School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, England.
Lincolnshire Wildlife Park, Friskney, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2023 Jul 13;18(7):e0288725. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0288725. eCollection 2023.
Online sales are increasingly a route by which exotic animals are sold in the global pet trade. There are numerous types of online platforms and transaction types, and dedicated classified advertisement sites are a popular means of buying and selling animals. Despite their large and increasing use, we have a relatively poor understanding of the number of, and taxonomic variation in, the animals sold online. This information may be key in efforts to optimise the welfare of the animals being sold, and the ethics and sustainability of the trade via that platform. To fill this knowledge gap, we monitored and analysed the advertisements of chelonians (turtles and tortoises) placed on one of the United Kingdom's largest dedicated classified ads sites, www.pets4homes.co.uk, over the course of a year, from July 2020 until June 2021. We analysed temporal, taxonomic, and advertiser related trends in the volumes of advertisements placed and compared the prices and the sentiment of language within adverts for different species. We found that the species advertised, the prices requested, and infrequent use of the site by most advertisers is consistent with most adverts being for animals being resold by casual users. Further, we found that turtles were consistently advertised for lower prices and in multiples than tortoises, and that the language with which they were advertised was less positive. We conclude that on this website the online trade reflects the broader trade, rather than drives the sales of chelonians in the UK, and that any interventions aiming to improve welfare and sustainability would be better placed earlier in the supply chain.
在线销售越来越成为全球宠物贸易中外来动物销售的一种途径。有许多种在线平台和交易类型，专门的分类广告网站是买卖动物的一种流行方式。尽管它们的使用越来越多，但我们对在线销售的动物数量和分类学变化相对了解较少。这些信息可能是通过该平台优化销售动物的福利、贸易伦理和可持续性的关键。为了填补这一知识空白，我们监测和分析了 2020 年 7 月至 2021 年 6 月期间在英国最大的专门分类广告网站之一 www.pets4homes.co.uk 上发布的龟鳖目（龟和鳖）广告。我们分析了广告数量的时间、分类学和广告商相关趋势，并比较了不同物种广告中的价格和语言情绪。我们发现，所宣传的物种、所要求的价格以及大多数广告商很少使用该网站，这与大多数广告是由偶然用户转售的动物相符。此外，我们发现海龟的广告价格普遍低于鳖，而且它们的广告语言也不那么积极。我们的结论是，在这个网站上，在线贸易反映了更广泛的贸易，而不是推动了英国龟鳖目的销售，任何旨在提高福利和可持续性的干预措施最好在供应链的早期进行。
