Viet Nam online: a rapid assessment of e-commerce wildlife trade in Viet Nam in 2017
A study released by TRAFFIC suggests that most of Viet Nam’s online illegal wildlife trade does not take place on websites ending in .vn, as previously thought and instead monitoring efforts should focus on those ending .com, including social media websites. The study, titled Viet Nam Online: A rapid assessment of e-commerce wildlife trade in Viet Nam in 2017, monitored 13 websites ending in .vn using keyword searches for products ranging from elephants, leopards, pangolins, rhinos, Saiga Antelopes, marine turtles, and tigers. Of the websites surveyed, 30% were found to have advertisements for the targeted wildlife species parts. A total of 14 such advertisements in all offered 1,072 selected wildlife products, 90% of them in just one advertisement over the period of March–October 2017. All but six of the advertised products were made from elephant ivory, with the remainder coming from tigers.