Video: Animal welfare groups want to ban fairs trading in wild animals

Several animal welfare organizations called on Minster Henk Staghouder of Agriculture, Nature, and Food Quality to ban exotic fairs where live wild animals are traded.

World Animal Protection, International Fund for Animal Welfare, Foundation SPOTS, Foundation AAP, and the Animal Coalition called it dreadful that wild animals like birds and reptiles are still traded on exchanges in the Netherlands, they said in a press release.

“At the trade fairs in recent months, we again saw crowded snakes, stressed lizards, and komodo dragons in plastic containers,” said Sanne Kuijpers of World Animal Protection Netherlands. “These are beautiful animals, but we have to realize that these wild animals belong in the wild and not on a tray at a Dutch fair.”

The organizations visited various trade fairs and recorded the conditions animals found themselves in.

According to Kuijpers, the animals were clearly stressed. “They were constantly picked up and moved, were extremely restricted in their room for movement, had no hiding places, and had tape around their mouths to prevent them from biting.”

The organizations find it scandalous that such treatment of animals is tolerated in the Netherlands. “In short, fairs with wild animals are downright unfriendly to animals, and they must come to an end,” Kuijpers said.