Facebook animal trade exposed in Thailand

By Chris BaraniukTechnology reporter

10 September 2018

More than 1,500 listings of live animals for sale have been found on Facebook in Thailand by a wildlife trafficking watchdog.

Traffic, which monitors such activity, said many of the species, despite having international protection, were not native to the country, and so trading them was unregulated.

The listings were found on 12 Facebook groups during one month in 2016.

Facebook said it did not allow the trade of endangered species.

Among the 200 different species listed for sale were two non-native species banned from international commercial trade - the Eurasian otter and the black spotted turtle.

Some of the animals for sale which are banned from international commercial trade are native to Thailand, such as the helmeted hornbill and Siamese crocodile - which are both critically endangered - and the Asiatic black bear.

Although only one helmeted hornbill was discovered for sale, Traffic said the critical status of the species meant that any number taken out of wild populations would have "serious implications" for its survival.

Traffic's findings are to be published this week in a report on the use of Facebook for animal trading in Thailand.

Continued  

Amphibian Diseases Flow Through Animal Trade - via Herp Digest

by Sarah Zielinsky, 3/13/1, Science News

Millions of amphibians are sold in Hong Kong and exported, including to the United States. Diseased animals may be spreading diseases such as the chytrid fungus, say scientists.

Disease isn’t the biggest killer of amphibians — that would be habitat loss — but it can be the quickest. And the chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) in particular has been a huge worry for scientists and anyone else who cares about the world’s frogs, toads, salamanders and newts. The disease spreads through water and skin contact (mating, for instance, can be dangerous), infecting the skin of the animal and disrupting its ability to absorb water. Amphibians rely on that water absorption to control electrolyte levels; when that’s disrupted, it usually leads to death. Some 3,900 species are thought to be in trouble because of the disease, and 165 have probably gone extinct.

If that weren’t enough, ranaviruses have also been associated with dieoffs of many amphibian species. These viruses spread through a variety of routes, including cannibalism. With symptoms ranging from lethargy to organ failure, detecting the disease is rarely straightforward.

Just how these diseases move around the world isn’t always certain, but the global trade in amphibians is probably contributing.

The amphibian trade is far bigger than the movement of a few frogs and toads through pet stores. More than 100 million amphibians are harvested from the wild each year, and millions more are raised to be sold for meat, pets, scientific research and even for religious ceremonies. That’s a lot of frogs moving around the world.

Hong Kong is a global hub for this trade; the United States, for example, imported 3.6 million live amphibians from Hong Kong from 2006 through 2010. But many of those animals may carry disease, Jonathan Kolby of James Cook University in Australia and colleagues report March 5 in PLOS ONE.

The researchers randomly sampled amphibian shipments from Hong Kong when they arrived in the United States, swabbing amphibians in the shipments and taking samples of the water in which they arrived and testing the swabs and water for DNA of the chytrid fungus and ranavirus. They found the chytrid fungus in 11.7 percent of amphibians tested and five of eight water samples examined (most amphibians are shipped in water). And they discovered ranavirus in 56.8 percent of animals and three out of four shipments.

Shippers may not be deliberately trading in diseased animals. Often when amphibians are infected with the chytrid fungus or ranavirus, they don’t show any symptoms, such as lesions, which can make identifying sick animals difficult. In the study, only 21.3 percent of the animals that tested positive for chytrid or ranavirus arrived dead or had visible lesions.

When the animals arrive in the United States, they can spread the pathogens both through the water they arrived in and the accidental or deliberate release of the amphibians into the wild. The traditional Buddhist practice of releasing animals as a symbol of piety, for example, is thought to be contributing to the spread of the chytrid disease.

And the sanitation practices of the traders probably aren’t helping matters. The World Organization for Animal Health suggests that any water, containers or anything else that comes in contact with amphibians be cleaned and disinfected before disposal. But those recommendations aren’t enforced in Hong Kong. That puts local wildlife at risk, say Kolby and colleagues. If a trader just dumps out a tank of frog water, he might be letting lose a dangerous fungus or virus, which can persist for weeks and potentially infect native amphibians.

With these pathogens continuing to spread, it would appear that the wildlife trade needs some attention.

Amphibian owners can also do their part by quarantining new animals, practicing good hygiene and keeping their animals from escaping to the wild and potentially spreading disease.

Czech national's attempt to take 247 animals on plane foiled

Man tried to take 247 animals on plane

A Czech national was nabbed in Argentina for trying to board a transatlantic flight with 247 live animals including poisonous snakes and endangered reptiles packed in a bulging suitcase, reports said Monday.


The man identified as Karel Abelovsky, 51, was caught while trying to board a flight for Madrid when shocked baggage X-ray technicians and staff at the Iberia Airlines desk at Ezeiza Airport in greater Buenos Aires noticed "organic substances moving inside," local media reported.

When they opened the bag, they found more than 200 reptiles and mollusks, among them nine species of poisonous snakes including South American pitvipers, packed in clear plastic containers.

There were also 15 venomous vipers, including two yararas -- which can measure up to 1.50 meters (five feet) -- and several young boas.

Some of the animals were reported to be extremely rare and protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

Two of the animals were found dead and most of the others could have suffered the same fate due to a lack of oxygen if the suitcase had been placed in the plane's cargo area.

The discovery was made on December 7 but only recently came to light. A judge has charged Abelovsky with attempted smuggling, and he faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

Researchers suspect that an exotic species smuggling ring was behind the trafficking attempt.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/man-tried-247-animals-plane-165607892.html

Women hold key to solving wildlife trade issues in Amazon (Via Herp Digest)

Women hold key to solving wildlife trade issues in Amazon
Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Quito, Ecuador, 22nd February 2011-TRAFFIC is applying new approaches to reducing illegal and commercial hunting in Yasuní Biosphere Reserve in Amazonian Ecuador. 

Instead of a traditional approach targeting male hunters, TRAFFIC and project partners are instead working through existing womens' groups in indigenous communities, such as the Huaorani, to reduce the illicit trade in wild meat that is threatening many of the region's wildlife species.



The Yasuní Biophere Reserve (YBR) in Ecuador is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. The Yasuní National Park, which lies at the core of the reserve, is one of Ecuador's largest protected areas (approximately 982,000 ha.). It contains the Napo Tropical Moist Forest, and is the headwaters of many rivers of the upper Amazon basin. 

"It was clear that the women in local communities already understood the issues caused by unsustainable wildlife trade, making them natural allies in efforts to change attitudes towards over-exploitation of the rainforest' resources," said Ana Puyol,

Many of the women were concerned about the sale of wild meat to outside markets, and the effects of over-exploitation both on their own food security and on their local environment. 

"Women have a strategic role to play on the sustainable use of Amazonian biodiversity and in indigenous land management, and have a wealth of traditional knowledge and practices, which are key to addressing this issue." 

"By working with local women, we are helping to empower them and strengthen opportunities for reflection and decision-making." 

"From the outset, men among the community have been consulted as part of the process too-widespread community buy-in for any solution to over-exploitation is essential for it to be successful in the long-term." 

Ecuadorian legislation prohibits the sale of wildlife while recognizing the rights of rural dwellers to engage in subsistence hunting. 

However, wildlife from YBR is massively illegally exploited for commercial purposes, mainly for consumption by Amazonian urban populations.

The excessive hunting of large mammals has caused their populations to decline or be threatened with extinction both outside and on the edges of conservation and sustainable use areas.

This is progressively degrading the quality and integrity of these areas, with unpredictable consequences for the social and ecological future of such reserves, reducing the quality of their natural environments. 



Another serious consequence of the unsustainable wild meat trade is its effect on the food sovereignty of local and indigenous peoples and their opportunities to maintain long-term sustainable livelihoods strategies, as rodents and wild pigs are their main sources of protein. 

