There are fewer than 1,000 Luristan newts left in the wild in Iran, yet they are illegally

sold as pets. Photograph: Barbod Safaei Mahroo/Lorestan Mountain Newt

Conservation Plan

Bashful and skittish, the Kaiser's spotted newt is

intriguing and beautiful. With only around 1,000 adults

left in the wild in just four mountain streams in Iran, it is

also critically endangered.

But the black, white and orange salamanders are

openly on sale for as little as £65 on numerous

websites. While these may have been bred in captivity,

they are descended from rare individuals taken from

the wild, and investigators have identified dealers who

say their stocks come from Iran.

Two years ago the Kaiser's spotted newt was listed as

one of the first species to be put at risk of extinction by

online dealers. Now conservationists are warning that

the internet is fueling unprecedented levels of

Illegal wildlife trading in internet'sdeepest, darkest cornersOrganised wildlife criminals are using online tools more commonly

associated with serious financial crime, drug trafficking and child

pornography

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Nic FlemingThe Guardian, Tuesday 4 September 2012

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illegal wildlife trade and that for many species this is

now the principal threat to their survival.

A report due to be published later this year concludes

that a growing proportion of wildlife crime is using

"deep web" tools more commonly associated with

serious financial criminals, drug traffickers and child

pornographers.

"The internet has without a doubt facilitated the huge

expansion of illegal international wildlife trading over

the last decade," said Crawford Allan, of the wildlife

trade monitoring network Traffic. "Rare jewels of the

forest can now be caught, boxed and shipped almost

overnight just like any other express commodity."

It is a wide-ranging business. Elephant ivory is used for

ornaments, and parts of tigers and rhinos are used in

traditional medicine or ground down and added to

wine. Pelts from leopards and polar bears fetch high

sums, while rare reptiles, birds and fish are bought as

pets.

There are no precise figures on the scale of the

problem. Global Financial Integrity, a Washington-

based lobby group, last year estimatedthe

global illegal wildlife trade to be worth at least £5bn.

Various reporting systems and investigations suggest

commercial exploitation of many at risk species has

reached – or is close to – all-time high.

Protected live animals and body parts are still traded in

shops and markets in cities such as Bangkok and

Jakarta, however much of the business is now handled

online by middlemen using varying degrees of

secrecy.

Previous investigations have found a lot of trade taking

place relatively openly on auction sites, via classified

ads and in enthusiast chat rooms. Products from rhino,

tigers and elephants are often advertised as historical

artefacts without documentary proof. Animals caught in

the wild are described as captive bred. Acronyms, mis-

spellings and code words are used to evade detection.

"Once you know the terminology and you know how to

search, then a lot of it is pretty open," said Vincent

Nijman, a researcher at Oxford Brookes University who

has studied the trade.

An investigation by the International Fund for Animal

Welfare (IFAW)highlighted the sale of 2,275 elephant

ivory items on eight different eBay websites in a single

week in 2007. The site subsequently banned such

sales, but conservationists say sellers simply avoid

using the word "ivory" in item descriptions.

In August, for example, a search on eBay's UK site for

"ox bone" – widely used as a euphemism for elephant

ivory – yielded more than 5,000 results. An eBay

spokesman told the Guardian: "eBay works closely

withconservation groups such as the IFAW and goes

beyond legal requirements to restrict the sale of ivory

products on the marketplaces site. The eBay trust and

safety team proactively enforces eBay's policy on ivory

products and works quickly to take action to remove

listings of items of concern."

In 2008 IFAW identified more than 7,000 wildlife

products from threatened species being offered for

sale in dozens of online auctions, forums and

classified ads. Last year it found ivory worth £500,000

for sale on 43 sites based in the UK, France,

Germany, Spain and Portugal.

International trade in wildlife is regulated by the Cites

convention. Exploitation of around 800 threatened

species is largely banned, while both exporting and

importing many others requires permits.

A forthcoming report from Traffic, the wildlife trade

monitoring network, will reveal how researchers in

Canada received emails from dealers offering to

export coral without required permits by pretending the

specimens were glass.

IFAW, which has been working with Interpol, says

organised wildlife criminals are becoming increasingly

secretive online. The "deep web" has long been used

by criminals in other spheres to evade law

enforcement. Sites that are not accessible via search

engines and which require software to access are

used. Communications are bounced through large

numbers of computers to maintain anonymity.

"Online wildlife trade is seen as a high-profit, low-risk

activity by some criminals," said Kelvin Alfie of IFAW.

"A lot is shifting from publicly accessible sites to dark

corners of the web."

A report on the ivory trade in the EU to be published

later this year by IFAW will highlight the use of tools

such as mailing list servers, password-protected sites

and encryption.

National and international laws to control the trade often

pre-date the online trade, and the internet has made

the jobs of those trying to enforce the law and protect

wildlife even harder.

However some say the net can also be used against

wildlife criminals. While it helped Kaiser spotted newt

dealers to find buyers, the online traces they left

alerted investigators to the existence of the trade.

"It works both ways," said Ernie Cooper, also of

Traffic. "The internet has made it easier for traders, but

it has also helped us research and monitor their

activities."