The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has presented a report on online trade in rare animals, including the Amur tiger. The report has been published in Russia with the assistance of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.

According to the report, online wildlife trade poses a major threat to the populations of many animal species in the wild. It highlights problems that wildlife conservation experts come across in their work and offers possible ways to address them. The project is based on a survey conducted in Germany, France, Russia and Britain in 2017. IFAW researchers found 5,381 advertisements (875 in Russia) offering 11,772 rare and endangered wildlife specimens worth a total of around $4,000,000.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the Ministry of the Interior have drafted amendments to the Criminal Code, which stipulate tougher punishment for the illegal hunting and sale of wild animals, including the species listed in the Russian Red Data Book. The aim of the move is to curb mass online trade in animal derivatives. Now, as there is no law to this effect, the authorities cannot unambiguously classify online trade in rare animals as a crime.

The draft law envisages punishments ranging from forced labour for up to three years plus a fine of between 500,000 roubles and 1,500,000 roubles or amounting to one’s salary over a three-year period, or prison terms of between two and four years and fines.

The IFAW report, entitled Disrupt: Wildlife Cybercrime – Uncovering the Scale of Online Wildlife Trade, has been published on the Natural Resources Ministry’s website.