The global big cat trade encompasses both legal and illegal networks, with South Africa standing as the world's largest exporter of big cats including both live animals and parts. Vanessa Amoroso from Four Paws International explains how captive breeding facilities create a "conveyor belt of cubs" that fuels tourism attractions while obscuring the darker reality of what happens to these animals. Together Claudia and Vanessa discuss how loopholes in CITES allows for the large-scale legal breeding and trade of big cats, which also has numerous slippages into the illegal trade of the animals and exacerbates their exploitation. 

 

Date Recorded: 5 August 2024

 

Vanessa Amoroso has been employed at FOUR PAWS / VIER PFOTEN International since September 2021 and has worked within the animal welfare sector for thirteen years. She holds a BSc in Environmental Biology and a PGCert in International Animal Welfare, Ethics and Law. Vanessa currently oversees the design and delivery of the commercial big cat trade campaign in South Africa and European trade of Tigers. She also heads up the wildlife trade component of the Pandemics and Animal Welfare campaign. 

 

Featured: 

• Dethroned directed by Will Foster-Grundy
• Help for Big Cats by Four Paws
• Big Cat Reporting Tool by Four Paws
• CITES – Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species. 

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