Donkey skins listed on unregulated eCommerce sites and social media giants

The size and scale of the illegal online donkey skin trade has been revealed for the first time, with thousands of skins currently for sale on unregulated Business to Business (B2B) websites and well-known social media platforms.

These findings form part of our report titled The Global Trade in Donkey Skins: A Ticking Time Bomb. The report uncovers how organised crime facilitates the trafficking of donkey skins to satisfy the demand for ejiao, an ingredient used in traditional Chinese medicine.

The collagen from their skin is used in the production of ejiao. It is estimated that over 4.8 million donkeys are trafficked and slaughtered for their skins each year.

The donkeys suffer at every point of this process. From source to slaughter, brutal and inhumane conditions are a hallmark of the industry.

Even the most vulnerable donkeys, including pregnant mares, young foals, and the sick and injured, are taken and traded without consideration for their welfare or their suffering.

Marianne Steele, our Acting Chief Executive Officer, says: “There is no doubt that the global ejiao trade is having a devastating impact on the welfare of donkeys around the world, who suffer at every point from source to slaughter. This new research demonstrates just how vast the online donkey skin trade has become, and how entrenched it is with criminal activity and other illegal wildlife trafficking.”

Our report cites the findings of a research paper funded by The Donkey Sanctuary and conducted by an interdisciplinary team from Oxford University’s Saïd Business School and Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU).

Their research was able to identify a clear scientific link between the illegal wildlife trade and donkey skin trade.

The researchers identified 382 traders who sold donkey skins on large B2B eCommerce websites. They then analysed the full basket of goods that each trader offered for sale, creating a dataset of almost 15,000 product offerings - including wildlife products - making a clear link between the trade in donkey skins and the wildlife trade.

Dr Ewan Macdonald, postdoctoral research fellow at Saïd Business School and co-author of The Link Between Wildlife Trade and the Global Donkey Skin Product Network, says: “We found almost 20 percent of donkey skin traders operating online also sell some form of wildlife product, including species of conservation concern such as elephant ivory, pangolin scales and big cat parts.

“This matters because it reveals how customers shopping for donkey skins can easily stumble across other products for sale alongside these skins, potentially contributing to the ever-worsening biodiversity crisis.

“Unsustainable and under-regulated trade in wildlife is a major driver of wildlife declines, impacting as many as 20 percent of vertebrate species.”

The full paper - The Link Between Wildlife Trade and the Global Donkey Skin Product Network - has been published in Conservation Science and Practice.

The role of online platforms

The Global Trade in Donkey Skins: A Ticking Time Bomb report identified the vast online network of organised criminals offering donkey skins for sale, often alongside other illegal wildlife products, including rhino horns, pangolin scales, elephant ivory and tiger hides.

In some extreme cases, these traders were additionally trafficking narcotics, fake passports and human hair, providing further evidence of how deeply the donkey skin trade is embedded in organised crime.

The illicit trade extends beyond eCommerce sites to well-known social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

The team behind the report uncovered dozens of adverts for skins on sale on social media, suggesting that it is a thriving marketplace for the trade.

One trader in Kenya said he had 2,000 skins available immediately. Many listings feature images of dead and dying donkeys kept in inhumane conditions.

Unfortunately, few B2B or social media sites have policies to prevent donkey skin traders from taking advantage of their sites or even removing the traders who have existing pages.

The scale of the problem is so extensive that our team identified several traders openly admitting to the illegality of their merchandise. The traders even offered prospective buyers information on how they would avoid the skins being intercepted by the authorities during transit.

We are now calling on all eCommerce and social media sites to immediately ban the sale of donkey skins and remove all existing listings from their platforms.

Marianne Steele says: “By cracking down on the sale of donkey skins on their platforms, eCommerce and social media sites will not only prevent considerable cruelty to donkeys, but also help eliminate the other criminal activity that is taking place alongside it and support thousands of families who rely on their donkeys to survive.”

The impacts on communities

The continuous demand from the ejiao industry has significantly impacted donkey populations. Many donkeys slaughtered for the ejiao trade are stolen from families who rely on them for their livelihoods, with devastating consequences for their economic prospects.

Up to ten million communities in lower-income countries rely on working donkeys. Where donkeys are stolen, it almost always falls to women and girls to pick up the ‘donkey work’ left behind, denying many girls the opportunity to continue their education.