This paper establishes a framework prescribing how stockpiled wildlife products might be used to increase wild populations. Whilst existing research has focussed on optimal stockpile management with a goal of profit maximisation, the framework developed here focusses on animal conservation instead. In this model, the owner of the animal population is the Stackelberg leader, releasing stockpile in each period to lower prices, incentives to poach, and therefore conserving the population. It is found that, even with the assumption that institutional arrangements could be robust enough to support a legalised trade, the economics suggest a trade is not guaranteed to improve long term conservation prospects of the species. In the absence of private sector speculation, a legalised trade could be used to sustainably conserve a rhino population when extinction would otherwise occur. However, with the introduction of speculation, there comes a point where speculative attack on the remaining stockpile is highly profitable, leading to extinction of the species