Stop Wildlife Crime

In a major win for tigers, the US Senate passed legislation that will help prevent captive tigers from ending up in the illegal trade of their parts and products—a primary threat to big cats in the wild. The Big Cat Public Safety Act now goes to President Biden to sign.

Since 2016, Facebook and WWF have been working together to address wildlife trafficking by detecting and removing illicit activity that fuels the trade in wildlife and its products on one of the largest social media platforms in the world. As part of this effort, Facebook launched a new pop-up interstitial alert message that will inform users about illegal wildlife trade when certain wildlife-related search words are entered.

Illegal snaring is a rampant threat to wildlife and people in the forests of Southeast Asia. Snares are used to capture animals for the illegal wildlife trade. WWF-supported ranger patrols are working to address this crisis by removing snares. 

For over six years, the USAID Reducing Opportunities for Unlawful Transport of Endangered Species (ROUTES) Partnership brought together government agencies, law enforcement, non-governmental organizations, and transport sector companies to disrupt wildlife trafficking through legal transportation supply chains in the aviation industry.

Research has found that regular outbound Chinese travelers have the highest interest in purchasing elephant ivory despite the ban in China. Their travel gives them access to ivory in some of the destinations most popular with Chinese travelers where elephant ivory is still on the shelves. To achieve the goal of the ban—saving Africa’s elephants—we must curb consumer purchase of ivory outside China.

WILDLABS.NET, a new conservation technology network, brings together conservationists, technologists, engineers, data scientists, entrepreneurs and change makers in a central, open space to share information, ideas, tools and resources.