Source: The Conversation – Canada
In 2022, officers from the Canada Border Services Agency and Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) intercepted a package of live turtles from China that had been declared as children’s building blocks.
The package led to the seizure of 63 turtles and 58 turtle eggs, according to ECCC, from a man in Calgary who had been importing them to sell online.
The Calgary Zoo kept two of the turtles, while the rest were sent to a reptile sanctuary in Ontario. The eggs were euthanized. The fate of the animals beyond initial placements has not been publicly reported, and Canadian law does not oblige the government to report what happens to seized animals.
I am a wildlife conservation biologist specializing in the rehabilitation and reintroduction of formerly captive wild animals. Wild animals are frequently abducted (often violently) from their natural habitat, squeezed into small containers and shipped around the world to become “exotic” pets, displays in roadside zoos or kept for breeding, causing immense suffering.
Trafficking is a profit-driven business that gives little regard to the ecological consequences of removing animals from their habitat or to the welfare of the captured animals.
Canada’s wildlife trade law lacks provisions regarding individual animal welfare, as well as transparency reporting what happens to animals after they are confiscated by authorities. This is a gap that lawmakers must address to better protect animals.
International and Canadian regulations
The legal international wildlife trade is governed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), an international agreement aiming to ensure “legal, sustainable and traceable” trade. Canada is one of 185 parties to CITES. The convention obliges member states to appropriately pass and enforce laws against trafficking.
The act controls which wildlife can be imported, exported or moved between provinces and who owns seized animals, referring to the animals largely in terms of ownership and as a “specimen.”
In 1992, Canada enacted the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act (WAPPRIITA)). This act addresses the control of wildlife trade and property rights, referring to the animals largely in terms of ownership and as “specimens.”
The act is enforced by ECCC and guided by the Compliance and Enforcement Policy for Wildlife Legislation, which states that the department encourages (and seemingly relies on) “the involvement of specialized and active organizations in supporting enforcement actions,” including “holding of live specimens.”
In practice, this involves turning to zoos and sanctuaries to care for confiscated or forfeited animals. The enforcement policy states a seized animal may be moved somewhere it will be “secure and well cared for.” However, it sets no standard for that care or what happens after forfeiture.
ECCC appears to rely on partnerships with zoos and sanctuaries, but no accreditation requirements for those facilities are written into the act or the enforcement policy.
The law also does not require public transparency on those placement decisions or the outcomes for the animals.
Updating Canada’s laws
WAPPRIITA may have been comprehensive when it became law in 1992. In 2009, it was amended to strengthen its penalties, sentencing and enforcement power. Those amendments came into force in 2017.
WAPPRIITA addresses the control of trade, covering imports, exports and interprovincial transport, but fails to address in detail what happens to the animals after they are confiscated. It also does not address how an animal’s welfare is (or isn’t) involved in that decision-making.
The act’s language is also outdated, sometimes referring to seized animals as a “thing” stripping an individual of its status as a sentient being capable of suffering, reducing them to property that can be disposed of.
The lack of public transparency required by the act is likely why the most recent federal example I could find of wildlife forfeiture that publicly reported the destination of the animals involved a 2022 seizure.
After more than three decades, an updated WAPPRIITA is long overdue. While the act requires review every 10 years, that review has been limited to fines and sentencing provisions, and does not cover welfare or transparency.
The act should be amended to include specific language about the welfare of confiscated animals and minimum accreditation requirements for the facilities that receive them.
There must also be greater public transparency about what happens to animals. As a state party to CITES, Canada has an obligation to advance legislation to better protect the animals that come into our care.
Mikaela Gerwing receives funding from Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies; Concordia University Public Scholars; Concordia University Miriam Aaron Roland Graduate Fellowship; NSERC Canada CGS M; MITACS Globalink; LEADS NSERC CREATE . She is affiliated with Planet Madagascar.
Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/18/how-canada-can-better-track-what-happens-to-trafficked-wildlife-after-theyre-seized/