Kenya's commercial wildlife trade has expanded sharply over the past decade, with a tenfold rise in the number of captive-bred reptiles exported as exotic pets, a report by World Animal Protection said Thursday.
Although the trade is legal, 77 percent of traded species have seen their populations decline in the wild, raising sustainability concerns.
The trade in live reptiles rose sharply from 8,551 in 2013 to 86,330 in 2023, said the report, which analysed Kenya's data from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
The overall number of live animals traded over the same period was more than 870,000, it said, describing Kenya as "an increasingly important supplier to global pet and luxury wildlife markets."
Wildlife trade is a multibillion-dollar global industry involving millions of animals each year.
