How a $100 Cheetah Cub Becomes an Illegal $50,000 Status Symbol

For different reasons and in different black markets, the value of animals and animal parts varies. In the Arabian Peninsula, the cheetah is particularly prized.

The data represented below was gathered through efforts spearheaded by independent wildlife trafficking researcher Patricia Tricorache. Her teams studied government sources, news reports, e-commerce sites and social media platforms to identify almost 2,200 instances of cheetahs being illegally trafficked or in the possession of private owners from 2010 to 2021. In total these incidents involved more than 5,600 animals.