The U.S. market for imported wildlife not listed in the CITES multilateral treaty
Wildlife not covered by CITES makes up the vast majority of the U.S. live wildlife trade, both in species and in volume.
By Freyja Watters, Oliver C. Stringham, Chris R. Shepherd, Phillip Cassey in Research
October 7, 2022
Abstract
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is the primary international mechanism regulating wildlife trade, but it lists only a fraction of traded species. We compared U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service import records for CITES-listed versus non-CITES-listed live wildlife and found that non-listed wildlife imports contain 3.6 times more species and 11 times the trade quantity compared with CITES-listed imports. This disparity highlights a substantial blind spot in international wildlife trade monitoring and underscores the need for expanded, non-CITES-specific trade tracking to identify emerging conservation and biosecurity risks.