Urban wild meat consumption and trade in central Amazonia

The switch from hunting wild meat for home consumption to supplying more lucrative city markets in Amazonia can adversely affect some game species. Despite this, information on the amounts of wild meat eaten in Amazonian cities is still limited. We estimated wild meat consumption rates in 5 cities in the State of Amazonas in Brazil through 1046 door-to-door household interviews conducted from 2004 to 2012. With these data, we modeled the relationship between wild meat use and a selection of socioeconomic indices. We then scaled up our model to determine the amounts of wild meat likely to be consumed annually in the 62 urban centers in central Amazonia. A total of 80.3% of all interviewees reported consuming wild meat during an average of 29.3 (CI 11.6) days per year. Most wild meat was reported as bought in local markets (80.1%) or hunted by a family member (14.9%). Twenty-one taxa were cited as consumed, mostly mammals (71.6%), followed by reptiles (23.2%) and then birds (5.2%). The declared frequency of wild meat consumption was positively correlated with the proportion of rural population as well as with the per capita gross domestic product of the municipality (administrative divisions) where the cities were seated. We estimated that as much as 10,691 t of wild meat might be consumed annually in the 62 urban centers within central Amazonia, the equivalent of 6.49 kg per person per year. In monetary terms, this amounts to US$21.72 per person per year or US$35.1 million overall, the latter figure is comparable to fish and timber production in the region. Given this magnitude of wild meat trade in central Amazonia, it is fundamental to integrate this activity into the formal economy and actively develop policies that allow the trade of more resilient taxa and restrict trade in species sensitive to hunting.     

Prevalence and perspectives of illegal trade in cacti and succulent plants in the collector community

Although illegal wildlife trade (IWT) represents a serious threat to biodiversity, research into the prevalence of illegal plant collection and trade remains scarce. Because cacti and succulents are heavily threatened by overcollection for often illegal, international ornamental trade, we surveyed 441 members of the cacti and succulent hobbyist collector community with a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach. We sought to understand collector perspectives on the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) and on the threats IWT poses to cactus and succulent conservation. Most respondents (74% of 401 respondents) stated that illegal collection in cacti and succulents represents a “very serious problem” and that the problem of wild plant collection is increasing (72% of 319 respondents). Most forms of illegal collection and trade were seen as very unacceptable by respondents. Self-reported noncompliance with CITES rules was uncommon (11.2% of 418 respondents); it remains a persistent problem in parts of the cacti and succulent hobbyist community. People engaging in rule breaking, such as transporting plants without required CITES documents, generally did so knowingly. Although 60.6% of 381 respondents regarded CITES as a very important tool for conservation, sentiment toward CITES and its efficacy in helping species conservation was mixed. Collectors in our survey saw themselves as potentially playing important roles in cactus and succulent conservation, but this potential resource remains largely untapped. Our results suggest the need for enhanced consultation with stakeholders in CITES decision-making. For challenging subjects like IWT, developing evidence-based responses demands deep interdisciplinary engagement, including assessing the conservation impact of species listings on CITES appendices.     

Motivations for the use and consumption of wildlife products

The dominant approach to combating the illegal wildlife trade has traditionally been to restrict the supply of wildlife products. Yet conservationists increasingly recognize the importance of implementing demand-side interventions that target the end consumers in the trade chain. Their aim is to curb the consumption of wildlife or shift consumption to more sustainable alternatives. However, there are still considerable knowledge gaps in understanding of the diversity of consumer motivations in the context of illegal wildlife trade, which includes hundreds of thousands of species, different uses, and diverse contexts. Based on consultation with multiple experts from a diversity of backgrounds, nationalities, and focal taxa, we developed a typology of common motivations held by wildlife consumers that can be used to inform conservation interventions. We identified 5 main motivational categories for wildlife use: experiential, social, functional, financial, and spiritual, each containing subcategories. This framework is intended to facilitate the segmentation of consumers based on psychographics and allow the tailoring of interventions—whether behavior change campaigns, enforcement efforts, or incentive programs—to the specific context in which they will be used. Underlining the importance of consumer research and collaborating with local actors is an important step toward promoting a more systematic approach to the design of demand reduction interventions.     

Tracking Chinese newspaper coverage of elephant ivory through topic modeling

Mass media worldwide has contributed to increasing awareness of the illegal wildlife trade and its significant impact on wildlife conservation. We used mass media coverage as a proxy for macro-level public opinion to analyze the media framing of elephant ivory in 6394 Chinese newspaper articles published from 2000 to 2021 and thus determine the effects of wildlife policies on public opinion. We focused on 2 events: the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) approval of China as a trading partner in the purchase and import of ivory stockpiles from Africa in July 2008 and the Chinese government's announcement of a domestic ivory ban in December 2016. Using latent Dirichlet allocation topic modeling, we identified 8 topics about elephant ivory and grouped them into 3 frames: ivory arts and culture, ivory crimes, and elephant conservation. Over the last 2 decades, topics related to ivory crimes remained the most prevalent in news articles. Topics about ivory arts and culture showed a significant shift in media salience before and after the 2 events (from 0.44 to 0.19 and from 0.08 to 0.15, respectively, p < 0.05), whereas the other 2 frames did not change significantly. Contrary to popular belief, our results indicated that Chinese macro-level public opinion on ivory had become more negative following the CITES approval of ivory importation and less negative after the ivory ban announcement, at least for certain periods. The relationship between mass media, public opinion, and wildlife trade policies is complex and requires further examination of the sociopolitical dynamics that influence media narratives. Our results showed the value of topic modeling in monitoring and assessing media representations of wildlife issues in the era of big data. Conservationists should remain vigilant of mass media coverage and collaborate with media practitioners to produce comprehensive narratives on wildlife issues if resources permit.     

