Most unboxing videos follow a predictable script: an exuberant influencer slashes open the packaging, reaches inside, and pulls out the prize. ‘Pets Man’s’ post was no different, except for one chilling detail. This influencer was noticeably wary of handling the contents of the package: a pair of live emperor scorpions.
Native to West Africa, emperor scorpions are classified as ‘exotic’ in India. However, watching the influencer handle the crudely packaged box—containing only paper filler and two plastic containers, each with a scorpion—one would imagine it contained nothing more sentient than a pair of socks. The month-old video, titled ‘My New Pet: Scorpion Unboxing And Setup,’ has garnered over 29,000 views on YouTube, with viewers eagerly demanding a sequel. While ‘Pets Man’ demonstrates how to house and feed them, a crucial point is deliberately omitted: how to acquire these animals legally.
Crossing The Line
Conservationists estimate that over 90% of exotic animals in India have been illegally trafficked, primarily from countries like Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Pawan Sharma, founder of Resquink Association for Wildlife Welfare (RAWW), a nonprofit assisting law enforcement in rescuing and rehabilitating trafficked exotic animals, explains, “The trafficking of exotic animals has been happening for a long time. But animals were rarely intercepted because they were not previously protected under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. Once they crossed customs jurisdiction—by airways, waterways, railways, or roadways—no law-enforcement agency could do much for them.”
Sharma adds that “Exotic animals gained legal protection only after the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 was amended in 2022 and enforced in 2023.”
With the updated law in place, vigilance has increased, leading to a fivefold surge in seizures at Mumbai Airport between 2023-24 and 2024-25, according to media reports. Yet, experts caution that these seizures represent only a fraction of the vast illicit consignments flowing across borders. Tracking smuggling via seaways and roadways proves even more challenging.
Regardless of the route, trafficked animals are expertly concealed to evade detection. On flights, tarantulas, turtle hatchlings, and iguanas have been found sedated inside cake containers, chocolate boxes, or beneath tubs of ornamental fish. Birds have been crammed between packets of frozen poultry, and tortoises sealed inside their carapaces with tape. Under these brutal conditions, a staggering 30-70% of trafficked animals die in transit. Many more perish upon arrival, traumatized, hungry, and often diseased.
Pet Shop Buys
“Around 80% of the exotic animals being trafficked today are intended for the pet market,” Sharma reveals. Unsurprisingly, the grim realities of this trade are conspicuously absent from Instagram reels. Social media and messaging apps have become prime drivers of sales, where a troubling trio of “petfluencers,” breeders, and pet shop owners peddle animals as if they were household appliances, promoting their beauty, supposed ease of care, and rarity.
A recent report by the wildlife trade monitoring organization TRAFFIC documented 87 different species seized from flight passengers between January 2022 and May 2025, with seven of these being critically endangered. In May of this year, three spider-tailed horned vipers, indigenous to western Iran and eastern Iraq, were discovered alongside 49 other reptiles in a passenger’s baggage traveling from Bangkok to Mumbai—marking the first publicly reported seizure of this species in Southeast Asia.
Today, a wide array of animals are trafficked, including tarantulas and fish, such as the critically endangered Barca Snakehead (Channa barca), which can fetch up to Rs 1.5 lakh per pair. However, according to TRAFFIC, reptiles account for the largest share of the exotic animal trade, comprising 92.7% of all individual animals seized from flight baggage in the last three and a half years.
While owning an exotic animal is not inherently illegal (unless listed in Schedule IV of the Wildlife Protection Act), mandatory registration on the government’s PARIVESH 2.0 portal is required. “This involves paperwork to prove where the animal was procured, its provenance, and whether it was bred in captivity or wild-caught—the latter being illegal,” explains Sharma. “I can import an exotic animal legally if I follow these procedures.”
Yet, buyers are easily enticed by dealers offering the same animals illicitly at a fraction of the cost and time, often without an ownership certificate. Some dealers even provide fake PARIVESH certificates, and tragically, few buyers bother to verify these with the forest department.
Health & Environmental Risks
Beyond legal infractions, the exotic animal trade poses significant health and environmental risks. Trafficked animals can carry zoonotic diseases, which are transmissible to humans and other animals. Dr. Rina Dev, an avian and exotic animal specialist who operates the RiWild Sanctuary and Charitable Trust, warns, “You can contract salmonella from reptiles, aspergillosis (a fungal lung disease) from birds, and TB from pygmy marmosets or pocket monkeys.”
Dealers frequently mislead buyers into believing exotic animals are low-maintenance, requiring only a basic diet. “They say ‘feed the bird seeds three times a day and you’re done.’ But because these birds are raised exclusively on a seed diet, they often develop fatty liver,” Dr. Dev explains. “The birds I treat frequently suffer from nutrition-related problems, such as pathological bone fractures and poor feather conditions. When an animal’s nutrition is poor, their immunity suffers, making them susceptible to secondary infections.” Their health is further jeopardized by makeshift homes that, despite good intentions, fail to replicate their natural environment.
While people are initially thrilled by the novelty of their new exotic pet, they rarely commit to the required long-term care, Dr. Dev observes. “They own birds worth Rs 1–2 lakh but refuse to spend on veterinary treatment. By the time they bring the animal to the clinic, it’s often on its deathbed,” she says. Faced with an ailing animal, pet owners and even breeders frequently abandon them at rehabilitation centers like hers.
Unwanted and sick animals are also callously abandoned in urban forests, water bodies, and drains, where they risk infecting native wildlife and upsetting the ecological balance of local habitats.
Need Of The Hour
The illegal exotic animal trade operates like a relentless game of Whac-A-Mole: as soon as one channel is shut down, another swiftly emerges. This necessitates a comprehensive, multi-pronged strategy to dismantle these trafficking networks, according to Sunil Limaye, former chief wildlife warden of Maharashtra. “Several things need to be done. Emerging trade issues must be closely studied. The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) monitors these routes, but conservation-led nonprofits should analyze trade news and data from WCCB to identify patterns and trends that can help enforcement agencies.”
Limaye emphasizes the need for “close coordination between all enforcement agencies—the forest and revenue departments, police, customs, excise, and Indo-Tibetan Border Police. We also need international cooperation with source countries to nip the problem in the bud. Simultaneously, we should build the capacity of forest, customs, and WCCB officials directly involved in trade monitoring and animal protection, equipping them with the technology and tools to track and intercept perpetrators. And finally, we must doggedly follow up cases in court.”
Sharma also points out the critical absence of unified data on seizures as another issue needing urgent resolution. “There is currently no centralized system for wildlife crime data, since cases are handled by various departments like forest, police, customs, and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence. This needs to be resolved.”
However, Limaye stresses that the most effective way to cripple trafficking networks is to starve the demand. “People often don’t realize that by buying exotic animals, they are participating in an illegal activity,” he says. “There should be no trade in wildlife at all. People should refuse to buy these animals as pets. Wildlife belongs in the wild, not in your home.”