00:00Turning now to wildlife news, a group of wildlife organizations are working to expand a conservation
00:08initiative for illegally trafficked animals. Officials from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
00:13Service and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums recently met with the Georgia Aquarium and
00:19more than a dozen other animal care facilities to talk about increasing the size of the Wildlife
00:25Confiscations Network into the Southeast. The pilot program was launched last year in
00:30Southern California as a way to help officials find a place to safely house and care for
00:35the smuggled animals once they are seized. Officials say since its inception, the effort
00:40has processed around 2,800 animals, including coral, as part of more than 70 legal cases.
00:47According to data from Moody's Analytics, the estimated annual cost of global wildlife
00:52trafficking ranges from $7 billion to $23 billion. And according to a report from the
00:58United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, corals were the third most confiscated wildlife
01:04group globally between 1999 and 2018, making up just over 14.5% of all seizures.
Comments