Wildlife Farms, Stigma and Harm

Wildlife farming, the commercial breeding and legal sale of non-domesticated species, is an increasingly prevalent, persistently controversial, and understudied conservation practice. The adoption or rejection of wildlife farms is a complex process that incorporates numerous ethical considerations: conservation, livelihoods, animal welfare, and cultural practices. This paper uses qualitative interview data with key informants (academics) to analyze (a) the harms and benefits of wildlife farms and (b) the factors that influence whether wildlife farms are stigmatized or accepted. In evaluations of wildlife farming’s harms and benefits, respondents incorporated multiple considerations: animal welfare, environmental impacts, scale disparities between sustenance and commercial farms, consumer preferences, species differences, the substitutability and accessibility of wildlife products, and governance. The results further indicated that the stigmatization or acceptance of wildlife farms is affected by the “wildlife farm” label, if there is a stigma around use of a species, a form of production, or the perceived quality of a wildlife product, cultural differences in wildlife use, wildlife consumer typology, geopolitical factors, and demand reduction efforts. This paper analyzes the complexities of wildlife farming such that stakeholders can understand the impacts of this practice on species, human communities, individual animals, and the legal and illegal wildlife trades.

Legal framework for wildlife farming benefits species conservation and preventing wildlife crimes in Vietnam

Animal husbandry plays a certain role in economic growth of the agricultural sector. Compared with conventional husbandry, wildlife farming brings important, even many times greater economic benefits with certain species. At present, however, due to different objective and subjective factors, the raising of wild animals in Vietnam has not been adequately taken care of and faced several difficulties. The inadequate legal structure for wildlife farming has caused difficulties to farmers when finding breeding supplies and product output. In addition, wildlife criminals take advantage of agricultural operations to cover up their crimes, evade the detection and handle from the authorities. In order to contribute to promoting the development of agricultural economy in general, the economy of organizations and individuals participating in animal husbandry activities in particular, we aims at recognizing, examining and reviewing the existing legal system for wildlife-farming practices, crime situation and crime handling in Vietnam in recent years in this research. We will detect the difficulties, obstacles and inadequacies of the legal framework on wildlife farming, as well as the prevention and prosecution of wildlife crimes, propose strategies and guidelines for perfecting the law and appropriately implementing law provisions.