Part 2 of the Wildlife crime – understanding risks, avenues for action learning series provides companies, policy makers, practitioners and law enforcement with information and background knowledge on crime and corruption in the exotic pet trade.
4. Captive breeding and wildlife laundering
4.2. Laundering "ranched" animals
Breeding facilities can also “ranch” wild animals. This involves hunters capturing pregnant females, eggs or juveniles and transferring them to facilities for rearing. It may involve:
- illegal capture of animals;
- over-harvest of animals where quotas exist;
- hunting in protected areas;
- targeting of all species, not just pregnant females or eggs (Van Uhm, 2018; UNODC, 2020).
Species are often mislabelled as ranched when they are actually captured in the wild as adults, and sold under mislabelled documents.
In many cases it is easier and cheaper to launder wild-caught animals than to rear or breed them, such as in the case of cheetahs. It is particularly easy when wild animals of the same species are abundant, and chances of being caught engaged in illegal activity are slim. The practice of wildlife breeding, farming or ranching may actually increase pressure on wild-caught species because of the ease of laundering wild species through the system (Van Uhm, 2018).