Cocoa Beach, Florida, USA. 7th October, 2016. Kaleigh Black, 14, left, and Amber Olsen, 12, run for cover as a squall with rain and wind pelt them while they explore the Cocoa Beach Pier on Friday (10/7/16) after hurricane Matthew passed to the east on Florida's east coast.(Photo by Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times/ZUMA Wire/Alamy Live News)

A dramatic rise in owning exotic pets in China is fuelling global demand for threatened species. The growing trade in alligators, snakes, monkeys, crocodiles and spiders is directly linked to species loss in some of the world’s most threatened ecosystems. Here: A fennec fox (Vulpes zerda) is groomed in a pet store in central Beijing. Native to the Sahara in North Africa, the species became a popular pet after being depicted as a character in Disney’s 2016 animated movie Zootopia. Individuals can cost between $2,000–$3,000. (Photo by Sean Gallagher/The Guardian)

Shoppers walk past crocodiles for sale at a market in Bata on February 3, 2015. Markets in Equatorial Guinea sell a variety of animals including pangolins, monkeys and crocodiles as food. (Photo by Carl de Souza/AFP Photo)

Students of the Krasnoyarsk choreographic college Anastasia Shevtsova (R) and Yulia Lyakhovykh do leg-splits as they study for an exam and a performance by the graduates at the State Theatre of Opera and Ballet, at the college's campus in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia, May 4, 2017. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

Artist Le Pustra and organiser Else Edelstahl pose for a picture at Simon Dach Strasse, a street filled with many bars, in Berlin, Germany, August 28, 2016. Else Edelstahl organises the party series “Boheme Sauvage”, in which people dress up in 1920s style, celebrating Berlin nightlife of a past era. (Photo by Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters)

An overcrowded dinghy with migrants from different African countries is followed by members of the German NGO Jugend Rettet as they approach the Iuventa vessel during a rescue operation, off the Libyan coast in the Mediterranean Sea September 21, 2016. (Photo by Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)

A ring-tailed lemur sunbakes at Melbourne Zoo in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on December 21 2016. (Photo by Julian Smith/EPA)

A relative of a victim of the Ukraine International Airlines PS 752 plane that crashed after taking off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini airport reacts at Boryspil International Airport, outside Kiev, Ukraine on January 8, 2020. (Photo by Serhii Nuzhnenko/Reuters)