Born Free and Blue Cross call for review of online exotic pet trade

A new report released by The Born Free Foundation and Blue Cross has shown the huge scale of potentially dangerous and unsuitable animals widely available to purchase online furthering a call for a Government review of the exotic pet trade.

The One Click Away report*, found that at any one moment across a sample of just six websites, there were around 25,000 adverts** offering more than 120 types of exotic animals for sale online.

Animals for sale included reptiles, exotic birds and primates.

Steve Goody, Blue Cross deputy chief executive, said: “This report shows the shocking scale of the exotic pet trade and the urgent need for action. For the inexperienced, it can be difficult to care for many of these animals in a domestic environment and as a result the animals’ welfare often suffers.

“With ever-increasing demand for more and more unusual pets and the huge growth in internet sales, it is high time for the Government to take action to ensure that this exotic pet industry is properly regulated.”

*For the report, a group of trained volunteers managed by Blue Cross looked at six websites – Preloved, UK Classifieds, Gumtree, Vivastreet, Loot, Pets4Homes – over a period of 12 weeks.

**All sites were accessed on 10/09/2015 and numbers of adverts for exotics were recorded.