The palgrave international handbook of a 234

International Trade in Animals and Animal Parts

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In terms of being used to create products, one of the clearest examples of
animal abuse is the farming of bears for bile. To collect bile, the bears on
these farms are kept alive. They live in small cages just big enough for them
to stand up. Metal shunts puncture their skin and are inserted directly into
their gallbladders. The bile is then collected by dripping down the shunt
into pans (World Society for the Protection of Animals [WSPA] n.d.). The
live, unanaesthetised bear then lives with an open wound being ‘milked’ for
its gall. Another example of animal abuse inflicted to obtain a single
product is the act of shark finning. Fishing vessels catch sharks, only to
chop off their fins. The sharks, still alive, are then thrown back into the
ocean where they slowly die a painful death (Humane Society International
2013). Both of these examples demonstrate that the abuse occurring in legal
and illegal wildlife trade is at the individual level—a single bear or shark
enduring injury—and at an institutional level—entire species are subjected
to commercialisation and industrial- scale consumption with little or no
regard for welfare. At the next stage of the trade or trafficking journey, a
significant portion of wildlife that makes up the legal and the black market
are kept alive during transportation or smuggling and this has its own
welfare implications.

Transportation and/or Smuggling
Transportation of live animals, be it legally or illegally, is unavoidably
stressful and most likely emotionally and physically traumatic for the wildlife. Arguably, to avoid detection, smugglers need to employ covert transportation, which increases the likelihood that the animals experience
suffering and/or injury (Wyatt 2013c). There are instances where illegal
wildlife are trafficked ‘openly’—laundered—with permits and documentation used in the legal trade. Yet even when wildlife is laundered or legal,
there are potential harms endured during transportation. For example, legal
shipments of reptiles and other live animals are packed into containers to be

flown around the world. These containers may be unsuitable—either too
small and cramped or overcrowded with too many individuals in any one
container (Wyatt 2013b). Even though CITES parties must enforce the
International Air Transport Association [IATA] (2004) Live Animal
Regulations [LAR] which are applied to animals in air transit, requiring a
minimum standard of space and welfare conditions and involving a maximum period in transit—as established through scientific research—not all
legal shipments meet this standard (Wyatt 2013b). Flights and boat