Following his work for the recent Practitioner’s Perspective, Holistic management of live animals confiscated from illegal wildlife trade, Wildlife Alliance’s Director of Science, Dr. Thomas Gray  describes the policy recommendations and conclusions from the paper from the Cardamom Rainforest Landscape in Cambodia. Watch the video and read Tom’s post below.

Our Practitioner’s Perspective piece in the Journal of Applied Ecology addresses an often over-looked aspect of the war against wildlife crime – how to deal with live animals confiscated from illegal trade as a result of enforcement activity. Since its establishment in 2001 Cambodia’s Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team, has been at the forefront of tackling wildlife crime in the country. This effective action results in the confiscation of thousands of live animals annually, including some of the most threatened species in Asia such as pileated gibbon and Sunda pangolin. In the Practitioner’s Perspective  we describe our approach to dealing with these rescued animals and how we ensure that they do not end up laundered back into illegal trade and how they may be able to provide a conservation benefit through appropriate reintroductions and conservation breeding programs.

Read Thomas Gray et al.’s full paper.

Learn more about the Wildlife Alliance and their work.