TikTok promotes the trade in endangered wildlife
A new investigation has uncovered alarming evidence that TikTok is being used as an open marketplace for endangered wildlife, threatening the survival of species and undermining global conservation efforts.
New research findings have revealed that traders in Togo, Africa, are openly advertising and selling animal carcasses, including the critically endangered pangolin.
Despite international protection measures, this trade is flourishing on social media platforms, where enforcement of regulations is failing.
According to the study, conducted in part by Dr. Angie Elwin, Head of Research at World Animal Protection, TikTok is emerging as a hub for illegal wildlife trafficking. The researchers examined 80 public videos from two accounts posted between November 2022 and April 2024, finding the following:
- Over 3’500 carcasses of smoked wildlife;
- 27 different species, many of which are legally protected;
- More than 130 white-bellied pangolins, a critically endangered species whose international trade is prohibited.
The videos reached a large audience with nearly 1.8 million views and thousands of likes and shares. One video alone featuring smoked pangolins was viewed more than 216’000 times.
Social media is becoming the new marketplace for endangered wildlife. It is easily accessible and largely unregulated, posing a direct threat to the survival of species. – Dr. Angie Elwin, Head of Research, World Animal Protection
This trade carries risks that go beyond the loss of biodiversity:
- Animal welfare: Captive animals suffer extreme cruelty, with reports of pangolins being boiled or burned alive.
- Public health: Bushmeat from pangolins, rodents, mongooses and jackals is a carrier of zoonotic diseases.
- Local livelihoods: Communities are increasingly dependent on a trade that threatens both sustainability and the survival of species.
World Animal Protection is calling for urgent regulation of the online trade in wild animals. To ensure the survival of endangered species, social media platforms must not become a safe haven for hobby hunters and poachers.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In our dossiers on the criticism of recreational hunting gather fact-checks, analyses and background reports. What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
