., as pets).

The full paper, published in Bioscience, can be found at: http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/63/12/928.full

Citation:
Baker, S. E., Cain, R., van Keseteren, F., Zommers, Z. A., D’Cruze, N. and Macdonald, D. W. (2013) Rough Trade: Animal Welfare in the Global Wildlife Trade. Bioscience, 63(12): 28-38.