Led by AMWAE, a local womens group, with support from TRAFFIC and two programme partners, selected communities have been involved in dialogue both to recognize the extent of the problem and to establish commitments to reduce the scale of the external wildlife trade while securing sufficient meat for local needs. 

An agreement has been signed between AMWAE and Fundación Natura (one of the programme partners) committing communities not to tra!
de wildlife, but rather to work to ensure their families are adequately fed and their lands are sustainably protected and managed. 

A commitment was also made not to hunt tapirs (highly endangered mammals in the Amazon), even for subsistence purposes.



The dialogues have also examined alternative sources of income for local communities. These include cultivation of fine aroma cocoa, a native species with high export value, promoted under a scheme to ensure indigenous communities are treated equitably in the trading process, as well as production of fruit from citrus and avocado trees and traditional foods such as cassava and plantain. 

There are also plans to support hunters in producing handicrafts for sale at AMWAE-run stores to generate income to compete with the illegal sale of wild meat.

Currently the project is working with nine strategically selected communities in two areas of the YBR, with more than 70 Huaorani families and an impact on approximately 200,000 ha of tropical forests. 

"The project has demonstrated how strengthening womens' political leadership on illegal hunting issues substantially improves governance at the organizational and community levels," said Puyol.

"These have laid the foundation for participatory work with a vision for change."

TRAFFIC's work in YBR is carried out through a project on "Diminishing Illegal Wildlife Trade in the Yasuní Biosphere Reserve (YBR)" funded by the Spanish Development Cooperation Agency, AECID, led by IUCN/TRAFFIC, and implemented jointly by two strategic members of IUCN: Fundación Natura and the Randi Randi Group Corporation.
Article originally appeared on TRAFFIC (http://www.traffic.org/).

Food fight: Controversy a New Over Live-Animal Markets (Via Herp Digest)

Food fight: Controversy a New Over Live-Animal Markets
By Malcolm Maclachlan | 02/03/11 12:00 AM PST

When the California Fish and Game Commission meets in Sacramento this week, live animal markets won't be high on the agenda.

But after a near miss last year at limiting and regulating vendors who sell live turtles and frogs for food, and banning numerous species from these markets, several groups plan on pushing the idea during the commission's meeting on Thursday.

This is the latest round in an obscure but hard-fought battle that combines ethnic politics and the animal rights movement. When members of the commission attempted to ban the importation of turtles and frogs for food last year, a half-dozen Asian-American legislators joined together to block the idea, noting that the animals were traditional to the Asian diet.


The de facto leader of that group, Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, is now viewed as the front-runner to replace Gavin Newsom as mayor of San Francisco. The heavily Asian city, with its famed Chinatown, is ground zero of the live-animal market fight.

Meanwhile, the other side joins the unlikely bedfellows of Bay Area animal rights activists and a conservative southern California developer who has been their main voice on the commission. Commissioner Dan Richards has been a major donor to Republicans in California, but he's also supported a ban on turtle and frog imports on the grounds that they could worsen the state's problems with invasive species.

After 15 years of efforts by animal groups, the Commission voted last March to ban bringing frogs and turtles into the state for food. Eric Mills, coordinator of the Oakland-based group Action for Animals and one of the driving forces behind the ban, said that these markets import about 300,000 turtles into the state each year for human consumption. He is one of those planning on speaking at the meeting this week.

Mills said the representatives from the Humane Society, Defenders of Wildlife, Animal Switchboard and other groups will be on hand.

This decision to ban the import of these animals led Yee to join with five Asian-American Democrats - including four current members of the Assembly and one former lawmaker -- to send a letter to the Commission: Mike Eng of Monterrey Park, Paul Fong of Mountain View, Warren Furutani of Long Beach, Fiona Ma of San Francisco and former Assemblyman Ted Lieu of Torrance. They signed the May 4 letter to commission members urging them to oppose an import ban.

