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WASHINGTON, May 23, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Disrupt: Wildlife Cybercrime – Uncovering the scale of online wildlife trade – released today by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) – highlights the vast quantity of live animals and their body parts available for sale online and the threat this poses to their survival. The latest in a long line of research, this report also details the challenges and opportunities faced by conservationists, governments and the private sector in putting an end to wildlife cybercrime.
Over a six week period in 2017, with a focus on France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom, IFAW's team of experts and researchers uncovered that thousands of live imperiled animals and animal products were offered for sale online. IFAW identified 5,381 advertisements spread across 106 online marketplaces and social media platforms, cataloguing 11,772 specimens of imperiled species worth US $3,942,329 million.
"For the first time in Europe, IFAW investigated the burgeoning wildlife trade on social media," said IFAW Wildlife Crime Program Director Rikkert Reijnen. "While this represents a small percentage of overall online trade, we caution that there is reason to believe it is just the tip of the iceberg...