A viral video of Tamil actor Vikram cuddling a Lar gibbon at a private home in Chennai has set off a probe into how the endangered primates arrived there. It’s also put a spotlight on the murky yet booming world of exotic pet trade in India.
The case points to a bigger problem in India’s wildlife governance. While there are regulations for possession and movement of exotic animals, oversight and enforcement remain a challenge.Until February 2021, more than 40,000 individuals across 30 Indian states had voluntarily declared possession of exotic pets under a disclosure scheme by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. It was the first credible glimpse of a market that has grown largely in the shadows. The country’s exotic pet sector was valued at USD 42.6 million in 2024, with industry projections placing it at nearly USD 76 million by 2030. Yet the trade has not been governed with any commensurate seriousness.
We recently published a report, Safeguarding Biodiversity and Public Health: A Legislative and Policy Analysis of Exotic Pet Trade in India, along with Kritika Balaji, an independent researcher, in an attempt to map, comprehensively, what this trade costs beyond the transaction.Drawing on legislation, published literature and domain expertise, our report examines four interconnected areas: public health risk, ecological harm through invasive species, strain on public institutions and animal welfare. Across all four, it finds a trade that has consistently outrun the governance systems meant to contain it.
