A Melbourne University study identifies major unknowns in wildlife-trade governance: most exchanges are legal, but data gaps hinder assessing their impact on animal populations.
Wildlife Trade
The wildlife trade encompasses more than double the number of species previously estimated. A study led by the University of Melbourne, published in Science Advances, identifies 107,356 species of animals, plants, and fungi that are used or traded worldwide, versus roughly 50,000 in earlier estimates. The researchers warn that the real figure could be even higher.
This market touches an ever-growing number of species and goes far beyond elephants, tigers, or pangolins. It involves timber, seafood, medicinal plants, flowers and pets, and the majority of its operations are legal. The problem is that for many species, it is unknown how much is taken from the wild, where it originates, and whether their populations can withstand that pressure.
The study, led by Alice Hughes, points to a decisive weakness: without complete records it is difficult to detect when trade begins to cause a decline. Generic customs categories, incomplete documentation, and the lack of information sharing between countries leave major gaps in biodiversity protection.
Overexploitation of Wildlife
One of the greatest threats to biodiversity is the overexploitation of wildlife, but how far does it go? Previous estimates suggested that around 50,000 species of plants, animals, and fungi were traded and used globally, but a new study reveals that figure underestimates reality.
The first comprehensive estimate of wildlife overexploitation shows that this international market affects more than 107,000 species, but the figure could be much higher, because this trade is managed almost blind, with little knowledge about how much is extracted, how much remains in the wild, or whether ecosystems can endure it.
The details of the work, led by the University of Melbourne (Australia), were published this Friday in the journal Science Advances.
«When we think of wildlife trade, we tend to picture elephants, tigers, and pangolins. But it is much more than that: the sale of wildlife includes timber, seafood, medicinal plants, pets, flowers, ornamental fish, and fungi, «and the vast majority of it is legal«, laments the study’s lead author, Alice Hughes.
The analysis, in fact, suggests that the legal trade “not only is worth roughly ten times more than the illegal trade, but also includes at least twice as many species in the market as previously believed” and for most of them there are “very little data or none.”
«No data exist on quantity and origin to assess whether the trade poses a risk to the survival of species», laments Hughes. And without data, it is impossible to accurately assess what risks biodiversity faces or “identify when the trade is driving species toward decline“, she warns.
Deficiencies in Wildlife Trade Oversight
The work points to several reasons why the global system for monitoring wildlife trade does not function effectively.
The first is that international treaties such as CITES only monitor endangered species, which represent less than 2% of global trade, while the remaining 98% can travel the world without undergoing a systematic record.
The only exception is the LEMIS database of the United States, which is “the only country that systematically records and publicly shares trade data across a broad range of sectors. In much of the rest of the world, there simply aren’t equivalent data,” explains Hughes.
Other reasons include that customs labels are very vague and only reflect generic categories such as ‘fish’ or ‘reptile skin’, which masks the real impact on species, and that, in this trade, plants, fungi, insects, and reptiles—highly sought after as pets—pass almost completely unnoticed in this global traffic.
Finally, the study warns that after seizures for illegal trafficking, records do not specify what was intercepted or the country of origin, on top of which most countries still rely on paper procedures, which are easy to mislay and difficult to share with other states.
Thus, without knowing precisely which species it is, where it comes from, or how many individuals remain free in the wild, “it is impossible to guarantee that wildlife trade will not lead to silent extinctions,” concludes the study.
A 180-Degree Turn
In light of these data, the authors call for a radical shift in how this trade is recorded and reported.
«To change the current situation, we need to standardize data collection on trade. Today, data are largely limited to a small number of sources, and this lack of data systematization prevents sustainability assessments or our ability to manage the trade’s impacts», says Hughes.
«If we truly want to curb biodiversity loss, we need much more complete, transparent, and globally coordinated reporting on wildlife trade», the researcher concludes.
The United States: A Practical Example
Putting numbers on the number of individual specimens helps to better grasp the scale of this market. A previous study by Hughes’ team, based on U.S. import records from 2000 to 2022, counted approximately 2.85 billion animals, corresponding to around 21,000 animal species. The figures pertain to a single market and illustrate the value of tracking each shipment: without equivalent information in other major destinations, it is difficult to reconstruct trade routes and evaluate the cumulative pressure on source populations.
