Internet threat to rare species

THE internet has emerged as one of the greatest threats to rare species, fuelling the illegal wildlife trade and making it easier to buy everything from live baby lions to wine made from tiger bones, conservationists said yesterday.

The web’s impact was made clear at the meeting of the 175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES. Delegates voted overwhelmingly yesterday to ban the trade of the Kaiser’s spotted newt which the World Wildlife Fund says has been devastated by the internet trade.

The United States and Sweden, meanwhile, are proposing to regulate the trade in red and pink coral which is crafted into expensive jewellery and sold extensively on the web.

“This is one of the biggest challenges facing CITES,” said Paul Todd, campaign manager for the International Fund for Animal Welfare. “The internet is becoming the dominant factor overall in the global trade in protected species. There will come a time when country to country trade of large shipments between big buyers and big sellers in different countries is a thing of the past.”

The IFW has done several surveys of illegal trade on the web and found that thousands of species are sold on auction sites, classified ads and chat rooms, mostly in the United States but also Europe, China, Russia and Australia. Most of what is traded is illegal African ivory, but the group has also found exotic birds along with rare products such as tiger-bone wine and pelts from protected species like polar bears and leopards.

A separate 2009 survey by Campaign Against the Cruelty to Animals targeted the Internet trade in Ecuador, finding offers to sell live capuchin monkeys, lion cubs and ocelots.