( applause )

Juliana: Today I would like to invite you

on a journey to show you not judgmentally

but why we shouldn't keep wild animals

from wild species as pets.

Wildlife trafficking globally encompasses

many ways of exploiting wildlife

as it was very well shown here.

From the production of souvenirs

to the creation in food items,

luck, religious charms, fashion accessories.

Substances to supply the drug industry or cosmetic industry.

Rare animals to supply the international

pet trade for collectors and zoos,

and the illegal wild pet trade.

Brazilians have a strong connection to nature.

And as such, they love to have wild animals

with them in their houses

as an accepted cultural trait.

Throughout my country, from urban centers

to the most remote rural areas,

the bucolic site of a house displaying

cages without wild animals is very common.

House owners display their cages with pride

as they show their love and admiration

for nature and the animals.

They usually buy these animals from

normal street markets.

They have no idea about the relationship

with buying their dear animals

with the poaching and wildlife trafficking.

As a good Brazilian myself, I too have

a strong connection to nature.

Since my early years, I learned from my parents

a deep love, respect, and admiration

for all living things.

I still miss my pet hen today.

I began learning about wildlife trafficking in Brazil

when I met the organization SOS Fauna and their work.

I could not get over

the ridiculous volume of animals

being illegally collected, transported,

sold, and kept just so that some people

could have their wild pets.

As a good example, as you see here,

this cargo was in just one truck

and it was carrying more than 4,000 poached animals

to supply the pet trade.

I had to do something.

I just could not go home and put my head to rest

on the pillow at night.

I started volunteering for the organization.

We don't have one estimate from the government

and numbers are very hard to come by

but let's try to make the picture a little bit clearer.

From 2002 to 2009, federal triage facilities

received from collections, deliveries, and seizures

more than 307,000 animals altogether

with a mean of 38,000 per year.

However, these numbers may be even bigger

as just the state of São Paulo alone in 2006

seized more than 3,000 animals.

Also, trying to use scientific methodology

to try to estimate these numbers,

two researches from Brazil analyzed

eight street markets.

They concluded that these markets alone

could be illegally trading per year

more than 50,000 poached birds

valued at 630,000 dollars per year.

If we remember that Brazil has over 5,000 cities

and each one has at least one of those markets,

then we start to be able to grasp about the volume

that we are talking about.

Withdrawing numerous animals

from a couple of species from nature on a regular basis

has many consequences.

The most obvious is the lack of animal welfare.

These creatures endure so much suffering

through violent collection and transportation methods

and then endure a lifetime captivity

without social interaction or exercise.

Most times in places which are humid, hot,

and without adequate food sources.

But there are more profound consequences.

I am risking a little bit of an oversimplification here

but let's try to understand

what happens to the environment

when you take animals and species

that have unique ecological roles.

Types of plants growing in the ecosystem

will be altered if seed predation rates change.

Also, if trees depend on a specific species

to disperse their seeds,

they will have reduced dispersal capacity.

Also, the ecosystem will have

decreased regeneration ability.

If predators are missing,

prey species may experience explosion in populations

which can even become pest to our agriculture.

On the other hand, when prey species are missing,

predators may experience decrease in their population sizes

which can effect all connected species.

Lastly, when less individuals are left to reproduce,

this can lead to more genetically similar populations

which in extreme cases can even contribute

to the populations or the species extinction.

Some people, among them some researchers

who I respect very much,

have proposed that we do commercial

captive breeding of wild species

in order to supply demand

without exploiting nature.

This obviously has many advantages.

Yes, in theory it could supply demand

for wild animals as pets.

We could learn and acquire precious knowledge

on how to maintain the species in captivity

which could be used in future conservation efforts.

You could create an industry with lots of jobs.

However, there are disadvantages.

Keeping wild animals in captivity

is per se a source of suffering.

Also, being in a relevant business could also

bring about many political interests

and this would probably shape our ultimate goal

of conserving wild species.

Lastly, when we do captive breeding of wild animals

with commercial purposes,

it becomes very difficult

to promote effective control and law enforcement of this activity,

making it very easy and profitable

to make poached animals

look like they were bred in captivity,

what we call bird laundering.

