Bred for profit: The truth about global wildlife farming

Wild animals are exploited for profit across the globe

Millions of wild animals are traded as pets, used as entertainment or tourist attractions, and turned into ornaments, luxury food, fashion products or traditional medicine. 

Our research suggests that billions of wild animals are used to satisfy the demand for these industries after being confined at commercial facilities known as wildlife farms their entire lives. Commercial wildlife trade is worth billions of US dollars every year.

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‘Wildlife farming’ is the breeding and raising of wild animals to sell live animals or their products for commercial gain. We include both the ranching (taken from the wild as eggs or young and raised in captivity) and breeding of wild animals for commercial purposes in this definition.

An estimated 5.5 billion wild animals are being kept in cruel conditions on commercial wildlife farms, making billions of dollars through the wildlife trade.

This is an estimate (likely a conservative one) because of the striking lack of transparency and monitoring in this exploitative global industry. What is clear is that this trade represents wild animals suffering at an enormous scale. It involves high numbers of wild animals, including bear, mink and lions, living in cramped, unhygienic conditions, causing injuries and disease.

Not only is this extreme cruelty but it also puts their caretakers and the public at risk of zoonotic diseases - potentially to pandemic proportions. The transmission of COVID-19 at fur farms gives a very real and recent example of this.

These wild animals are bred for exploitation with very little evidence to support claims by some conservationists that breeding programmes fulfil the demand for wildlife products and reduce pressure on wild populations.

Urgent action is needed. In our report, we explore three industries that contribute to some of the worst examples of ongoing exploitation of wildlife for profit: