Social network and the illegal trade of wildbirs, the case of Facebook in Argentina

Globally, social networks grew linearly in recent years. These online technologies, because of their simplicity and accessibility, allow people to connect with each other, sharing information, content, ideas or products. Facebook is the most popular with more than 1650 million users. Internet commerce is growing in different areas, social networks are an example of that. This trade can hide illegal activities such as wildlife traffic. We searched for «wild birds buy/sell groups» in Facebook. We found 128 groups of bird trade in Argentina, with 96,785 users. Buenos Aires was the province with the largest number of members. Only in 5 provinces we didn’t detect birds trading groups (Chubut, Formosa, Misiones, Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego). This could reflect more severe control policies there. A deeper analysis of the second largest group located in La Pampa province we found buy/sell offers of 63 bird species. Seventeen percent were exotic species whose trade could be legal, the rest were native birds protected by various provincial and national laws, and whose trade is illegal. Almost 60% are species native from the province, whose capture could be local; the rest comes from other provinces or countries. We detected sell/buy offers of five kinds of traps for birds and some cases of fledgling extractions from nests. This work highlights the widespread use of Facebook for illegal trade of wildlife in Argentina. A strong intervention by national and local wildlife authorities to control illegal trade in social networks should be necessary.