With the advent of the Internet, trading and purchasing illegal wildlife has never gotten easier. Dealers often use the deep web, which are encrypted websites that are not indexed by standard search engines, or the dark web, which require special configurations or software to enter, to carry out these illegal transactions.

Even on the surface web, due the lax enforcement, we can often see wildlife being sold on online marketplaces or even on social media sites.

From November 2014 – March 2015, TRAFFIC, the wildlife monitoring network, investigated wildlife trade within 14 Facebook groups in Peninsular Malaysia. Most of the groups were “closed”, which meant that only members can view the group’s activity. Below are the key findings published in a report titled Trading Faces: A Rapid Assessment on the use of Facebook to Trade Wildlife in Peninsular Malaysia.

 

In the News: In October 2016,  The New Paper found almost 50 posts of protected animal parts such as tiger claw, skin and teeth being sold on sites like Gumtree and Carousell. While sites like Carousell have a policy against advertising items related to protected wildlife, greater enforcement is still required to track down illegal wildlife trade.