00:00Conservationists in Kenya are sounding the alarm at the sharp rise in captive bred reptiles exported as exotic pets.
00:09Many of the creatures are covered by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, known as sites.
00:16Kenya reported 886 individual records of captive bred and raged searches listed specimens,
00:23representing 26 taxa across nine orders.
00:27Most export records were for reptiles, that is 721 records, which composed 81% of the total records.
00:40In Kenya, wildlife trade includes chameleons and tortoises.
00:45It's a multi-billion dollar industry with markets around the world.
00:50Over the 10-year period, the mean annual number of export records was 80.
00:58There was a significant increase in the total number of sites' export records from Kenya,
01:05which more than doubled from 53 records in 2013 to 110 records in 2023.
01:16Many animals are capped in overcrowded and unhygienic conditions.
01:22Old animal protection, our position on wildlife trade is very clear.
01:27Whether legal or illegal, it really doesn't matter.
01:31And the reasons are very simple.
01:33We have concerns related to animal welfare.
01:37We have concerns related to health risks.
01:44Two-thirds of traded species have also seen a decline of their populations in the wild,
01:50raising concerns that the trade is creating an imbalance in the ecosystem.
Comments