This article is part of a special WCT #TrappedInTrade blog series which is focused on the problem of growing demand for exotic wild animals in India and the urgent need for stronger wildlife laws for better regulation of the same.
Globally, the pet trade industry has experienced a boom with rising demand for exotic animals in recent times. Primates, such as the common marmoset which is native to Brazil, are commonly targeted by wildlife traffickers to feed the pet industry. Credit: PublicDomainPictures.net
One of my most vividly shocking memories from the year (2012-13) spent in England was the trip I made to a pet store along with my friend who had just lost his pet leopard gecko. He was looking to replace it. Back then, I was blissfully ignorant of the scale and brutal reality of live animal trade. I stepped into this small pet store completely unprepared for the sights that greeted me there. Everything from exotic snakes, lizards, birds, insects and even foxes in glass terrariums and cages stared back at me, as customers casually went about the store picking out animals to take home as pets. I remember the queasiness that gripped me in that moment. I wondered how all these people were seeing past these animals’ obvious suffering, fear, distress, and confusion. But I soon came to realise that animal suffering and intelligence were not that obvious to most people. Empathy towards animals either did not come easily to us or at best was misplaced.
Cut to the present. India. Wildlife trafficking of live wild animals and their trade to feed the soaring demand for exotic pets in the country has exploded into a burning conservation issue. Many affluent Indians are increasingly buying, keeping and even breeding non-domesticated, exotic pets largely illegally with impunity. Impunity because, as of now, there are no dedicated wildlife laws that extend protection to non-native or exotic species, nor ones that regulate their trade in India.
Reptiles are in high demand as pets, with over 80 reptile species recorded in trade in India many of which are categorised as critically endangered and vulnerable by the IUCN Red List in their host countries. Photo credit: RESQ CT
“In the recent past, especially during the pandemic, we’ve witnessed an increased demand for exotic pets as folks suddenly found time on hand, and at home. Unfortunately, this led to a spike both in the number of wild animals that are intensively bred or captured for pet trade and in the number of species that are in pet trade, in India. Several years ago, pet trade was by and large restricted to birds and exotic fishes but off late has extended to large mammals, reptiles, amphibians and even insects such as tarantulas and scorpions. The scenario seems like a ticking timebomb as it carries an increased risk of zoonotic disease transmission and people abandoning these animals as offices and schools reopen. Welfare of animals in trade is severely compromised as they are hardly able to exhibit their natural behaviour in a city or home setting,” explains Sumanth Bindumadhav, Senior Manager, Wildlife, Disaster Response and Dharwad Program, Humane Society International/India.
People tend to forget that there are frightened, disoriented, traumatised animals at the centre of man’s greed, hubris, and chaos. The perverse urge to own and showcase all manner of wild animals in our homes and zoos for entertainment and as status symbols exemplifies the humans’ worst side and screams of self-proclaimed anthropocentric entitlement.
Cost of Turning a Blind Eye to Untold Animal Suffering
The broad and dangerous implications of the wildlife trade are widely spoken of by conservationists and experts – disappearing native wildlife populations, species extinction, destabilisation of ecosystems, alien species turning invasive and devastating native biodiversity, dangers of animal-to-human disease transmission, etc. These are real dangers, and we should be scared. But, when we talk about solving the problem of exotic pet trade, the issue of suffering that individual animals endure in the pet trade industry is often downplayed by experts and policymakers who are generally focused on the bigger picture of species protection and ecosystems. The trauma and pain of being captured from the wild, shock of unnatural handling and confinement, and transportation across long distances is extremely cruel and painful for the animals.
A civet for sale in a market in Jatinegara, Indonesia (left). Photo credit: Wolf Gordon Clifton / Animal People Inc _Wikimedia commons. Trafficked wild animals including arachnids such as tarantula (right) are transported in very poor conditions and many of them suffer and die in transit. Photo credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/Public Domain
But, the call for animal welfare to be treated as a conservation priority is slowly getting louder and with a good reason according to a study published in Science. Conservation Biologist and co-author of this study, Nitin Sekar, told National Geographic that it is practical ‘for conservationists and policymakers to care about animal welfare: The more animals that die in trade because of ill treatment, the more that are captured from the wild to keep supplies coming… and that conservationists should strive to minimize animal suffering.’
