Legal and Illegal Theriocide of Trafficked Animals

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brief suspended prison sentence. (The failure of such punishment in serving
as a deterrent and in creating awareness will not be discussed in this chapter,
but see Sollund and Maher 2015; Sollund 2013a, 2015b).
It is striking, however, that while the trafficker receives a small fine, the
fate of the majority of the animals involved is death. Before I turn to this
outcome, the logic behind it, the explanations for it and the species injustice
thereby perpetuated, I will address briefly the abuses the animals suffer before
they reach their endpoint.

Abuse Through Trafficking
Despite the legality and regulation of much animal trafficking, the ways in
which animals are trafficked and the conditions in which they live are often
characterized by abuse. I take my understanding of animal abuse from the
definition laid out by Robert Agnew (1998, p. 179) and specified by Piers
Beirne.
[…] any act that contributes to the pain, suffering or death of an animal or that
otherwise threatens its welfare. Animal abuse may be physical, psychological, or
emotional; may involve active maltreatment or passive neglect or omission; and
may be direct or indirect, intentional or unintentional. (Beirne 1999 p. 121).

Normally, when animals are taken from their habitats for the pet trade, or
when they are bred for that purpose, there is no intention to abuse them.
Unfortunately, abuse often occurs. As mentioned above, deaths are widespread
among birds and reptiles, and the ways in which they die—from suffocation,
starvation, dehydration, and shock and pain—are clearly causing them great
harm and suffering. For example, one of our interviewees in South America
described an incident in which locals were abducting and trafficking parrots.

When they came upon a police control, and as they were near water, they
simply submerged the cage with the birds to prevent them from screaming. It
is unknown how many of the birds died as a result of this. Recently, in
Indonesia, cockatoos were smuggled in bottles and only a few survived
(Awford 2015). An interviewee from Colombia provided another example:
For the birds they use PVC tubes where they stuff the birds, they are thus
totally immobilized, they can traffic 1000 birds in this way, of which 10 to 15
percent may survive, which is sufficient to produce profit (Proaves, translated
from Spanish).