Annually, about 38 million animals are poached from forests in Brazil and sold illegally on the black market. However, close to 90% of the animals die during transportation, and those that survive live in terrible conditions and are usually very sick and starved. Many animal traffickers don't mind these losses though because they are still able to make a profit, sometimes off of just a single sale. The illegal trafficking of animals is an ever-increasing industry that is worth an estimated $2 billion a year, but authorities are cracking down on it and becoming more stringent in enforcement. Each year, federal police seize about 250,000 wild animals being traded illegally. Ibama, the Brazilian environmental agency, rescues an additional 45,000 and helps to rehabilitate them at wildlife centers because many are ill and starving when they're rescued. Unfortunately, it is difficult to release them back into the wild because the animals are unable to fend for themselves, so only about 20-30% of them are successfully released. Even though it is illegal in Brazil to hunt or hold wild animals in captivity, poachers continue to do so, and it is contributing to the destruction of biodiversity and threatens hundreds of species. According to the records of the environmental agency, the number of endangered species has increased threefold in the past 15 years, and 627 species are now faced with the threat the extinction.
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-brazil-lucrative-wild-animal.html
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