Captive breeding and wildlife trafficking

“Some wildlife trafficking flows feed mainly illicit retail markets, while others feed into the licit trade. But legal industries can be contaminated by the introduction of illegal supply, and this vulnerability must be assessed to understand the criminal market.

Each case study presented in this report lends special insights into the way that wildlife trafficking is perpetrated, and suggests the drivers and dynamics of the criminal trade. Illicit wildlife markets, and the traffickers who feed them, can be highly specialised. These markets are a reality, but they cannot account for the volumes of wildlife illegally harvested each year. Based on the locations of the largest seizures, border town bazaars and back alleyways do not appear to be the venue where tons of fish, timber and other wildlife products change hands; these volume commodities are usually