Once caught, wild animals become mere commodities in the hands of the hunters, and the middlemen, and the exporters, before finally falling into the hands of the consumers. Throughout, this journey for a wild animal in question entails incapacitation, confinement in small boxes, bottles, cages, coops, containers, etc. Many animals suffer and die in transit from dehydration, starvation, asphyxiation, and physical and mental trauma. Many which make it alive sustain injuries and illnesses. Mortality rates in case of certain groups of animals are quite high.
Wild animals including snakes, lorises, pangolins, lizards, etc. kept on display in an illicit open-air animal market in Myanmar. Photo credit: Dan Bennet/Wikimedia Commons
According to a report by Defenders of Wildlife, about 41.5 million animals are taken from the wild each year to satiate the marine aquarium industry alone, and many species suffer mortality rates greater than 90 percent! Reptiles, amphibians, birds, invertebrates, fish, and small mammals are the worst affected animal groups in the pet trade. According to some experts, 75-90 percent of wild-caught reptiles succumb within the first 12 months of captivity.
Another unsettling estimate suggests that for every primate such as the chimpanzee which ends up at pet owner’s home or the zoo, at least 10 other chimpanzees died in the process of capture and transportation. The fact that often hunters and traffickers kill primate mothers in the wild to capture their babies to sell as pets, says a lot about the scale of cruelty involved in the pet trade.
Between 2000 and 2014, some 3.24 billion live organisms were imported by the U.S. Nearly 50 percent of these animals were taken from the wild, and most of them circled their way into the pet trade. This staggering figure speaks to undue biodiversity loss and damage being inflicted on the planet’s ecosystems. But the thought of immeasurable pain and suffering inflicted on the billions of animals should also fill us with guilt.
India is Not Too Far Behind
In May 2022, a consignment of more than 400 exotic animals including beavers, three-toed sloths, rare primates and lizards, among others were seized by the authorities in Mizoram along the Indo-Myanmar border, which were being smuggled into the country allegedly from breeding farms in Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar. This was one of the largest seizures ever made in the northeastern state.
Last few years have seen a spate of such alarming news coming out of India. In 2020, shocking news of an orangutan infant that was smuggled into the country going missing in Mumbai came to light. In April 2022, dazed kangaroos were seen wandering on a road in West Bengal sending people all over the country into a tizzy. They were eventually rescued but one of the kangaroos soon died of dehydration and malnutrition.
“A few years ago in Pune, there was senior editor of a popular lifestyle magazine who walked a fashion ramp with a live pygmy marmoset (known as a finger monkey by traders and buyers). The event had bright flashing lights and blaring loud music which must have been a terribly frightening experience for the little monkey stuffed in this man’s pocket and forced to sit there for hours. People crowded around him and the monkey asking where they could purchase one of these well-behaved creatures as pets. They probably perceived it to be well-behaved when it was just sitting frozen out of fear,” recounts Neha Panchamiya, Founder and President, RESQ Charitable Trust, a not-for-profit organisation based in Pune, that is focused on rescue and rehabilitation of wild animals and minimising human-animal conflict.
A pygmy marmoset paraded around by the owner while being carried in vest pocket at a fashion event in Pune. Photo credit: RESQ CT
“This trend of flaunting exotic wildlife as ‘cool’ pets plays a big role in promoting the illegal wildlife trade globally,” she adds.
A report on India’s exotic pet trade by EcoJust paints in vivid detail a grim but true picture of wildlife trafficking of live animals into India in the past few years. The Wildlife Conservation Trust’s detailed coverage on the problem of growing demand for exotic animals in India and the lack of laws to regulate exotic species trade further sheds light on India’s dark underbelly of illegal pet trade.
The Psychological Cost of Pet Trade
Social media and television are inundated with ‘cute’ videos of wild animals which are reduced to mere objects of entertainment to gawk at. Videos of people posing next to ‘smiling’ dolphins at theme parks, a pet slow loris raising its arms like a child reaching out, a parrot ‘enjoying’ a shower under a tap in a sink, a person patting a tiger, etc. are popular on Instagram and Facebook. Such content presents a highly anthropomorphised and distorted perception of animal behaviour which appeals to a large faction of people stoking the demand for these animals thus feeding the exotic pet trade the world over. What they fail to see is the intelligence and sentience in these animals and their ability to suffer physical and psychological pain, trauma and stress.
