Etsy.com: Stop treating endangered animals as products!

[Update, 5/31: As we've recently learned from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services, it is not only illegal to sell any products made from endangered animals, including “vintage” items, to a buyer in another state, it's also prohibited under the Endangered Species Act to offer such products for sale in another state, including on a website like Etsy.

Etsy should not allow any products made with parts of endangered animals to be listed on their site, regardless of their age.

Etsy's existing policies ban "illegal animal products" from their site. However, they don’t provide any details on what this entails. As they are offered for sale across state lines, many of the so-called “pre-ban” items made with parts of endangered animals currently for sale on Etsy appear to be listed illegally. Others, in particular the hundreds of items containing ivory, may or may not be illegal, depending on their provenance. As it is often difficult for sellers or buyers to assess where a particular item is from and when it was made, it’s next to impossible to determine if it can be legally sold even within the borders of a state.                                                                                                                                                  

Etsy’s lack of a clear policy prohibiting ALL products made with parts of endangered animals not only leaves the site vulnerable to being exploited as an outlet for illegally poached products from endangered animals, it also puts sellers and buyers at risk, potentially leaving them open to legal repercussions.

We've shared this ew information we've received from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services with Etsy and reaffirmed our request that they step up and close the door on the trade of parts of endangered animals once and for all.]
Petition text: 

The world’s leading craft marketplace, Etsy.com, is complicit in selling endangered animal products including snow leopard fur! Among the products listed on the site right now is a woman’s coat advertised with “genuine real snow leopard fur” collar. [UPDATE, 5/30 - the coat is now no longer advertised as containing "real snow leopard fur". Instead, the listing reads "real leopard fur" - as if it made a difference.]

We believe that Etsy should follow the lead of online retailers such as Ebay, Amazon or iOffer and adopt a policy banning any product made with parts of endangered animals from their site altogether.

Poaching remains one of the main threats facing many endangered species such as the snow leopard. As long as their fur is offered and bought as a fashionable accessory, this threat will remain acute. As it is a “vintage” product, the coat listed on Etsy can be legally sold within state borders. However, we don't believe it should be! Currently, Etsy.com has no wildlife-friendly policy regarding the sale of parts of endangered species, and there are several listings for such products on the platform.

Sign this petition if you agree and ask Etsy's CEO Chad Dickerson to prohibit the listing of any part, pelt, or skin from endangered species listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) of Wild Fauna and Flora, such as snow leopards, cheetahs, jaguars, leopards, mountain zebras and Hartmann mountain zebras, sable antelopes, and tigers.

Mr. Dickerson, endangered animals aren't products - so please stop treating them as such!