The letter stated that it was "disturbing" that the regulation "appears to disproportionately target Asian-American owned businesses" and implied that the commission didn't "proactively seek the involvement" of members of "the Asian-American community." The letter also noted that the regulation would not affect pet stores, where someone could buy an animal and release it into the wild.

Yee, Ma and Lieu also were on a May 20 teleconference with the commission where they again spoke out against the proposal.

"For over 5,000 years, it has been the practice of both the Chinese community and the Asian-American community to consume these particular animals," Yee said in his testimony. "They are part of our staple. They are part of our culture. They are part of our heritage."

This led to a testy exchange with Richards, in which the commissioner wondered whether Yee was concerned about invasive species. Richards also brought up the trade in bear parts, used in some traditional Chinese medicines.

"The state is being permeated with invasive species across the board," Richards said.

In the end, the commission opted to continue to study the issue and ordered a California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review, essentially shelving the idea rather than issuing a strong regulation. The Fish and Game Department operates separately from the Commission, but generally enforces regulations the commission hands down.

Yee has been a strong environmental and animal-rights vote for many years. He's received perfect voting scores from numerous environmental groups, authored several pieces of green energy and conservation legislation, and opposed allowing more hunting of black bears.

But he's long had his ire up about attacks on Asian-Americans and their culture. In recent days, he's made headlines for his fight with conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh.

On Jan. 19, Limbaugh on his radio show mocked Hu Jintao with a fake version of Chinese during the premier's visit to Washington, D.C. After Yee issued a statement demanding that Limbaugh apologize, Yee's office released a faxed death threat against the lawmaker that stemmed from Yee's criticism against Limbaugh. The radio host declined.

Yee also targeted women golfers.

On Jan. 18, he introduced SB 111, which would add protections for "language rights" into the state's civil rights act. The bill was inspired by a short-lived 2008 effort by the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) to suspend players who do not speak English. Players from Korea, Japan and Taiwan held 14 of the tour's top 25 spots according to the Jan. 31 rankings.

"It just seems like there is an assault on Asian culture and staples of their communities," said Yee's chief of staff, Adam Keigwin. "Senator Yee is not just going to sit idly by while that happens."

Mills has a different take: "The six legislators who signed that letter have been really good votes on animal and environmental issues overall. But when push comes to shove, they play the race card."

Former Fish and Game warden Miles Young takes issue with the idea that a ban is an affront to anyone's culture. For one thing, he said, the main turtle species involved is the red-eared slider, a turtle that is native to neither Asia nor California. These animals have been imported in huge numbers from southeastern states like Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina.

"Literally millions of turtles from those states have been shipped to our live animal markets out here," Young said. "There's hardly a 5,000-year history of red-eared sliders."

Even while their numbers are plummeting in Dixie, Young added, they're now loose in several places around California - including in the Capitol grounds (though they are generally inactive this time of year, going into to an amphibian version of hibernation known as brumation.

"Go to the pond in the Capitol," Young said. "You're not going to see western pond turtles, our native species. You'll see red-eared sliders."

Young spent 27 years as a warden - most of it on the urban beat of San Francisco, and much of that in Chinatown. He said he had good relations with many business owners in the area. But after retiring in 2004, he's become a volunteer expert consultant to many animal groups on the live market issue.

Current California law calls for animals to be killed before a customer can take them away. But both Mills and Young said this often doesn't happen. Mills pointed to a 1997 report from the San Francisco Sunset Beacon newspaper detailing how a group of more than two dozen people were detained by wardens pouring sack-loads of turtles and frogs into Lake Merced, a freshwater lake near the beach in San Francisco.

When asked if he had worked that particular incident, Young said he couldn't remember because he had come across similar situations too many times during his time with as a warden.

