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)

Boys walk home for lunch from school in the village of Kogelo, west of Kenya's capital Nairobi, July 16, 2015. U.S. President Barack Obama visits Kenya and Ethiopia later this month. His ancestral home of Kogelo is home to Sarah Hussein Obama, his step-grandmother. The Kenyan village, burial place of Obama's father, features an open-pit goldmine, a pork butcher's, a school named after their most famous son and outdoor market stalls. Villagers get around by motorbike taxi or on foot while a donkey-cart transports water. Children, some of them named Obama in honour of the President, walk to and from school together. (Photo by Thomas Mukoya/Reuters)

Two life-size Victorian style dolls shocked Londoners morning December 3, 2015 as the creepy pair popped up at commuter hotspots across the capital to mark the launch of the world's first psychological theme park ride created by Derren Brown, coming to Thorpe Park Resort in 2016. (Photo by Matt Alexander/PA Wire)

A helicopter pours water over a wildfire with the Space Shuttle Endeavour seen through heavy smoke in the background April 27, 2011 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. (Photo by Roberto Gonzalez/Getty Images)

Racegoers react as they leave after the second day of the Grand National meeting at Aintree, northern England April 5, 2013. (Photo by Nigel Roddis/Reuters)

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A skier in a festive costume attempts to cross a pool of water at the foot of a ski slope while competing in the annual Gornoluzhnik amateur event to mark the end of the ski season at the Bobrovy Log ski resort in the suburbs of the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia, April 14, 2019. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

Lea Meyer of Team Germany falls into the water obstacle during the Women’s 3000m Steeplechase heats on day two of the World Athletics Championships Oregon22 at Hayward Field on July 16, 2022 in Eugene, Oregon. (Photo by Martin Rickett/PA Wire Press Association)

A woman wears roller skates with lights on the bottom at Rich City Skate in Richton Park, Illinois, January 12, 2015. A handful of decades-old skating venues put Chicago at the center of a vibrant African-American subculture of urban roller skate dancing that stretches from Atlanta to Detroit and from Los Angeles to New York. While mainstream roller skating has been on a long decline, a new generation of skaters travel a circuit of rinks around the country to compete and show off their moves. (Photo by Jim Young/Reuters)