If you know where to look on the Internet, you can find any anything for sale. Child pornography and hit men's services can be found on the secretive Dark Net, accessible only through trusted servers.
The wildlife trade in Trinidad and Tobago needs no such stealth. Illegal wildlife traders know that there is little enforcement of the Conservation of Wildlife Act, itself a toothless document with outdated, deflated fines.
They freely advertise protected wildlife on social media sites. Macaws and monkeys, all juveniles, are advertised for sale, together with the trader's telephone number and name. Sometimes they take the time to hide behind fake profiles, but it is easy to call the advertised number and organise a sale. Money talks, and this is business.
Without buyers, there would be no seller. Animal hoarding buyers are equally aware that the law is not to be feared. In their quest to buy beastly love they openly take part in online negotiations that determine price and meeting place.
Invariably the discussion of a permit to hold protected wildlife will be raised, and invariably the advice will be to go to Wildlife Division. Apparently you can tell a Game Warden the story that the wild animal was found alongside the road, rescued from a hunter who had mistakenly shot its mother; or some other noble, feel-good pitch about how the animal was saved from certain death. If the Game Warden's vision does not become filled with tears so that writing out the permit becomes impossible, wildlife traders swear that a permit will be issued.
One thing that never gets discussed in the comment box is that many of the smuggled birds are so stressed by captivity, or malnutritioned, that they die within a year or two. The buyer, who loved the bird to death, must now go and purchase more feathered love. The mortality rate among smuggled birds is horrendous. Chicks are stuffed in to pants pockets or squeezed tight in boxes or baskets. Many are manhandled when they are stolen from the nest and do not even make it in to the trade.
The thought of having a monkey as a pet plays deep on parental instinct. Folks who buy primates love how similar to humans they are. The mannerisms, the tiny hands that are just like a human baby's. I've seen people dress up monkeys like a child, diapers and all, and give them human names. What they do not think about, is how they are a bunch of homicidal sickos, who have enabled the killing of the monkey's mother, so that they could kidnap the juvenile.
Juvenile monkeys, like humans, are completely dependent on their mothers. In the wild you will always see the juvenile either attached to the mother, or within arm's reach. To get the juvenile monkey (nobody wants to buy an adult), the mother must be killed. She will defend her youngster to the death. The purchaser who is foolish enough to buy a male monkey will realise that as the animal hits puberty, its alpha male instinct develops and it sometimes will compete with human males for human female attention. They do not do this with words, but with canine teeth. Out into the street with this suddenly dangerous monkey.
I have purchased illegal animals myself. As an environmental activist I like to know firsthand what I'm talking about. There is no substitute for practical experience. To learn about the wildlife trade I have gone undercover, as much as that is possible for a 6' 2'', 230 lb baldhead white man in Trinidad to be unrecognised, and bought a blue and gold macaw and a monkey or two. Of course, all the animals were handed over to rehabbers with the intent of reintroduction.
A funny fact about a recent purchase: I purchased a macaw that had been smuggled from Venezuela. It was tiny and featherless. Before meeting the trader I put on a cap back to front, wore big sunglasses and didn't shave for a week, which in my case results in the start of a beard. I thought I was invisible, but the seller looked me up and down and said: " Hey aren't you Mark from Papa Bois? (everybody always thinks my name is written with a "k", so I'll visualise his words here).
When caught in a lie I always think, go big, so I responded: "Yes, I want to buy lots of animals to establish a zoo to teach children about wildlife."
With the promise of future profits, the trade was completed. No fear whatsoever. There is a purpose to my illegal acts. Each purchase teaches me about trade routes, prices and how the system works.
I used to pass on information to "the authorities" but after a while you learn that the authorities do not respond, or that they already know the traders and where they live but they are "gathering more evidence", in investigations that last for years. However, each time I buy an animal, for whatever purpose, I fuel the wildlife trade.
The opposite of loving animals to death, is tough love. Instead of enabling the wildlife trade by issuing permits, a more heartless approach needs to be taken. Wildlife Division must no longer allow protected animals to be kept as pets. All protected animals must be rehabilitated for release in to the wild; or housed in a zoo, if that can be done humanely (that's a big "if").
Locking up animals in a zoo should only be done if there is a conservation value to captivity, which is not the case in most instances.
All other kidnapped wildlife must be euthanised. For each wild animal that was sold, many others died before their new owner bought them. Euthanisation is cruel towards the individual animals but with limited enforcement it is the only way to break the cycle of demand and supply that fuels the illegal wildlife trade.
