The Truth Behind Having an Exotic Pet

Have you ever been scrolling through Instagram and found a reel of a cute tiger cub playing or being fed by his owner in his house? And have you ever thought about how they managed to get this adorable “pet”? 

The illegal trade of wildlife animals is a real issue that has been increasingly growing in the last years, it has become a multibillion-dollar business, it is considered to be the fourth biggest illegal trade in the world. Having one of these animals nowadays symbolizes power and status, wealthy influencers and celebrities use them to manifest it to their followers. Due to this, millions of animals are taken daily from their habitat to become an accessory to a model or vlogger in an Instagram post.  

The Super User Foeke Postma who works for Bellingcat managed to uncover one of the most famous illegal traders in the celebrity world. By just typing on YouTube “Dubai Pet” he found a video of a Dubai based Youtuber, Mo Vlogs, who has over 10 million subscribers,  playing with lion and tiger cubs brought over to his house, this video opened a thread of posts on all social media from models, football players, rappers, which all tied back to the same tagged private Instagram account @mbe.777. 

Being a Super User means being an Internet Detective, finding all types of leads and traces to put together a puzzle and that is what Postma did. He created a fake account and started doing deep research, analyzing post by post, spots, details, similitudes on pictures and comparing lines and whiskers from posted pictures of these pets and using geolocation he found out where they were keeping the animals and whom he was collaborating with. He finally matched a face to the private Instagram account and when he tried to reach out to him he practically disappeared, he deleted all social media and traces, proving without a doubt that what he was doing was illegal.

Postma did not just uncover one of the most famous exotic pet traders via Instagram, he created awareness about this issue and the importance of preserving this species and stop seeing them as pets. This crime has devastating and far-reaching consequences not only to the wildlife but to the society. 

https://www.eltiempo.com/don-juan/historias/trafico-de-animales-en-peligro-de-extincion-16827290#

Sadly, this is not the end of this tragedy, searching certain keywords on Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, you will still find millions of traders of cheetahs, tigers and wild cats. This is just a step ahead of the ending of the matter in question, we have to start by stopping encouraging influencers to do this, avoiding liking, sharing or even commenting on any type of these posts. So next time you think it is cute having a tiger cub in your living room, think twice.

By Juan Felipe Navarro Ospina and Valeria Anaya