Answer · for Journalists, Policy & enforcement

Is wildlife sold online ever caught?

Rarely, in the public record: Bears in Thailand drew 1,303 adverts and 0 WildTrace cases in the same period.

30,934 adverts recorded by ECO-SOLVE, 2024-04 to 2026-09

Bears, Thailand1,303
Parrots & songbirds, Thailand1,046
Elephant (ivory), Thailand2,917
Parrots & songbirds, Indonesia859
Parrots & songbirds, Colombia1,154
Tiger, Thailand2,232

Who answers

ECO-SOLVE (Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime) adverts recorded by regional hubs
Public reports (WildTrace) 194 official, 315 corroborated, 1,391 single report

What the number cannot tell you

Adverts and cases are recorded with different effort; the ratio is not a detection rate.

See the comparison in Analysis → All questions →

Rebuilt daily from the WildTrace data. Cite: Verma, T. K. (2026). WildTrace: the open atlas of illegal wildlife trade. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.22902819