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The Journal of Threatened Taxa (JoTT) is dedicated to building evidence for conservaton globally by publishing peer-reviewed artcles OPEN ACCESS online every month at a reasonably rapid rate at www.threatenedtaxa.org. All artcles published in JoTT are registered under Creatve Commons Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License unless otherwise mentoned. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproducton, and distributon of artcles in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publicaton. Journal of Threatened Taxa Building evidence for conservaton globally www.threatenedtaxa.org ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) Communication A looming exotic reptile pet trade in India: patterns and knowledge gaps A. Pragatheesh, V. Deepak, H.V. Girisha & Monesh Singh Tomar 26 May 2021 | Vol. 13 | No. 6 | Pages: 18518–18531 DOI: 10.11609/jot.6998.13.6.18518-18531 For Focus, Scope, Aims, and Policies, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/aims_scope For Artcle Submission Guidelines, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/submissions For Policies against Scientfc Misconduct, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/policies_various For reprints, contact <[email protected]> The opinions expressed by the authors do not refect the views of the Journal of Threatened Taxa, Wildlife Informaton Liaison Development Society, Zoo Outreach Organizaton, or any of the partners. The journal, the publisher, the host, and the part- Publisher & Host ners are not responsible for the accuracy of the politcal boundaries shown in the maps by the authors. Member Threatened Taxa Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 May 2021 | 13(6): 18518–18531 ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) OPEN ACCESS htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.6998.13.6.18518-18531 #6998 | Received 16 December 2020 | Final received 18 March 2021 | Finally accepted 13 April 2021 COMMUNICATION A looming exotc reptle pet trade in India: paterns and knowledge gaps A. Pragatheesh 1 , V. Deepak 2 , H.V. Girisha 3 & Monesh Singh Tomar 4 1,3 Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, WCCB Northern Region, 2nd Floor Trikoot-1, Bhikaji Cama Place New Delhi 110066, India. 2 Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK. 2 Museum of Zoology (Museum fur Tierkunde), Senckenberg Dresden, A. B. Meyer Building, 01109 Dresden, Germany. 4 Wildlife Trust of India, F-13, Sector 8, Noida, Utar Pradesh 201301, India. 1 [email protected] (corresponding author), 2 [email protected], 3 [email protected], 4 [email protected] Abstract: Commercial trade of exotc reptles through CITES (the Conventon on Internatonal Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) in India is relatvely recent (<2 decades). Social media platorms and web portals are known to be used for pet trade. Exotc pet trade is not legally regulated within India. Therefore, litle is known on the scale at which this trade is carried out in India. We conducted a two-year study between 2018 and 2020 gathering informaton of exotc reptle pet trade online and summarized CITES documentaton of the yearly import export records from 1976 to 2018 by CITES secretariat. This manuscript provides a baseline for the extent of the trade, invasive species and the species traded in mainland India. We found that there is an extensive trade of exotc reptles in the country, comprising 84 species including the highly venomous species such as Bits gabonica. According to CITES records of 1976–2018, 98.6% of the reptle imports into India have not been reported to the CITES management authorites in India. We also found some evidence of trade in protected natve species through the exotc pet trade network. Furthermore, some highly threatened reptle species including many listed in Appendix I of CITES are traded in India. Keywords: CITES, disease, exotc reptles, IUCN, social media, trade. Abbreviatons: CITES—The Conventon on Internatonal Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora | IUCN—Internatonal Union for Conservaton of Nature. Editor: Raju Vyas, Vadodara, Gujarat, India. Date of publicaton: 26 May 2021 (online & print) Citaton: Pragatheesh, A., V. Deepak, H.V. Girisha & M.S. Tomar (2021). A looming exotc reptle pet trade in India: paterns and knowledge gaps. Journal of Threat- ened Taxa 13(6): 18518–18531. htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.6998.13.6.18518-18531 Copyright: © Pragatheesh et al. 2021. Creatve Commons Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproducton, and distributon of this artcle in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publicaton. Funding: This research received no fnancial support. Competng interests: The authors declare no competng interests. Author details: A. Pragatheesh is Wildlife Inspector at Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, New Delhi. His interest is Intelligence & Investgatons on Wildlife Crime. V. Deepak is currently a postdoc at the Museum of Zoology, Dresden, Germany. His