In a crackdown on wildlife trafficking, the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) has removed 1,158 videos associated with the illegal trade, poaching, hunting, and cooking of protected animals, as YouTube becomes a favorite hub for tech-savvy wildlife smugglers. Sources in the WCCB said that this platform has been found to be facilitating the advertising and sale of contraband such as parakeets, rare turtles, and pangolins.
More such videos are under the scanner, said a senior official from the country's top wildlife crime control agency under the Union Environment Ministry. YouTube is the most popular social video platform. As of October 2023, India is the biggest market for YouTube with approximately 462 million active users followed by USA, Brazil and other countries.
Little wonder that many wildlife smugglers have started using this platform in a big way to earn easy money through the sale of live and body parts of the wildlife species including the protected one in violation of the law.
In fact, once eligibility criteria of YouTube is met by their YouTube Channels, these wildlife perpetrators may apply for monetization scheme by joining YouTube Partner Program and can earn money through various monetization streams on YouTube such as revenue from advertisement, revealed Arvind K Chaurasia, Additional Commissioner at the WCCB.
He said that the WCCB and Traffic India, the Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network India that works in collaboration with WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), has also been on the trail of these offenders.
According to reports, in at least five operations, pangolins and tiger skins were seized over the past one year following ti-off from the popular social platforms.
Talking about the modus operandi, the official said that often, WCCB volunteers go over the comments for clues in the posts uploaded on the You Tube that may lead to the identity of potential buyers. Sometimes, it doesn't take much - buyers and sellers leave their numbers in comments.
“Till date in the last one year, WCCB has successfully removed around 1300 YouTube videos related to poaching, hunting, cooking and selling of wildlife on the basis of inputs shared by these Wildlife Cyber Warriors by sending a content removal notice to YouTube Legal Support Team under Section 50(7) read with Section 52 of Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972,” said the WCCB official.
The wildlife crime control body has also launched “WILD NET”, a program designed to track and check illegal animal trading online. Any suspicious activity online would send alerts to enforcement agencies in the country.
In 2019, TRAFFIC in collaboration with the Union Environment Ministry had held a meeting with online platforms like Google, Facebook, YouTube and e-commerce sites like IndiaMart and Flipkart to ensure that their platforms are not used for trading protected species.
YouTube, in an official statement, said, “We take the safety of our online community very seriously. YouTube's policies prohibit graphic violence and animal abuse and we will quickly remove flagged content and terminate channels of repeat offenders.”
However, in actuality, YouTube has been failing to combat the menace, Chaurasiya minced no words as he posted his views on a wildlife community platform WILDHUB.
He said that, “Wildlife traffickers are creating their YouTube Channels and posting videos of poaching/hunting, cooking etc. of protected species of wildlife. They are also using YouTube Channels for advertising protected wildlife species, their parts, articles, derivatives etc. for sale.” After Facebook, YouTube is the most popular social media platform with 2.7 billion monthly active users.
As per the WildEye data, wildlife crime continues to thrive, part of a global illicit wildlife trade estimated to be worth between USD 7 billion and USD23 billion annually, according to the World Economic Forum (though it's impossible to know the true value of wildlife trafficking that takes place online.)
They are also using YouTube Channels for advertising protected wildlife species, their parts, articles, derivatives etc. for sale. But what is the matter of concern is that like any other social media platform, YouTube Algorithm also helps in widening the reach of such videos of poaching/hunting, cooking or illegal trade of wildlife by recommending them to the more and more audience who are interested in such videos.
These wildlife poachers may further widen their audience base by sharing the link of such YouTube videos on other social media platforms, added Chaurasiya.
To crackdown on the online wildlife perpetrators, the short-staffed WCCB is also banking on the Public Private Partnership (PPP). In this regard it has created a WhatsApp Group namely “Wildlife Cyber Warrior”. QR Code has been developed so that willing individuals may join this Group and share the links of wildlife crime related YouTube videos for taking further necesary enforcement action by WCCB.
