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232 J Maher and T Wyatt distribute wildlife to order, to collectors or consumers of wildlife products in the general public (Hubschle 2014) Consumer demand is recognised as the most significant driver of IWT, and financial gain is therefore the most common motivation for offending Nonetheless, motivating factors are many and complicated; they extend beyond profit to cultural practices (religion or traditions), status, entertainment and fashion (see Cowdrey 2002) Increasingly animals are captured, killed and forced to endure many kinds of abuses motivated by fascination with the latest pet trend or fashion or health craze The motivations of traders, hunters and consumers can differ significantly Organised crime groups may be motivated by financial gain, political ideologies or instability Native hunters may be motivated by status or poverty Consumers are motivated by desire rather than need wildlife trade mainly involves luxury goods Theoretical Explanations for Abuses in the IWT As noted earlier, the wildlife trade considerably impacts the animal victims Whether this trade is legal or illegal matters not to the wildlife: harms result from both because these animals are individuals who have intrinsic value and interest in living unharmed (see Regan’s (1983) ‘subjects-of-a-life’) Thus, the harms approach taken in green criminology (South et al 2013) is a helpful place to begin explaining abuses in the trade The idea of species justice (Beirne and South 2007; White 2013) is particularly useful, both in highlighting the difficulty in explaining harm in the trade and also for understanding why offenders are motivated to harm Human interests, being anthropocentric and speciesist (Beirne 1999), usually override those of non-human species, creating prejudice leading to the exploitation and harm of wildlife in ways that are often deemed legal Essentially, as long as wildlife are identified as ‘property’, ‘commodity’, ‘product’ or ‘natural resource’, their needs and interests are ignored, and they will experience abuse Within the illegal trade, this is exacerbated as consideration for the animal’s welfare is unlikely to benefit the offender Sadly, offenders are less likely to percieve individual animals to be victims of illegal abuse if those animals can be harmed by legal means; their actions are more easily justified and rationalised Sustained by human interests manifest in capitalism and consumerism, (White 2013) arguably, both economics and speciesism must be central to any explanation of abuse