research involves conservaton, macroevolutonary paterns and systematcs of reptles in South Asia. H.V. Girisha, IFS is Joint Director at Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, New Delhi. He is interested in research and investgaton in the feld of Forestry and Wildlife. Monesh Singh Tomar is conservatonist, currently working with Wildlife Trust of India. He is interested in studying Wildlife Crime in India. Author contributons: AP and VD conceived the idea. AP and MST compiled the data. AP, VD, HVG and MST evaluated, validated the data and contributed in drafing. All authors reviewed, edited and approved the submission of the fnal version of the manuscript. Acknowledgements: We thank Tilotama Varma, IPS, Additonal Director, WCCB HQ, New Delhi, Maitreya Sil, ATREE, Bangalore, Avinash Basker, Environmental Lawyer, New Delhi for reading and advising this manuscript. DV thanks late M. Ramanathan, late. R. Chandrasekar and Chandru from Chennai for their support. We thank Ms. Nilanjana Roy for preparing the map and Mr. Ajay Karthik (Madras Crocodile Bank) for helping with identfcaton of few exotc species. We would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the editors of JoTT for their constructve comments that benefted the improvement of the manuscript. 18518 Exotc reptle pet trade in India Pragatheesh et al. J TT INTRODUCTION Union for Conservaton of Nature (IUCN) Red List status. The aim of the present study is to assess the exotc Globally, the exotc pet trade has increased over reptle pet trade in India to determine: i) the extent, in the years and human induced translocaton of species terms of traded species and trade volume, ii) associated has substantally increased during the last few decades discrepancies in the CITES records, iii) potental invasive (Pimentel et al. 2008; Seebens et al. 2017). Live trade species, and iv) discuss key challenges and provide in exotc reptles is no excepton to this increasing recommendatons for monitoring. trend (Auliya et al. 2016; Hierink et al. 2020). Trade of live animals and plants is identfed as a major pathway of biological invasions (Mooney & Cleland MATERIALS AND METHODS 2001; Krishnakumar et al. 2009; Engeman et al. 2011; Lockwood et al. 2019; Mohanty & Measey 2019) and Online sale data in some cases it also leads to the spread of infectous To understand the scale of trade (legal and illegal) diseases to other natve fora and fauna including of exotc reptles in India, informaton was gathered humans (Karesh et al. 2005; van Borm et al. 2005; Pavlin from the internet including four social networking et al. 2009; Falcón et al. 2013; Mendoza-Roldan et al. applicatons (Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, and 2020). Invasive species have wreaked havoc on natve WhatsApp) and websites listng exotc animals for sale. ecosystems in diferent parts of the world and have led During the course of two years (April 2018–March 2020), to the extncton of several natve species (Savidge 1987; we monitored 75 WhatsApp groups, 26 pet networking Mooney & Cleland 2001; Jones et al. 2008; Gurevitch & groups on Facebook, 18 groups on Telegram, 11 groups Padilla 2004; Shine 2010; Simberlof & Rejmanek 2010; on Instagram, and 20 websites selling exotc reptles. Willson et al. 2011; Dorcas et al. 2012). The groups were selected based on their actvity and The internatonal trade in wildlife is estmated to be posts related to buying and selling of various reptles. worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually and has Each selected group was monitored on a daily basis and steadily increased in value (Engler 2008; Roe 2008). A websites listng exotc species for sale were surveyed virtual display of exotc animals on the internet atracts weekly; additonally, photos and advertsements were customers and it is a major outlet for trade in wildlife collected as evidence of trade and for the purpose of (Lavorgna 2014). This medium (internet and social species identfcaton by subject experts. We followed media) has also been identfed as a useful source to the guidelines on ethical decision making and internet document the scale at which the trade is carried out research (Markham & Buchanan 2012). All exotc species (Vaglica et al. 2017; Jensen et al. 2019). were identfed to the species level. These species were Approximately, 5,800 species of animals and 30,000 categorized into four groups: lizards, snakes, turtles, and species of plants are covered by CITES in order to protect crocodiles. The IUCN Red List and CITES Appendix status them from over-exploitaton by trade. India has been of the listed species were considered to assess threat a party to CITES since 1976. Currently, 897 species & levels. During the monitoring of social networking subspecies and populatons of reptles are included in platorms, eforts were made to access informaton Appendices I (87 species), II (749), and III (61), which is about the original regions/states from which partcular ~8% of the 11,050 reptle species in the world (htp:// photos or advertsements were posted with the help of www.cites.org; Uetz et al.