The dark web is home to a thriving trade of wild plants, fungi and animals, mostly being sold for use as recreational drugs, Australian researchers have found.
From magic mushrooms to psychedelic toads, researchers from the University of Adelaide discovered scores of plant, fungi, and animal species being sold on unregulated online black markets.
In a journal last week, the team of researchers outlined the findings of their dark web deep dive, where they identified 153 wild plant, fungi and animal species offered for trade in 3,332 advertisements over five years on dark web platforms.
"We are amidst a human-driven mass extinction event, where the direct harvesting of wildlife constitutes one of the greatest threats to biodiversity and species survival," they wrote.
"The trade in wildlife presents severe conservation, biosecurity, and ethical problems."
What’s being sold and who’s buying it?
The team of researchers trawled a database of 51 dark web marketplaces, led by Dr Phill Cassey from the Invasion Science and Wildlife Ecology Lab at the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute.
Plants were the most commonly traded kingdom, comprising 58 per cent of wild species-related advertisements, followed by fungi (39 per cent) and animals (3 per cent).
Known for its use as a psychedelic, psilocybe cubensis, colloquially referred to as 'magic mushrooms' was the most commonly traded species with 1,189 advertisements identified on the dark web.
Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms are often sold on the dark web. Source: Getty / The Washington Post
"While we did find small numbers of animals traded, the vast majority of advertisements were for plants and fungi," Dr Cassey said.
"Most plants were advertised for their use as drugs, often as psychedelics, but some for their purported medicinal properties.
"Fungi and animals were also traded for use as drugs, including the infamous Colorado River toad, which is known for its ability to exude toxins from glands within its skin that have psychoactive properties.”
Jurema bark in Brazil. Source: Getty / AGB Photo Library
"They're targeting non-traditional psychoactive compounds, psychedelic experiences, but who [the buyers] exactly are, is unknown to us," he said.
"But an awareness that these products are being sold, and that there is pressure on these species for the sale, I think is important."
What kinds of animals were traded and why?
Animals were traded for a range of use-types, including clothing (for example furs and skins), drugs, decorative purposes, pets, medicine and food, the study said.
Of the 18 animal species advertised, the two most common were the raccoon, which was traded for its fur, and the Colorado River toad, which was traded because its secretions contain psychoactive properties.
The toad is in demand due to the poison in its parotid glands, which contains 5-MeO-DMT, a compound that is used as a psychedelic drug.
The secretions of the Colorado River toad (incilius alvarius) contain psychoactive properties. Credit: Mark Newman/Getty Images
"We were looking to find trade in wildlife, mostly of illegal products on the dark web, which we did, but the sort of things that you associate with popular wildlife trade markets, the big ticket items, like rhino horns, big cat bones, elephant ivory, pangolin scales, we didn't find in large numbers," he said.
"Generally, the wildlife being traded [on the dark web] was being traded for the purpose of recreational drug and medicinal use, rather than the sorts of trade uses that you find on the open web, which are more for the live exotic pets."
The raccoon is traded for its fur. Source: Getty / NurPhoto
"One of the risks, of course, of regulating and surveying the open web more and closing some of the channels to trade on these open marketplaces is that in the future, you might find trade being pushed into these deeper web sites, he said.
"So we still need to keep monitoring them. And we need to close down the options for people who are trading wildlife illegally."
