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The zoo and aquar­ium com­mu­nity in Aus­trala­sia has joined the fight against the global ille­gal wildlife trade.

Fol­low­ing a uni­ver­sal dec­la­ra­tion by 46 coun­tries in 2014 to take action against the trade, a meet­ing of the World Asso­ci­a­tion of Zoos and Aquaria (WAZA) passed a res­o­lu­tion con­demn­ing ille­gal wildlife trade and com­mit­ting their 300+ mem­bers to ensure legal, sus­tain­able and eth­i­cal sourc­ing of ani­mals in their care.

“Our mem­bers feel pas­sion­ate about tak­ing a strong stand against the insid­i­ous spread of ille­gal trade, which is dev­as­tat­ing many wildlife pop­u­la­tions already under pres­sure from human and envi­ron­men­tal impacts. Zoos and aquaria in our region are com­mit­ting to gen­er­ate sup­port from our 16.5 mil­lion vis­i­tors, and ensure that we will inves­ti­gate and iden­tify any sus­pect activ­i­ties, should out­side agen­cies or indi­vid­u­als attempt to place ille­gally sourced ani­mals in our zoos,” Fifield said.

TRAF­FIC — the net­work that mon­i­tors wildlife trade has applauded the res­o­lu­tion of the global zoo com­mu­nity to join the fight. The Direc­tor for South East Asia, Dr Chris R. Shep­herd said:

“The trade is worth bil­lions of dol­lars annu­ally. This organ­ised, transna­tional crime is threat­en­ing the sur­vival of count­less species and so the announce­ment of zoos and aquaria in Aus­trala­sia and across the world to take a strong, active stance is great news for wildlife. The zoos will police the legal and sus­tain­able sourc­ing of ani­mals, and they have enor­mous capac­ity to gen­er­ate a move­ment of com­mit­ted peo­ple who say ‘no’ to the grow­ing trade.”

“Wildlife trade ranges from the 1,215 rhi­nos killed last year in South Africa for their horns, to the thou­sands of bears cur­rently trapped in cages across South-​East Asia, tapped for their bile. It’s the mil­lions of birds and rep­tiles sold as pets annu­ally. It’s the ivory jew­ellery for sale in the mar­ket as sou­venirs and the slow lorises on offer so that tourists can take what they think are harm­less self­ies,” Shep­herd added.

Karen Fifield said “Our zoos are step­ping up to get involved. If we don’t, we’ll see entire species like Suma­tran Tigers and rhi­nos go extinct in our life­time. The only way we can face up to this global scourge is to fight back as a world-​wide com­mu­nity of com­mit­ted organ­i­sa­tions and indi­vid­u­als will­ing to take a stand. I’m tremen­dously proud of the res­o­lu­tion and com­mit­ment that our zoos and aquaria are making.”

Taronga Zoo and TRAF­FIC last year launched a smart­phone app, Wildlife Wit­ness, that empow­ers tourists and locals to iden­tify and report sus­pi­cious wildlife trade activ­i­ties in South-​East Asia. The free app will be pro­moted across all Aus­tralasian zoos this year to extend its uptake to help wildlife caught in trade.

Research con­ducted with vis­i­tors to Aus­tralasian zoos found that over 86% learned about the way their behav­iour impacts ani­mals and their envi­ron­ment, and 89% planned to make a con­scious effort to help con­serve the environment.

(Source: Taronga Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety Aus­tralia media release, 23.02.2015)