Abstract
The trade in wildlife is not a new phenomenon. The earliest civilizations were linked to the trade in live animals and parts thereof, from the Egyptian pharaohs to aristocrats in the modern era. In this chapter, the focus is on the global history of the wildlife trade in order to understand the social context of the trade. In dynamic social and cultural contexts the meaning of wildlife changes. It turns out that a wide variety of live animals and products thereof have been traded for functional, symbolic or entertainment purposes. From ostrich eggs for the treatment of fractured skulls, live monkeys as ladies’ pets to caviar as a delicacy for the upper classes. However, the impact of the diverse trade in wildlife soon posed a threat to certain species; it was already noticed in early antiquity that species had disappeared due to the extensive trade.
The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
Albert Einstein
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Notes
- 1.
I will use the term ‘exotic’ species throughout this book. With exotic animal species I mean animals that are native to a foreign country or of foreign origin in character, i.e. animals that are not native or that have been introduced from abroad (Schupplit and Fraser 2000).
- 2.
The word ‘paradise’ originates from the Persian pairidaeˆza and means ‘a piece of land protected by a wall’ (Hughes 2003).
- 3.
Although there is no consensus as to whether this was a polar bear or an albino brown bear, a Roman emperor later showed a white bear in a pool catching seals and this must have been a polar bear (Hughes 2003).
- 4.
Narwhal tusks were also used as ivory (Pluskowski 2004).
- 5.
Imperial expansion, exploration and global trade resulted in the disappearance and decline of several species. Perhaps the most famous example is the story of the dodo (Raphus cucullatus), which became extinct due to Dutch sailors using them as a free source of meat during their voyages (Duffy 2010).
- 6.
For instance, Christoph Carl Fernberger returned by ship from Batavia to Europe in 1627 and he brought a leopard, a cockatoo, three parrots and three monkeys. He left the care of one of the parrots to an old cook, who would receive one hundred thalers if he delivered the animal alive to Europe. Another sailor would provide fifty thalers to take care of the leopard and his servant took care of the other animals (Van Gelder 1997: 210). Another example is large numbers of wild elephants from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) that were traded by the VOC in the seventeenth century. The animals were sold as luxury mounts or beasts of burden, for example, during wars. In a jungle, over the surface of a few square kilometres, triangular palisades were set up where people drove herds of elephants inside. The elephants, preferably males without tusks, were then hunted into smaller compartments. The individual elephants were accompanied by two domesticated elephants to tame them. The elephants were then sold to Indian or European princes for 6,000 to 7,000 guilders per animal.
- 7.
In the 1600s the elephant ‘Hansken’ was exhibited in several places in Europe over a period of six years and the rhinoceros Clara was transported in a ‘horse-drawn chariot’ and presented all over Europe in the 1700s (Kalof 2007).
- 8.
Many animals died during the trip, due to temperature changes and the lack of proper food and water. According to the soldier Müller, on a returning ship in 1669 many parrots, cockatoos, seven parakeets, cassowaries, many monkeys, meerkats and a porcupine were transported. All the animals died during the journey, except for two Javanese monkeys, which were in a bent position in their pen and could no longer move (Van Gelder 1997).
- 9.
In the late Nineteenth century exhibitions of indigenous people became immensely popular in Europe. Between 1870 and 1940, hundreds of groups of indigenous people were traded to Europe for entertainment and science in zoos, circuses, fairs and world exhibitions. These indigenous people were mainly imported from overseas colonies. North American Indians, Bushmen, Hottentots, Zulus and Aboriginals were exhibited in makeshift depictions of their natural habitat (Van Uhm 2015).
- 10.
‘Christian, The Lion at World’s End.’ Scotia American, 1971.
- 11.
Government licences in the UK showed that 3,000 tiger skins were exported in 1968 (Sharma et al. 2014).
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van Uhm, D.P. (2016). Wildlife Trade Through the Ages. In: The Illegal Wildlife Trade. Studies of Organized Crime, vol 15. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42129-2_1
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