A snapshot of online wildlife trade: Australian e-commerce trade of native and non-native pets
A 14-week scrape of 12 Australian e-commerce sites found 1,192 traded pet species, including 667 non-native and 81 threatened species.
By Adam Toomes, Sarah Moncayo, Oliver C. Stringham, Charlotte R. Lassaline, Lewis Wood, Monica Millington, Cassandra Drake, Chelsea Jense, Anna Allen, Katherine G.W. Hill, Pablo García-Díaz, Lewis Mitchell, Phillip Cassey in Research
June 1, 2023
Abstract
Online marketplaces have become a major venue for the pet trade, yet the scale and composition of this trade remains poorly documented in many countries, including Australia. We used automated web scrapers to collect pet trade advertisements across 12 Australian e-commerce websites over a 14-week period, identifying 1,192 species being traded, including 667 non-native species and 81 species of conservation concern. Our results provide a baseline snapshot of Australia’s online pet trade and highlight the need for ongoing monitoring to detect biosecurity and conservation risks as they emerge.