It is quite common to see caged birds up for sale in most pet shops (right). Photo credit: Kelly/Pexels. From lovebirds, budgerigars and innumerable other species of parrots such as cockatoos and macaws, birds are popular pets. Parrots, such as the African grey parrot (left), are among the most heavily exploited group of birds for global pet trade. Photo credit: Kristian Thomas/Pexels.com
There is enough and more scientific evidence pointing to animals’ ability to think, feel, and suffer quite akin to humans. Among birds, African grey parrots, evidence suggests, exhibit near-human-like levels of consciousness. Studies on mirror self-recognition in magpies have shown much similarity to humans, other great apes, dolphins, and elephants. Primates are highly intelligent animals who exhibit complex social behaviours and emotions. Unfortunately, primates are a popular choice among exotic pet owners and are known to display abnormal behaviours in captivity such as pacing, teeth grinding, self-biting, overeating, obsessive grooming, etc. which are all indications of stress, boredom, and psychological deprivation.
“Primates are extremely intelligent social animals. When they are poached out of their natural habitats and subjected to captive conditions during transport for trade, they undergo tremendous psychological and physical distress. If they manage to survive past that, they are forced to adapt to their new captive conditions which are also horrific for their mental and physical well-being. Several exotic wildlife that are freely traded in India are endangered in their native countries – it is sheer cruelty for Indians to engage in buying these ‘wild pets’ and subject them to a level of psychological trauma that is lifelong and irreversible,” says Panchamiya.
Primates are extremely intelligent social animals and exhibit complex social behaviours and emotions. Primates, such as monkeys, do not fare well in captivity and often show signs of stress, boredom, and psychological deprivation. Photo credit: MaxPixel.net
In 2012, an international group of eminent cognitive neuroscientists, neuropharmacologists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists and computational neuroscientists who had gathered at the University of Cambridge put forth several observations on the ‘neurobiological substrates of conscious experience and related behaviours in human and non-human animals’.
They declared – “Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.”
Time to Mend and Mind Our Ways
An average pet keeper is not equipped with sufficient knowledge or the resources to meet the complex physical and behavioral needs of a wild animal in a household environment. Even most zoos and research facilities struggle with animal welfare problems. Many pet owners often abandon their pets when they get overwhelmed by the size of the animal once they grow and become difficult to manage, as well as by the care and financial investment needed to maintain it.
Many illegally traded animals often end up at rescue centres in poor state.
A suitcase filled with hundreds of iguanas (right) and African sulcata tortoises (left) stuffed in plastic boxes was recovered by the Railway Police Force, Pune, in 2021. Photo credit: RESQ CT
“In 2021, I received a call from the Railway Police Force, Pune, stating that they had intercepted a person carrying a suitcase stuffed with live animals on a train. When the animals arrived at RESQ, we were shocked to see over 1,200 iguanas stuffed inside vegetable net pouches and 300 African sulcata tortoises crammed inside plastic storage boxes inside a small suitcase. The shocking quantity of the animals and how they are transported speaks volumes about the cruel realities of the trade. Traders anticipated that most of these animals would perish in transport and even if 10 percent of them made it to the end customer, they would still be looking at a profit, keeping the demand and supply chain going,” says Panchamiya. With no laws to govern exotic wild animals in India until the recently proposed draft amendment of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, she hopes that the eventual enactment of the law will bring down the offenders and deter the continuous supply chain. “It will surely be an uphill task, but it is a step in the right direction.”
That ‘friendly’ dolphin at the theme park isn’t really smiling at you. Its facial anatomy creates this illusion, and we wrongly interpret it to suit are whims. That ‘cute’ slow loris raising its arms is really striking a defensive pose in response to perceived threat. It is most probably in extreme distress and pain since traffickers are known to cruelly pull out their teeth since a loris’ bite is toxic.
We seriously need to stop anthropomorphising animal appearances and behaviour and see them for what they truly are. We need to stop fetishising animals. Animals DO NOT exist for our entertainment. Wild animals should not be kept as pets. Period.
Wild animals are meant to be wild and free. They are important cogs that keep the wheels of the ecosystems on planet Earth turning.
Read other articles in the series:
- India’s Growing Fetish for Wildlife Of The Exotic Kind
- Why India Needs Stronger Laws to Protect Exotic Species on its Soil
- [Expert Speak] Law Over Advisory is the Urgent Need of the Hour
- India’s Burning Exotic Pet Trade Crisis
About the author: Purva Variyar is a conservationist, science communicator and conservation writer. She works with the Wildlife Conservation Trust and has previously worked with Sanctuary Nature Foundation and The Gerry Martin Project.
Disclaimer: The author is associated with Wildlife Conservation Trust. The views and opinions expressed in the article are her own and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Wildlife Conservation Trust.
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