In many cases, he added, these releases appeared to be related to Buddhist religious rituals, or sometimes are just the work of well-meaning people. Non-native species introduced in this way can not only out-compete natives but spread diseases like the Chytrid Fungus, a fungal infection that has been blamed for the extinction of over 100 species of amphibians since the 1970s.

RI calls for world action to stop trade of rare species

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, JAKARTA | Thu, 09/16/2010 9:13 AM | National

Indonesia called on parties to the UN biodiversity convention to stop receiving illegally traded endangered species, or loss of biodiversity would continue.

A senior official from the Forestry Ministry warned that Indonesia’s measures to protect endangered species, such as tigers and orangutans, by restoring their ailing habitats could be futile if foreign countries took no serious action to deal with illegal trade.

“It is similar to illegal logging. We could not rub it out if countries like Malaysia and China still accept illegal wood from Indonesia,” Darori, the ministry’s director general for forest protection and nature conservation, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

The two countries could be entry points for transfer of illegal timber from Indonesia to other nations, he added.

Darori made the statement as negotiators from 193 countries to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) are preparing for a two-week summit in Nagoya, Japan, to seek solutions on how to protect biodiversity.

The tenth conference of parties (COP) to the CBD would be held on Oct. 18 to Oct. 29, with the closing three days slated for ministerial meetings.

International demand for rare species is still high, Darori said.

“We recently seized three tiger skins being exported at prices between Rp 50 million [US$5,550] and Rp 100 million per pelt,” he said.

Indonesia once had Javanese and Balinese tigers, but they are now extinct. The ministry predicted there were only 500 Sumatran tigers left in the wild.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature named the Sumatran tiger as critically endangered, while the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora placed it in Appendix I, prohibiting its trade.

“We want the upcoming CBD summit to discuss illegal trade of endangered species to protect biodiversity,” Darori said.

The three big outcomes of the COP10 meeting in Nagoya would be global agreement on a new strategy, the mobilization of finance, and a new legally-binding protocol on access and benefit sharing, a statement by the secretariat of CBD said on Wednesday.

“The decisions we take now will affect biodiversity for the coming millennium. We can’t have one outcome without the others. The COP10 meeting is all or nothing,” the Convention on Biological Diversity executive secretary Ahmed Djoghlaf said.

The CBD statement specifically elaborated on biodiversity issues in Indonesia. Indonesia was labelled as one of seventeen “megadiverse” nations, and has more biodiversity than any country other than Brazil, and is home to 10 percent of the world’s flowering plant species and 12 percent of all mammals. Many of Indonesia’s species — and more than half of the archipelago’s endemic plant species — are found nowhere else on Earth.

This biodiversity provides many natural goods and services to people of Indonesia, but it faces direct threats from human activities.

Since 1997, the rate of deforestation has reached 2.4 million hectares per year, mostly due to logging, conversion for agriculture and forest fires, the statement said.

This has contributed to the increase of the items on Indonesia’s list of threatened species, which now includes 140 species of bird and 63 species of mammal.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/09/16/ri-calls-world-action-stop-trade-rare-species.html

Global Amphibian Trade Thrives on Porous Legal Framework (Via HerpDigest)

Global Amphibian Trade Thrives on Porous Legal Framework
TOBOC, 9/10/10, B2B MarketPlace

An interview on WOMM-LP, a non-commercial community radio station based in the US, between leading amphibian experts has disclosed - along with the trade and consumption of frogs and other related live forms, humans were piling up ecological disaster beyond climate change repair process. Dr Laurel Neme's, a wildlife writer and an international consultant specialized in natural resource management, interview with Alejandra Goyenechea, International Counsel at Defenders of Wildlife and Chair of the Species Survival Network's (SSN) Amphibian Working Group, in her own radio series has been able to give a clear picture on this issue.

The excerpts from "The Wildlife with Laurel Neme," a program that explores the mysteries of the animal world through interviews with scientists and other wildlife investigators thoroughly map out the dangers awaiting humans due to the reckless exploitation of amphibian population. The interview discussed various issues ranging from habitat loss, climate change, pollution, invasive species and disease to over-exploitation of amphibians, particularly frogs.

