Despite Covid-19 restrictions and the risk of animal to human disease transmission, illegal wildlife trade on social media networks continue to flourish, researchers noted after analyzing around 20,000 posts on Faceboook on wild pet trade.
Ringing alarm bells, the researchers from Oxford Brookes University and the University of Western Australia have called for increased vigilance on social media sites in order to curb potential extinctions and reduce the risk of pandemics.
The researchers had examined advertisements on Facebook in Brazil and Indonesia. They found thousands of posts advertising wild animals, with a potential audience of over 200,000 people. “Indeed, only 0.44 per cent of over 20,000 online wildlife trade advertisements had any Covid-19-related content,” said the researchers in the study published in journal of Environmental Research.
Co-author Anna Nekaris, Professor of Primate Conservation at Oxford Brookes University said: “We anticipated that we would see many posts mentioning Covid-19 regarding the potential dangers of wildlife trade or using it as a reason for a temporary cessation of sales. Instead, advertisements mentioning Covid-19 often stimulated wildlife trade, suggesting the pandemic was a great time to buy an exotic pet for companionship, for example.”
Strikingly, they found that no traders or consumers discussed the role of wildlife trade in spreading diseases. Instead, discounts were given, home delivery services were provided, and customers encouraged to spend larger amounts of time due to lockdown with the animals.
Co-author Thais Morcatty, at Oxford Brookes University, said, “clandestine markets often expand to supply the demand that still exists and in that case, not only does wildlife trade continue, monitoring it becomes nearly impossible.”
In India too, the situation is not very encouraging as has been found by a study conducted by TRAFFIC, a wildlife trade monitoring network. It found a significant increase in reported poaching of wild animals in India during the lockdown period. “Species are being systematically wiped out by organised trade networks, with new poaching techniques and trade routes emerging faster than we can respond to them. The pandemic, which is an important example of the negative repercussions of this exploitative trade, hasn’t deterred wildlife traders and this is only exacerbated by the increased demand for Traditional Chinese Medicines (TMC).
“Many of the highest trafficked species are reptiles and amphibians like the tokay gecko, spiny-tailed lizard, tortoises and freshwater turtles, with data on this trade yet to be quantified,” said Trisha Ghose, project director, The Habitats Trust, an NGO working for protection and conservation of habitats and their indigenous species.
In fact, in the midst of pandemic, in June the Union Environment Ministry issued an advisory saying people importing “exotic live species” will have to make a voluntary disclosure following global concern about illegal wildlife trade and zoonotic diseases.