The United Nations now classifies the illegal trafficking of exotic wildlife as second only in scale to the illegal drug trade, with Dubai emerging as a major smuggling center for the world’s most rarefied creatures.
The demand for exotic animals in the Middle East – and particularly in the Gulf and Egypt- is putting animal’s lives at risk From pet cheetahs on the streets of Dubai to python and falcon egg smuggling, the Middle East clearly has a wildlife trafficking problem. Even more troubling is that the market for these […]
This baby cheetah was found wandering the streets in Abu Dhabi The trafficking of wild animals for sale to rich and wannabe rich collectors in the Gulf appears to have reach a new high following the recent Green Prophet disclosure of a “pet” cheetah cub being led around on a leash by a Porsche driver […]
This juvenile cheetah is paraded in front of several onlookers in the streets of Dubai.
A lion cub belonging to a suspected criminal was shot dead during a police raid in Egypt The Egyptian police officers who raided the house of wanted suspect in the village of Kafr Essam in north Cairo were probably expecting some resistance but they definitely weren’t expecting a lion to be unleashed on them. According […]
A sedated leopard cub less than two months old was among a variety of animals stashed in a suitcase bound for Dubai. Along with a monkey, gibbon, and bear, two sedated leopard cubs were found in an Emirati man’s suitcase at the Suvarnabhumi Airport in Thailand. All of the animals were younger than two months old. […]
Forty green tree pythons headed for the UAE were confiscated in Indonesia over the weekend. Despite Interpol’s tough stance against trafficking, traffickers have no trouble finding customers in the Middle East. Karl Amman talked to us earlier this year about private wildlife collections in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other Middle Eastern countries and last year […]
Karl Ammann (center) explains why wildlife trade in the Middle East goes unregulated. In 2007, Karl Ammann appeared on Time Magazine’s Heroes of the Environment List, and for good reason. Since discovering 2,004 smoked primates and 1,000 fresh carcasses on board Zaire river boats in1988, he has devoted his life to exposing both the bushmeat […]