Changing legislative thinking in China to better protect wild animals and human health

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the inadequacy of China's legal protection of wildlife. Long-standing illegal wildlife trade in China and worldwide increases the risk of zoonotic infectious diseases. We sought to improve the understanding of China’ legal system for the protection of wildlife, which has at its core the wildlife protection law, by systematically evaluating the laws and regulations of China's Wildlife Protection Framework. We examined how existing legal documents (e.g., the Wildlife Protection Law 2018) are directly or indirectly related to wildlife conservation. The inherent defects of wildlife protection legislation include a narrow scope of protection, insufficient public participation, and inconsistent enforcement among responsible agencies. Solutions to improve China's Wildlife Protection Law include expanding the legal protection of wildlife, and improving monitoring of wildlife protection. Strengthening legislation will be the basis for effective regulation of the use of wild animals. We advocate the establishment of a sound wildlife protection legal system for resolving conflicts between humans and wild animals and preventing zoonotic disease, such a system will have a profound impact on the sustainable development of China's wildlife resources.     

Understanding why consumers in China switch between wild,farmed, and synthetic bear bile products

An important rationale for legally farmed and synthetic wildlife products is that they reduce illegal, wild-sourced trade by supplying markets with sustainable alternatives. For this to work, more established illegal-product consumers must switch to legal alternatives than new legal-product consumers switch to illegal wild products. Despite the widespread debate on the magnitude and direction of switching, studies among actual consumers are lacking. We used an anonymous online survey of 1421 traditional Chinese medicine consumers in China to investigate switching among legal farmed, synthetic, and illegal wild bear bile. We examined the past consumption behavior, applied a discrete choice experiment framed within worsening hypothetical disease scenarios, and used latent class models to investigate groups with shared preferences. Bear bile consumers (86% respondents) were wealthier, more likely to have family who consumed bile, and less knowledgeable about bile treatments than nonconsumers. Consumer preferences were heterogenous, but most consumer preferences switched between bile types as disease worsened. We identified five distinct latent classes within our sample: law-abiding consumers (34% respondents), who prefer legal products and were unlikely to switch; two all-natural consumer groups (53%), who dislike synthetics but may switch between farmed and wild; and two nonconsumer groups (12%), who prefer not to buy bile. People with past experience of bile consumption had different preferences than those without. Willingness to switch to wild products was related to believing they were legal, although the likelihood of switching was mediated by preferences for cheaper products sold in legal, familiar places. We found that consumers of wild bile may switch to legal alternatives, given the availability of a range of products, whereas legal-product consumers may switch to illegal products if the barriers to doing so are small. Understanding preferences that promote or impede switching should be a key consideration when attempting to predict consumer behavior in complex wildlife markets.     

Functional diversity loss and change in nocturnal behavior of mammals under anthropogenic disturbance

In the Anthropocene, understanding the impacts of anthropogenic influence on biodiversity and behavior of vulnerable wildlife communities is increasingly relevant to effective conservation. However, comparative studies aimed at disentangling the concurrent effect of different types of human disturbance on multifaceted biodiversity and on activity patterns of mammals are surprisingly rare. We applied a multiregion community model to separately estimate the effects of cumulative human modification (e.g., settlement, agriculture, and transportation) and human presence (aggregated presence of dogs, people, and livestock) on species richness and functional composition of medium- and large-bodied mammals based on camera trap data collected across 45 subtropical montane forests. We divided the detected mammal species into three trophic guilds–carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores–and assessed the nocturnal shifts of each guild in response to anthropogenic activities. Overall, species richness tended to increase (β coefficient = 0.954) as human modification increased but richness decreased as human presence increased (β = –1.054). Human modification was associated with significantly lower functional diversity (mean nearest taxon distance [MNTD], β = –0.134; standardized effect sizes of MNTD, β = –0.397), community average body mass (β = –0.240), and proportion of carnivores (β = –0.580). Human presence was associated with a strongly reduced proportion of herbivores (β = –0.522), whereas proportion of omnivores significantly increased as human presence (β = 0.378) and habitat modification (β = 0.419) increased. In terms of activity patterns, omnivores (β = 12.103) and carnivores (β = 9.368) became more nocturnal in response to human modification. Our results suggest that human modification and human presence have differing effects on mammals and demonstrate that anthropogenic disturbances can lead to drastic loss of functional diversity and result in a shift to nocturnal behavior of mammals. Conservation planning should consider concurrent effects of different types of human disturbance on species richness, functional diversity, and behavior of wildlife communities.