Classified advertisements are traditionally the public marketplace, the means by which one person can dispose of something no longer required and another person can pick up a much-needed bargain. In the UAE, with its transient expatriate population and unfurnished rental homes, classified websites are usually full of affordable second-hand furniture, fittings, household appliances and the like.
At the Dubaimoon souq site, an online classified service, most of the items on offer are just that: sought-after goods like cars, bikes, boats and phones. But one category of items raises serious questions about the import and sale of endangered species. As The National reported yesterday, the site has also carried advertisements for cheetahs, tigers and lions - an apparently legal grey-area in an otherwise regulated trade.
Unless you hold a Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species licence - and not many individuals do - it is illegal to buy or sell these wild animals. Penalties include confiscation, fines of up to Dh50,000 and a jail term of six months. But UAE law currently does not specify that it is illegal to advertise a wild animal for sale.
Despite the risk to animal and buyer alike, there is a big demand for trading in endangered species. Animals recently advertised on Dubaimoon - at prices of Dh18,000 for an adolescent lioness and up to Dh45,000 for a tiger cub - reportedly sold very quickly.
One Dubai resident who recently used the site to sell a young cheetah, told The National it is "not difficult to keep them as pets" because they are "friendly with anyone" - before conceding that his remaining one-year-old cheetah "might attack the kids" if given the chance.
The UAE, like many countries around the world, spends countless man hours enforcing bans on illegal possession of wildlife. And yet, as comments like these suggest, there remains a callous attitude towards the risks of buying and owning threatened and dangerous species. Clearly there is a need for better enforcement of existing laws.
A spokesman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said keeping big cats as pets was not only dangerous to humans but cruel to the animals. Blatant disregard of such self-evident ideas must not be tolerated.