Wildlife Incidents Map's terms of use

About Freeland’s Wildlife Trafficking Observatory

The Freeland’s Wildlife Trafficking Observatory comprises of Wildlife Crime Incidents Map and provides users with the ability to independently view, filter, and analyze published open-source data derived from the Freeland’s Wildlife Crime Incidents Database. With this interactive map, users can engage directly with information on over 4,000 publicly reported seizures from 2006 onwards. Customizable searches can be used to narrow down data to selected countries, CITES and IUCN listed species taxa, transportation methods and facilities, and/or years of interest. Users can view general trends and understand the shifting dynamics of illicit wildlife trafficking. The Observatory can be used to: 

  • Aid policy makers
  • Provide insight and context to journalists investigating illicit trafficking activities
  • Assist law enforcement officers as they calibrate resources to address shifting trends in trafficking
  • Promote actionable data to counter-wildlife trafficking stakeholders

Contact Us

Notice an issue with the data, have data to contribute, or interested in best practices to start your own database?

Reach out to us at [email protected]

How to Use the Wildlife Crime Incidents Map

  • View trends in wildlife seizures worldwide: Navigate across the top menu to view data visualizations pertaining to different filter categories of data analysis including transport and facility type (aka legend), species, year and country.

  • Capture the result: After selecting the desired filters, use the “PrtSc” aka print screen button on your keyboard to capture the final map view and paste (Ctrl + V) in your desired document or location.

  • Users can also view the details of the wildlife crime incidents by clicking on “show more” or “list view”.

Data Collection Methodology

  • Freeland’s wildlife crime incidents database is compiled through the extensive collection and structuring of publicly available reporting on wildlife crime incidents such as trade, trafficking, poaching, rescue, conviction, seizure, arrests and more.

  • Freeland regularly monitors news media, customs websites, reports, and other digital sources and add them to the database.

  • Every incident, regardless of if multiple types of wildlife are reported together, is recorded as only one row in the database.

  • More than 28 fields of information are recorded for each incident, including: type and quantity of wildlife seized or rescued, capturing method, facility and transportation methods, origin-transit-destination locations, businesses involved, people involved and arrests made, and individuals and networks implicated in the crime event, and more.

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Data Limitations

Given that the Freeland’s wildlife crime incidents database contains information drawn from publicly available reporting, please be aware of the following caveats:

  • As with all datasets derived from publicly available reporting, quality of data varies based on differences in coverage, data access, and reporting requirements. Local news coverage of seizure events in particular may vary based on public interest in wildlife crime.
  • Freeland analysts work to minimize inconsistencies in reporting by drawing on multiple sources. However, it remains possible that the data sourced from publicly available information, such as news media or customs reports, may contain incomplete information about the seizure instance or contain reporting errors. Or certain news reports might get missed based on region and language related online search constraints.
  • An increase or decrease of crime incidents in a particular geographic area or of a particular category of wildlife is not necessarily indicative of an increase or decrease in trafficking activity, but rather could be indicative of a change in proactive reporting of wildlife crime related news, a fluctuation in law enforcement capacity, or a combination of other variables.

  • Published wildlife crime data inherently only captures details about failed trafficking attempts and successful law enforcement actions. As a result, there may be successful transportation routes, methods, and other tactics being used by traffickers that are not represented in the database. Therefore, the results displayed on the analysis pages of the Freeland’s wildlife crime incidents map are not meant to represent the entirety of wildlife crime activities, but rather are intended to showcase the patterns evident within the Freeland Wildlife Crime Incidents Database.

Despite these limitations, published wildlife crime related data remains the best proxy available for evaluating global patterns in illicit wildlife trade and trafficking.