New estimates shed light on the surprising makeup of the global wildlife trade.
ROUGHLY ONE OF every five animals that walks the land or plies the skies is traded internationally, according to new research published today in the journal Science. The sobering report seeks to illuminate the diversity of the known global market and predict what creatures may fall victim to it in the future.
In recent years, demand for exotic pets, furs, jewelry, and body parts used for traditional medicine has posed a serious threat to animals, including the pangolin and the helmeted hornbill. Yet although trade can rapidly drive a species toward extinction, the report notes, shipping animals across the globe doesn’t always reduce their numbers to unsustainable levels.
By marrying information from various databases on the wildlife trade, study co-lead author Brett Scheffers and colleagues hope their findings will help policymakers consider what vertebrate species require further attention and conservation resources. (Surprisingly, the vast majority of animals in the wildlife trade aren’t protected.)
“We are revealing the sheer magnitude of what this multibillion-dollar industry represents,” says Scheffers, a University of Florida conservation biologist and a National Geographic Society grantee. “We looked at over 31,000 land-dwelling species and found it was quite striking that almost 20 percent of the species are traded—that is about 40 to 60 percent higher than we previously thought.”
What’s more, his team devised a computer model that seeks to predict the species that will become part of future trade based on several factors: their unique physical characteristics (such as extraordinary coloring), genetic relatedness to creatures that are already popularly traded, and body size—in the past, larger animals have been more likely to be traded because, typically, they have lucrative attributes such as large teeth and claws and substantial amounts of meat and skin. (Here’s why elephants without tusks are in danger.)
The researchers concluded that more than 8,000 wild species might eventually be included in the global wildlife trade market—3,000 more than are now. The new total would encompass almost 30 percent of all mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles. Birds, among them various finches and weavers, are poised to join the trade, according to the analysis. So are dozens of types of horseshoe bats (their noses look like horseshoes) and beaked toads.
0 Comments