The business of buying and selling animals on the black market is alive and well.
Quiet as kept, the exotic animal trade business is booming, generating about $19 billion dollars annually, only trailing the very lucrative drug trafficking, illegal arms smuggling and the sale of humans. There seems to be a growing number of people who wan the rarest of the species, even if they’re on the endangered list.
VICE went down to Ohio to find out more about this issue, visiting with Joe Taft, the founder of a Rescue Center which houses hundreds of exotic cats, from tigers to panthers, courgars, leopards and more. He discussed why certain states have absolutely no regulation against the owning of exotic animals and it hasn’t been until recently that regulation has passed as a result of tragedies that occurred.
Because, you know, these animals are wild for a reason.
The crazy part is, when they went to Texas undercover to check out an an exotic livestock auction, which sold a slew of animals of all sorts to people buying them for their ranches. Apparently, there have been a growing number of farms who house them, only to serve as amusement parks for hunting. People pay x amount of dollars to go on their land and hunt these animals, some of which are endangered.
They even bragged about killing giraffes. It was nuts.
If you’re curious as to what’s going on in the back forests of the United States, you should check this documentary out. It’ll really make you think twice about animals.
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