The world’s endangered species are in from the Internet. Online shoppers are buying numbers of exotic animals. This is another nail in the coffin for many creatures already with extinction. Poachers, collectors wanting rhino heads and Chinese medicine already threaten thousands of species. The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) wrote a report called “Caught In The Web - Wildlife Trade On The Internet.” It found thousands of animals for sale in its one-week Web search.

The report is the of the iceberg. Experts the illegal global animal trade at billions of dollars a year. The World Wide Web makes the situation . “Trade on the Internet is easy, cheap and . The result is a cyber black market where the of the world’s rarest animals is being traded away,” said IFAW’s Phyllis Campbell-McRae. She also warned: “Trade in wildlife is driven by demand, so when the buying stops, the will too. Buying wildlife online is as damaging as killing it yourself.”