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More Than Half of Surveyed Farms and Restaurants in Vietnam Said They Had Sourced Wildlife Illegally

Northern palm civet inside a wire cage
Conservation · Trade & poaching

A 2026 study of wildlife supply chains in Vietnam found that 34 of 63 surveyed farms and restaurants said they had sourced wildlife illegally. The businesses traded northern palm civets (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus), masked palm civets (Paguma larvata) and bamboo rats (Rhizomys spp.).

Fieldwork took place in two phases between December 2023 and May 2025. The researchers interviewed 43 civet and/or bamboo-rat farmers and 20 restaurant owners or staff across northern, central and southern Vietnam. They also made direct observations at 35 farms and five restaurants and conducted 44 supplementary interviews with officials, veterinarians, wildlife-trade specialists and other stakeholders.

Illegal sourcing also occurred inside registered farms

Most of the surveyed farms were formally registered at the time of the study, but 24 of 38 registered farms said they had previously operated without registration for one to nine years. Eight farms were either entirely unregistered or maintained unregistered satellite facilities. Nineteen of the 43 farmers acknowledged illegal sourcing of wild animals, while field observations and contrasting accounts indicated additional cases. The study also documented inaccurate logbooks and practices that could allow illegally sourced animals to enter apparently legal supply chains.

Restaurants mixed farmed and illegally sourced wildlife

The restaurant interviews showed a similar overlap between legal and illegal trade. Fifteen of 20 establishments obtained wildlife from hunters or intermediaries, either exclusively or alongside farmed stock. Live captive-bred and wild-caught civets and bamboo rats were also transported without the required origin certificates or transport documents. The authors note, however, that restaurants may sometimes exaggerate claims that animals are wild-caught for marketing purposes.

The sample does not represent the whole Vietnamese sector

The researchers conclude that registration, record-keeping and inspection systems can provide legal cover for illegally sourced wildlife when oversight is weak. They also caution that their purposive sample is small compared with the more than 8,000 wildlife farms operating nationally and is not statistically representative of the whole Vietnamese sector. Illegal activity is also likely to be underreported in interviews.

Sources and image credit

  1. Alonso, A. I., Nguyen, P. T. K., Cao Tien, T. D., Trinh, T. M., & van Uhm, D. (2026). From forests to chopsticks: Mapping semi-legal wildlife supply chains in Vietnam. Ambio. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-026-02462-3Primary peer-reviewed open-access article first published online 19 August 2026. The study used 63 semi-structured interviews with wildlife farms and restaurants, direct observations at 40 facilities, and 44 supplementary stakeholder interviews across northern, central and southern Vietnam to map legal and illegal supply chains involving common/northern palm civets, masked palm civets and bamboo rats.

Image: Northern/common palm civet in a cage in Kottayam district, Kerala, India, 3 October 2009. Photo: Praveenp / Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0. Representative image of captivity; not an animal from the Vietnamese study. · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source

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