Petition updateStop the sale of real seahorses on EtsyEtsy to be reported
Tee GreenCranbrook, ENG, United Kingdom
Oct 31, 2017
Hi all Thanks again for your signatures and sharing of the petition. The battle is still far from over! To update you, we are preparing a database of all sellers on Etsy who are selling seahorses. This will be presented to the US Fishand Wildlife Agency government department. A similar list will be presented to the Canadian government equivalent. We have only found one UK seller as of this date. We advised her of the law, she was very rude and said she would only remove her listing if Etsy told her to. This is what we are dealing with here - most sellers don't care about seahorses and will only remove them if told to by Etsy. Compassion, morals and breaking the law does not come into it. This gives Etsy a lot of power - they gloss over the law by saying it is the seller's responsibility to abide by the law of its country. I think it fair to say that these sellers are totally unaware of the law and the fact that they need to provide CITES evidence of being allowed to trade in seahorses. Etsy doesn't ask for this proof. The UK seller mentioned has now been reported by us to APHA, the UK government agency involved with wildlife crime. We have also now told Etsy that we are reporting them to the authorities for contravening CITES law. A letter to the relevant government agencies is being sent today. Needless to say, Etsy have not responded. Finally, I reported a seahorse listing for sale on Amazon - they sent me a reply within a day saying it will be removed and to let them know if any more appear on their site. How different they are from Etsy. Please keep sharing the petition and emailing Etsy with your thoughts - integrity@etsy.com, and jsilverman@etsy.com (he's the CEO). Thanks!
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