Handling of Live Animal Confiscations

Wildlife trafficking is a lucrative form of transnational organized crime (TOC) that has decimated populations of species, such as elephants, rhinos, pangolins, and more. Wildlife trafficking fuels corruption; threatens the rule of law, peace, and security; spreads disease; and destabilizes communities that depend on wildlife for biodiversity and eco-tourism revenues. Criminal organizations are profiting from this illicit trade, relying on their ability to exploit porous borders and weak institutions, and leveraging multilevel illicit networks of criminal intermediaries and government officials to move illegal wildlife from source to demand countries. INL aims to combat wildlife trafficking (CWT) through effective programming at the national, regional, and international levels.

For this funding opportunity, INL intends to focus on the illegal trafficking of live animals. Frontline law enforcement officers seize two types of illegal wildlife products:

1.     Body parts that have already been separated from the animal, such as tusks, horns, blood, claws, feathers, organs, hides, or scales; or

2.     Live animals.

The seizure of live animals in the illegal wildlife trade is common, given the high demand and high prices for these products. However, “living evidence” seized over the course of an investigation tends to have a high mortality rate in police custody. This is because law enforcement and justice sector in many countries:

1.     Lack minimum standards for responsibilities, procedures, and guidelines to ensure the integrity of the chain of custody for live animals seized as evidence; and

2.     Do not have the appropriate procedures in place for transferring custody of live animals to suitable facilities to ensure their safe quarantine until court proceedings conclude. In some jurisdictions, live animals must be produced in court to secure a conviction.

INL will award at least one grant that provides training to address immediate capacity gaps (near-term outcomes) and technical assistance to improve laws and legal procedures to reduce the need for the use of live evidence in a court case (long-term outcomes). The ultimate goal of this program is to increase governments’ ability to CWT and disrupt the criminal organizations that perpetrate this heinous crime.

1.     Priority Countries

Applicants may propose work in one or more countries within Africa, Asia, or Latin America. Applicants may also propose work across multiple regions. However, INL will prioritize proposals with activities in countries with wildlife detection dog units including, but not limited to, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zambia.

2.     Project Goals

The goal of this program is to improve governments’ capacity to interdict illegal wildlife products and to handle confiscated live animals, such that their evidentiary valued is maintained and they are kept in a humane and healthful manner.

To achieve this goal, INL seeks to fund programs that will:

1.     Train frontline law enforcement officers on the handling of seized live evidence.

2.     Provide technical assistance to improve laws and policies to comply with international best practices on the use of evidence from live animals.