There is an even worse problem.

Honest breeders invest great deals of time,

money and resources

to obtain a limited number of animals.

For example, a captive bred Blue-Fronted Amazon

can cost around 1,000 US dollars in Brazil.

Whereas a poached animal from nature

will cost 40 dollars or less.

There are way fewer people

willing to pay so much more.

What happens is the bigger consumer market

will not buy the most expensive animal.

These animals with very different origins

and very different prices

will supply very different consumer markets.

In my opinion

commercial captive breeding of wild species will not--

has not the ability to supply the big demand.

Another problem, and then we start to the solutions.

When animals which were illegally traded

or kept are seized,

they have to go through

a very complicated rehabilitation process.

And absolutely can not be released anywhere

or we will cause more bad impacts than good ones.

We have to make sure they are healthy.

We have to make sure they exhibit wild behaviors.

We have to make sure that the place

where we are releasing them is safe.

We don't want them to be recollected

and back on the black market.

But it has to be able to maintain

the new individuals as well as the natural populations.

They have to be released in the same biome

they were collected in for adaptive reasons.

Depending on the existence of

different genetic populations within each species,

they must be released as close as possible

to their true population of origin

or we can cause a severe decrease

in the offspring's adaptive potential,

following mating with the local population.

I was fortunate enough to find mentors

that fully supported my ideas.

After so many "no's" and "you are crazy's"

we decided to--

I just had to do more.

We decided that together we would develop my PhD research

in population genetics of some wild birds that are

severely exploited in Brazil for the wild pet trade.

So thank you guys.

I would just show you a couple of my results

among all the piles of data that we generated.

Meet the Red-Cowled Cardinal.

( birds chirping )

And the Green-Winged Saltator.

( birds chirping )

They are very appreciated

for their beauty and their songs.

I decided to study the species to see

if we could find different genetic populations

within each one and see the level of threat

or if we could pinpoint the origin of animals

within a known origin.

Ironically enough, we found a different population

in the species we did not expect to find.

But we did not find them in the species

we expected to find them.

It changed a little bit the way we saw this species.

This has complicated implications.

Broadly it means that releasing the Saltators

back in the wild should be less problematic

concerning the genetics criterion I just mentioned

than releasing the Red-Cowled Cardinals.

Here are the three populations of cardinals

that we were able to describe.

We would you like to know if we could infer

the most likely origin of some animals

seized in São Paulo.

These tests still need to be refined

but they indicate that these animals

are probably most likely from a population

in Northeast that is known to be a collection hot spot.

Data like this alone will not provide a final answer

but along with other sources of information

may provide a good indication and a good help

for the decision-making process

not only for prevention efforts but for releasing

in a technically responsible way.

Towards the end of my PhD,

I wanted to do everything but writing the thesis

to much the despair of my advisors.

I was still not happy because I felt my work

was really localized and still small.

I went on and along with Freeland Foundation

from southeast Asia, I started Freeland Brasil.

Trying to organize the work I was doing

and broaden the impact so we work now

with three pillars trying to accomplish

a comprehensive set of actions

against wildlife trafficking in Brazil.

The first one, education and awareness.

Amazing.

The brink of our civilization,

but a little bit too long term for us.

In this component,

among other projects, we are co-producing

a feature documentary on wild animal trafficking in Brazil.

( upbeat music )

Voiceover: (translated) I believe animals bring joy to us,

the joy of singing in its cage.

( sad music )

( monkey squeaks )

Voiceover: ( translated ) You are responsible

for all that you captivate,

not for that which you imprison.

That which you imprison, you're more than responsible,

you're the overseer.

Juliana: This should launch beginning of next year.

Also, that was not enough yet so off we went

to launch research and mitigation of impacts.

Where a student is analyzing the mitochondrial DNA

of the Saltators to see if my results can be corroborated.

I hope to start my post-PhD next semester

developing paternity tests which will be able to be used

in commercial bird breeders to help law enforcement

detect poached animals.

We also collaborate in responsible releases