WHO (World Wildlife Fund): Overview of the Illegal Wildlife Trade https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/illegal-wildlife-trade

World Wildlife Fund: Stopping the illegal wildlife trade https://www.wwf.org.uk/what-we-do/stopping-illegal-wildlife-trade

Defenders of Wildlife: What is Wildlife Trafficking and How Can We End It? https://defenders.org/blog/2023/08/what-wildlife-trafficking-and-how-can-we-end-it

ICE: US Immigration and Customs Enforcement- End Wildlife Trafficking https://www.ice.gov/features/wildlife

Combating Wildlife Trafficking from Latin America to the United States – a downloadable PDF https://defenders.org/sites/default/files/publications/combating-wildlife-trafficking-from-latin-america-to-the-united-states.pdf

ZSL: Illegal Wildlife Trade Crisis https://www.zsl.org/what-we-do/conservation/protecting-species/illegal-wildlife-trade-crisis

GEF (Global Environment Facility): Illegal Wildlife Trade https://www.thegef.org/what-we-do/topics/illegal-wildlife-trade

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime: Designed as a course, but if you scroll past the curriculum information, this is a good overview of the implications of illegal wildlife trade, including endangerment of species , ecological impact, biosecurity, and crime. https://www.unodc.org/e4j/en/wildlife-crime/module-1/key-issues/implications-of-wildlife-trafficking.html

Ballard Brief: Overview and Terms, with a focus on China https://ballardbrief.byu.edu/issue-briefs/illegal-wildlife-trade-in-china

Guardian: $20,000 monkeys: inside the booming illicit trade for lab animals https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/07/how-the-demand-for-lab-monkeys-is-driving-trade-in-endangered-macaques-aoe

University of Oxford: Operation Pangolin launches to save world’s most trafficked wild mammal, 2023 https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2023-02-17-operation-pangolin-launches-save-world-s-most-trafficked-wild-mammal

Guardian: Hope for rare singing gibbons as pair are released into the wild https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/09/rare-singing-siamang-gibbons-released-wild-south-sumatra-indonesia-aoe

Gibbons are popular targets for the illegal wildlife trade, with Siamangs prized for their beauty and powerful singing voices. Photograph: The Aspinall Foundation

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement investigates wildlife crimes, regulates the wildlife trade, helps the public understand and obey wildlife protections laws, and works in partnership with international, federal, state, local and Tribal counterparts to conserve wildlife resources.

Project Muse: The True Costs of Wildlife Trafficking downloadable PDF of scholarly article. https://scholar.google.com/scholar_url?url=https://www.academia.edu/download/109205798/gia.2020.002320231218-1-xb943y.pdf&hl=en&sa=X&ei=aDzMZ9KxFtaIieoP7cDcoAw&scisig=AFWwaeayxnTmjfr1nHZ190W0HN9z&oi=scholarr

The Wildlife Trafficking Alliance (WTA) is a coalition of more than 90 leading companies, non-profit organizations, and AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums working together to reduce, and eventually eliminate, the illegal trade of wildlife and wildlife products. The organization is primarily zoos, and supports scientific research, conservation, and education programs. https://www.aza.org/wildlife-trafficking-alliance

An example of the bizarre ways in which traffickers smuggle wildlife:

CNN: Man stopped at customs with 100 live snakes down his pants, 2024 https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/10/travel/snake-smuggler-trousers-scli-intl/index.html?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0PJ607OBfzDrulq0Hcnl78Bg-MU35ylVTFdzOUsQ4TQpa50NzBVCzmX4M_aem_G41NecpML0pimdAn-JRkfA

The smuggling of the Slow Lorises for the exotic pet trade. https://www.ifaw.org/animals/slow-lorises

The smuggling in Latin America of spider monkeys for the exotic pet trade. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-04/spider-monkey-found-in-rolls-royce-is-critical-case-but-zoo-hopeful-for-her-recovery

In Asia, the smuggling of macaques, also for the illegal wildlife trade, and animals like the slow loris who are taken from the wild, ripped away from their parents, and “modified”. Their teeth have a venom which can cause necrosis of the flesh, anaphylactic shock, and even death in humans, so their teeth are removed. Even the natural defenses of this tiny little animal are taken away.