A six-month undercover operation executed by the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (ACRES) has uncovered a worrying trend on local online marketplaces.
ACRES found over 150 ads for exotic animals — including tiger cubs, hedgehogs and sugar gliders — on websites such as Gumtree Singapore and Locanto Classifieds.
Gumtree Singapore in particular held the highest number of illegal pet advertisements on its platform, TODAY reports, with 100 of them found. Locanto Classifieds had 33 of such ads, SPH Online Classifieds had 14, Carousell had six, Adpost.com Classifieds had two while ChaosAds had one.
ACRES also revealed in a media conference yesterday that 14 out of the 17 sellers randomly contacted actually responded. Apparently, the sellers bred the animals at home or had successfully smuggled them into Singapore by air or land checkpoints.
Joint sting operations together with the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) managed to seize animals such as sugar gliders and even an Asian Leopard Cat.
When some of the online platforms were contacted by ACRES regarding the existence of such ads, they immediately removed them from their platform — Carousell and SPH Online Classifieds in particular. Locanto and Gumtree have yet to take action.
The public is encouraged to inform ACRES and AVA about any illegal pet ads they see online, or even anything they hear about in real life.