Furthermore, in the course of the discourse it also unraveled the existence of a surreal world of amphibian trade which includes frogs being turned beyond delicacies to pets, medicines and in scientific research. Major threat to the decimation of amphibian population has been from extensive legal and illegal trade resultant of the diversity of frog applications.

Goyenechea claimed that frogs could provide an ensemble of the quality of eco-system plus had anti-biotic and anti-tumor properties that could be taken from their skin. While Neme contributed by clarifying they were not only like canaries in a coal mine for environmental quality but had medicinal properties, and help us control insect-borne diseases and reducing pests. But even Neme was surprised to learn from Goyenechea that pregnancy tests had a frog history behind.

The amphibian expert said the US imported 4,000 tons of frog legs from 1998 to 2002, and from 2003 to 2007, more than 11,000 live amphibians imported from Latin America to the US were endangered or vulnerable with 99.6 percent coming from the wild.

According to Goyenechea, the frog leg trade at $40mn annually is way beyond danger mark though it seems pretty low in comparison with the fish trade at $42bn and the beef trade at $26bn per annum, as the frogs are largely sourced from the wild.

Goyenechea pointed out that the present regulations by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) or any other international laws did not have the ability to put tabs on amphibian trade. She laid out a host of reasons for that including understaffing, lack of continuing education programs for law enforcement officers, inadequate funds for implementation and most importantly, the absence of strong and uniform international trade laws cutting across trade zones.

First wild born cheetah for 40 years in Arabia

April 2010. The last known Arabian cheetah was shot in Saudi Arabia in 1950, though they may have hung on in Oman until around 1970. Now 4 cubs have been born in the wild in a nature reserve on an island off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. Wildlife Extra believes that this is also the first time that cheetah have successfully been reintroduced into the wild anywhere in the world.


The cheetahs on Sir Bani Yas Island are from captive bred populations. The mother and father of the cubs, Safira and Gabriel were raised in Dubai's Wildlife Centre and the Sharjah Breeding Centre for Endangered Arabian Wildlife. The cheetahs were brought to the island as part of conservation efforts which include breeding, re-wilding, releasing into the Arabian Wildlife Park to become an integral part of the natural population control for hoofed species on the island.
Cheetahs taught to hunt for themselves


The Sir Bani Yas Island conservation team spends a great deal of time and effort into putting animals that are brought to the island from captive populations through a re-wilding programme and ensuring that the animals are trained to hunt and be self-sufficient before they are released into the Arabian Wildlife Park. Once they are released, the conservation team is removed completely from the animals' day-to-day activities, and the cheetahs, Safira and Gabriel, are a telling example of what can be achieved through re-wilding as they hunt and fend for themselves without human interference.

Low survival rate
Survival rates for cheetah cubs are very low both in the wild and captivity, and according to the conservation team, Safira, the cubs' mother, is doing an impressive job of taking care of her cubs, even though she was raised by humans. She has not yet moved the cubs from their original birth place in a small cave in the mountains. Safira is fitted with a radio collar and can be tracked and monitored by the conservation team on the island.

Arabian Oryx

The flagship specie on Sir Bani Yas is the Arabian Oryx that was introduced in 1971 and was an unprecedented success, as the animal was declared extinct in the wild by 1972. Now, there are around 400 Arabian Oryx on Sir Bani Yas Island roaming freely in the park.

Cheetah for sale in Abu Dhabi
However Wildlife Extra is distressed to find a website based in Abu Dhabi offering cheetah and ocelot kittens for sale. We stress that this is nothing to do with the Arabian Wildlife Park, but it does show that the authorities in Abu Dhabi have a a little way to go to to fully protect cheetah in Abu Dhabi. There can be no conservation while there is a commercial trade in such a rare species.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/arabia-cheetah.html