NEWS­ROOM

Wildlife trafficking is the fourth largest criminal enterprise on earth, generating an estimated $23 billion a year. It kills elephants for ivory, pangolins for scales, macaws for the pet trade, slow lorises for viral videos, and sun bears for bile. Unlike drug or arms trafficking, wildlife crime rarely draws serious criminal sentences — and the animals rarely survive long enough for justice to be served. WARN documents trafficking routes, supports rescue seizure partners, and funds rehabilitation for confiscated animals across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Millions of wild animals are sold as pets every year — slow lorises, parrots, reptiles, primates, and big cats among them. Many are captured as infants after their mothers are killed. Most die within a year of entering captivity. The exotic pet trade is driven by social media virality, poorly enforced import regulations, and a legal grey area that allows so-called "captive bred" animals to mask wild-caught origins. WARN works with seizure units and sanctuary partners to rehabilitate exotic pets and campaigns for tighter regulation of wild-animal ownership in source and consumer countries.

An estimated 300 million unowned dogs live on the world's streets. They face starvation, disease, vehicle injuries, and in many countries systematic culling — a method the World Health Organization has repeatedly said does not reduce dog populations or rabies risk. The only approach that works is Capture, Neuter, Vaccinate, and Return (CNVR), combined with community education and responsible ownership programmes. WARN funds CNVR initiatives across South Asia, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa — and documents the evidence base so it can be replicated elsewhere.

When a forest is cleared, the animals do not simply move on. They die, are captured, or starve at the fragmented edges of what remains. Orangutans, sun bears, spectacled bears, pangolins, and hundreds of bird species lose their homes to palm oil, cattle ranching, illegal logging, and infrastructure development. International climate frameworks rarely address the animal welfare dimension — the individual animals made homeless or killed in the process of clearing. WARN bridges that gap: funding on-the-ground rescue and rehabilitation for animals caught in the crossfire of deforestation.

Bear bile farming confines Asiatic black bears and sun bears in crush cages for decades to extract bile for traditional medicine. Dog and cat meat festivals slaughter thousands of animals under conditions that would be illegal in any Western country. Donkeys and horses are worked to death hauling goods in regions where no enforcement exists. These are not fringe issues — they affect tens of millions of animals annually. WARN investigates, documents, and funds intervention where the welfare case is clear and local partners have the capacity to act.

Bird population declines are well documented in temperate regions, but the most severe losses are happening in tropical forests, where hundreds of parrot, hornbill, and raptor species face extinction from trapping and habitat loss. The hyacinth macaw, the Spix's macaw, and dozens of Amazon parrot species are targeted because their intelligence and colour make them desirable as pets. Unlike garden bird decline, these losses are driven primarily by the illegal trade — and they are almost entirely preventable. WARN supports confiscation, rehabilitation, and captive-release programmes for trafficked birds across Latin America and South-East Asia.