Trade of rare animals and their body parts is going on through websites including Quikr, Olx, eBay, Amazon and YouTube, the government alleged on Monday.

Environment Minister Anil Madhav Dave said online smuggling of rare animals and their parts is being monitored by the State and Central governments.

“Several websites are seen advertising sale of rare animals and their parts,” Dave said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.

He furnished a list of 106 such websites collated by the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB).

The 106 websites include prominent names such as quikr.com, olx.in, alibaba.com, eBay.com, youtube.com, shopping.rediff.com, amazon.com, snapdeal.com and petsmart.com.

Dave said several steps have been taken to prevent such illegal activities, which include utilising the services of cybercrime specialists on a contract basis to carry out regular cyber-patrolling of such portals to detect posts and offers.

He said if any such offer is detected, details are retrieved of the suspect and the information is passed on to relevant enforcement agencies for legal action.

A meeting of representatives from online trade portals was convened in May to discuss issues pertaining to online wildlife trade, sensitise them about it and discuss modalities to assist the WCCB in case of such detections.

Dave said that during training and sensitisation programmes conducted by the WCCB, the issue of illegal online wildlife trade is being highlighted.

A wildlife body recently alleged that a prominent website was selling wildlife specimens, including seahorses and alligator heads.

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