Wildlife farming has quietly expanded in Kenya, with little public scrutiny or legal clarity, according to a new report.
The practice involves breeding and keeping wild animals in captivity for commercial purposes, including the sale of their meat, skins, or live bodies for the pet trade or tourism
The report, Behind Bars: Lifting the Lid off Kenya’s Cruel Wildlife Farming, has revealed the hidden suffering of wild animals exploited for commercial wildlife farming in the East African nation.
The assessment was released on September 23, 2025, by World Animal Protection, a global animal welfare organisation.
It is based on months of extensive research and undercover field investigations. Fieldwork conducted in 2024 involved visiting six wildlife facilities to validate the findings from the 2023 systematic review.
A total of 1,477 animals, predominantly ostriches (700), tortoises (545), and crocodiles (177) are held in captive wildlife facilities across Kenya.
Other captive animals found included hippos, giraffes, birds of prey (such as vultures, eagles, and owls), snakes, chameleons, fish, and primates, including bush babies and baboons.
Field investigations reveal that animals are kept in cramped locations, lacking space to express natural behaviours.
Many of them suffered from parasite infestations, untreated wounds, and severe malnutrition. The facilities also lack professional veterinary care, leaving animals vulnerable to disease and suffering.
Tourism-focused facilities, which accounted for 33 per cent of the sites visited, exploit animals for entertainment through Animal-visitor interactions (AVIs). These interactions often involved direct contact, such as feeding giraffes and hippos, petting young crocodiles, or handling tethered birds. Such AVIs increase stress for the animals and pose risks to human life and health.
Despite having higher entrance fees than purely breeding facilities, the revenue tourist venues generate from AVIs was not directed towards improved animal care.
The extraction of animals from the wild for breeding purposes threatens local biodiversity and disrupts ecosystems.
Furthermore, the focus on profit-driven breeding operations, rather than species protection, highlights a significant disconnect between the claimed conservation goals of these facilities and their actual practices.
The lack of proper veterinary care and unsanitary conditions observed at many facilities pose potential public health risks. The close contact between visitors and animals during AVIs increases the risk of zoonotic disease transmission. In some venues, animals were kept in unhygienic conditions, further heightening the risk of disease spread.
The animal welfare organisation calls on the Kenyan government, corporations and individuals to act now. Stakeholders must enact policies to protect wildlife in their natural environments and to ensure that commercial exploitation ends.
The report recommends several measures for immediate, medium-term and long-term action.
Urgent actions recommended by the report include conducting a comprehensive national audit of the commercial captive facilities, launching county and national campaigns to raise awareness about the inherent animal cruelty of wildlife farming and the ethical and ecological importance of protecting wildlife in their natural habitats, prohibiting direct AVIs such as hand feeding and animal petting, and rescuing and relocating animals living in inhumane conditions to accredited sanctuaries.
In the medium term, the report recommends strengthening legislation and enforcement, including updating the Kenya Wildlife Conservation and Management Act to prioritise animal welfare and the protection of wild animals in their natural habitats. It also advocates for suspending the establishment of new facilities.
In the long term, the report calls for phasing out commercial wildlife farming and promoting sustainable alternatives such as ecotourism or conservation-based initiatives.