When people think about farmed animals, chickens, cows, pigs, and other species traditionally used for food may first come to mind. However, growing demand for wild animals and the products made from them has led to increased farming of many wild species. Wild animals are farmed globally for fashion, traditional medicine, luxury food, and the exotic pet trade.

Profit is a primary motivator for countries to support commercial wild animal farming. Proponents may also argue that it helps provide economic opportunities for people in poverty and eases pressure on wild populations by reducing reliance on captured animals. In contrast, there’s evidence that farming could encourage demand for wild animal products, potentially leading to increased capture of animals from the wild to supplement farmed stock, which can be both harmful and illegal. Other concerns involve inhumane treatment of farmed animals and increased risk of disease that threatens public health.

Given its potential effects on people, animals, and the environment, the study’s authors felt it was important to take a comprehensive look at the scope and scale of commercial wild animal farming, specifically that of amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.

Information Sources

The authors collected data through three main avenues, each of which revealed a unique aspect of the scale and scope of commercial wild animal farming over approximately the past two decades.

1. The literature review consisted of searching and extracting data from academic journals, government documents, open-access databases, reports, commercial breeding facility websites, and other public media. The authors used data from the literature to create a main database of wild animals farmed between 2000 and 2020 that included names of species, where they were farmed, and the number of individual animals farmed.
2. Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were submitted to government authorities in 12 chosen countries. These included Australia, Botswana, Brazil, Canada, India, Kenya, Namibia, the Netherlands, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. The authors asked for data on commercial wild animal farming definitions, permits, and records for operations in 2021/2022.
3. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) database holds records about international trade activity of wild animal species protected under the CITES treaty. Because the database includes information about products’ sources, the authors were able to use it to count how many species were captive bred or ranched (captured as eggs or juveniles and raised in captivity) and commercially traded as either live animals or animal parts between 2000 and 2020.

Given the nature of the data, these sources couldn’t be combined and thus were analyzed separately.

A High-Level Overview Of Scale And Scope

The three different sources of data help paint a picture of commercial wild animal farming around the world.

Drawing from the literature review, the authors recorded 487 species farmed commercially across 90 countries between 2000 and 2020. This included 27 amphibian species, 133 reptile species, 249 bird species, and 79 mammal species. Over a third (34%) of the species identified are considered either Near Threatened, Vulnerable, Endangered, or Critically Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Close to two-thirds (62%) appear in the CITES Appendices, meaning they have some form of trade protection.

The authors estimate that between 936.3 and 963.7 million individual animals were commercially farmed during that time period — and the real number is likely much higher.

The CITES database recorded 1,792 commercially farmed wild species traded between 2000 and 2020, which means 1,381 species and 59 additional unspecified genera (animals not identified to the species level) weren’t accounted for in the literature.

Of the 12 countries the authors sent FOI requests to, only Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands provided data. Online, they also found public data from Denmark that didn’t require an FOI request. From this, a total of 858,743 wild animals across 28 species were identified as farmed.

Limitations And Lessons Learned

No single source or set of sources can tell the full story of commercial wild animal farming right now. For example, statistics from the literature review represent only what the authors found in published media, which they stated was often inconsistent and unreliable. In addition, because the CITES database only includes information for species protected under the CITES treaty, it overlooks many other wild animals traded commercially. Records that describe animals more vaguely, like “turtles,” are difficult to account for, and when using multiple sources, it can be hard to know if the same animals will be double counted.

The authors also ran into other issues: data reported only in mass (like tonnes, which made it hard to count individual animals), a focus on trade over farming, and a lack of clarity on whether farms were for commercial or conservation purposes. This review also doesn’t account for wild fishes or invertebrates farmed commercially. Advocates and policymakers should be aware of the context and limitations of each finding before sharing them, understanding that none completely represent the full scale or scope of wild animal farming.

However, this is an issue with data availability more broadly — this investigation reveals it’s nearly impossible to track down reliable numbers and figures on commercial wild animal farming. To do this, we’d need more specific and transparent data collection and reporting. While the authors conducted a comprehensive search, the findings are constrained by the information available.

Knowledge Is Power: Toward Greater Accountability

This article offers a helpful insight into commercial wild animal farming worldwide, and advocates can join the call for data that would help policymakers better evaluate the impacts of these operations on people, animals, and the environment. It’s encouraging that the CITES treaty protects some commercially farmed animals, and more data could help extend protection to others. Ultimately, a clearer understanding of the scale and scope of the industry will help lay the groundwork for more informed and proactive policy.