Short read: Falcons for status, reptiles for show – how social media feeds the exotic-pet trade

Unless you were hiding under a rock, you would have read about the five infant orangutans recently found in a forest in Odisha. It is suspected they were victims of international wildlife trafficking and most likely destined to become part of someone’s private collection of pets. Behind cases like these sits an entire supply chain, and increasingly it runs on the very apps we scroll through every day. In this report for ThePrint, Ananya Bhardwaj traces how that trade now works.

The shop window has moved online. “Platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook and Instagram are being used to connect sellers, brokers and buyers, allowing trafficking networks to reach customers across cities and international borders,” the piece reports. The demand is driven less by love of animals than by the wish to be seen owning one. “It has become a status symbol, something to show off in Instagram reels and videos,” an investigator tells Ms Bhardwaj. “People want to own exotic pets without realising the damage they are causing to the ecological balance.”Hence the title’s taxonomy: falcons prized across the Middle East as symbols of “prestige and status”, reptiles kept for show, and a long parade of ball pythons, bearded dragons, leopard geckos, macaws and African grey parrots. Around 84 exotic reptile species feature in India’s illegal pet trade.

This is not a cottage operation. “The networks are typically multi-layered and transnational, involving collectors, breeders, brokers, dealers, transporters and buyers across the world,” an investigator says. Social media simply adds reach: for traffickers, one officer notes, “these platforms provide another way to connect with potential buyers without relying entirely on physical markets.” The money moves as quietly as the messages. “Payments are made online using various modes, with a single payment sometimes split into multiple smaller transactions,” another officer says, while legitimate pet shops, breeders and logistics firms are used as cover and CITES permits are forged, misused or left incomplete.

The animals themselves travel by air and by jungle. “Air routes are predominantly used, with live animals trafficked from countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia to South Asian countries,” a CBI officer says, and where the flights end the forests take over: “It is difficult to effectively man the land border between Myanmar and India’s northeastern states.” Once a creature is in the country, the law turns murky. “Whether possession is legal or illegal depends on the animal’s origin and the paperwork,” a CBI source says. Under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, CITES-listed species in Schedule IV must be registered with the state’s Chief Wildlife Warden, and cross-border cases invite the Customs Act as well.

On enforcement, the report notes that the CBI has registered roughly 100 wildlife-crime cases since 1997, and that in 2025 it seized 14 exotic birds, including blue-eyed cockatoos, sun conures and a blue-and-yellow macaw, along with three iguanas. It also sets out the wider machinery – training courses that have put dozens of foreign officers through Indian programmes, and India’s participation in INTERPOL’s Operation Thunder. But as long as there is demand, there will be ways to fulfil it. As the investigator puts it, owning an exotic animal has become “a status symbol, something to show off in Instagram reels and videos”.