An estimated 5.5 billion wild animals—yes, that’s right—are being kept in cruel conditions on commercial wildlife farms, according to British charity World Animal Protection. Published on March 4, the charity’s Bred for Profit: The Truth About Global Wildlife Farming Report reveals the scale of this exploitative industry in which billions of wild animals are bred to be traded as pets, used for entertainment or tourist attractions, and turned into ornaments, luxury food, fashion products, or ‘traditional medicine’.
Researchers found an “astonishing” lack of transparency and inadequate monitoring across the global multi-billion-dollar industry, where sentient animals are treated as mere components in a cruel production line.
The charity said in a press release that through its long history of working across many of these exploitative industries, World Animal Protection knows that large numbers of wild animals suffer from malnourishment, disease, stress-induced behaviours, injuries, infected wounds, and even cannibalism.
The report, compiled using Right to Information requests and other research, also details how the high numbers of animals living in cramped, unhygienic conditions put their caretakers and the public at risk of zoonotic diseases—potentially to pandemic proportions.
The charity said its research found very little evidence to support claims by some conservationists that breeding programmes meet the demand for wildlife products and reduce pressure on wild populations. Shockingly, some captive wildlife populations are now larger than those living free.
Case studies in the report detail some of the industries where urgent action is needed – including:
- Bear farming in China, where some 20,000 bears are farmed for their bile on dozens of farms to meet the demand of the $1 billion bear bile industry in China.
- Elephant breeding in Thailand, where the majority of nearly 3,000 elephants are bred in captivity and used in 246 venues for tourism, generating between $581 million and $770 million annually. Between 2010 and 2020 the number of elephant venues increased by a staggering 134%.
- Lion and other big cat farming in South Africa, where approximately 8,000 big cats are bred at 366 known facilities and used for multiple purposes in the $43 million industry, including for tourist entertainment, trophy hunting, and body parts exports to Asia for so-called traditional medicine.
Launching the organization’s global Wildlife Not Profit campaign, World Animal Protection’s wildlife campaign director, Nick Stewart, said: “Whether it be for the pet industry, trophy hunting, entertainment, traditional medicine, decoration, or fashion, cruel wildlife farming must end now. Wild animals have the right to a life in their natural habitats. Governments, the private sector, and us as consumers must prioritize efforts to ensure that wildlife is protected in their natural habitats. The public must also be guarded against the very real threat of zoonotic diseases from wildlife farms.”
Stewart added, “This must be the last generation of wild animals farmed for profit. Wildlife is not ours to exploit, and we can all play a part in protecting animals from cruel commercial exploitation.”
The charity called upon governments worldwide to take immediate action by implementing a comprehensive and timely phasing out of commercial wildlife farms and associated trade. It also called for increased support for alternative livelihoods for communities that are currently involved in the wildlife farming industry.
