An Asian pal civet at a wildlife farm in Bali, Indonesia. Source: Yale

Whether wildlife farming helps or hurts threatened species is a highly contested question among conservationists and food security consultants. An article written by Richard Conniff in Yale News helps us understand both sides of this controversial and lesser-known practice:

Wildlife farming is … a tantalizing idea that is always fraught with challenges and often seriously flawed. And yet it is also growing both as a marketplace reality and in its appeal to a broad array of legitimate stakeholders as a potentially sustainable alternative to the helter-skelter exploitation of wild resources everywhere.

Food security consultants are promoting wildlife farming as a way to boost rural incomes and supply protein to a hungry world. So are public health experts who view properly managed captive breeding as a way to prevent emerging diseases in wildlife from spilling over into the human population.

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