Posted on 05/23/2022 3:24:04 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Rare spiders and scorpions are being put at risk by a growing global trade driven by the demand for exotic pets, including species so rare that scientists were previously unaware of them, a team of international researchers has warned.
They said that at least 70 per cent of spiders and scorpions being sold as pets, for medicine or food have been sourced from the wild. The researchers detected more than 1,200 species available for sale in a generally legal trade.
The team said they are growing in popularity as "cool" pets that take up little space but warned that harvesting them to meet this growing demand may become unsustainable and risked a loss of biodiversity.
They found that the three largest commercial sources for spiders and scorpions on sale in the US market - a major centre for the trade - were China, which has more species of spiders, 5,100, than anywhere else in the world, Ghana and Chile.
China exported more animals - 1.2 million - to the US than any other country, 40 per cent of which were sourced from the wild. Although Ghana and Chile exported fewer in total 98.8 per cent and 90 per cent of these respectively came from the wild.
"Efforts are needed to monitor what is in trade, to verify identities, and trace origins of specimens … to prevent potentially unsustainable trade and species extinction arising from trade without the data or regulations needed to ensure sustainability," the team wrote in an article published in the peer-reviewed journal Communications Biology on Thursday (May 19).
The researchers from the Beijing Institute of Zoology, University of Hong Kong (HKU), and institutes in Britain, Finland and Thailand based their analysis on data from the US Law Enforcement Management Information System and the international trade databases from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
Among popular traded species, the researchers found during the study period that 77 per cent of emperor scorpions were wild-caught, with one million individuals imported into the US alone.
The team also searched global arachnid retailers online, where prices can range from a few tens to thousands of US dollars depending on their rarity and novelty.
Almost 80 per cent of the 1,264 species being traded were only detected from online retailers rather than the databases.
For example, Birupes simoroxigorum, a blue-legged tarantula in Malaysia named after the three children of the collectors who first described it three years ago, was listed for sale for US$300 (S$415) on an online forum, according to study author Alice Hughes, an associate professor at HKU's school of biological sciences.
"For a species that visible and clearly distinctive to not be described until 2019, it has to be super rare," she said.
"These animals being in trade highlights that there are highly endemic or endangered species coming into trade with no assessment of the impact that trade is likely to have on them."
Hughes, whose research focuses on biodiversity threats, said fragile wild invertebrates captured for the legal - yet unmonitored and underregulated - trade have a low chance of surviving transport without proper care, while those remaining in the wild are also threatened.
"For species that are slow-breeding, if they have a limited range [an area where an animal could be found], this could be massively detrimental to their future survival.
"If the population in the wild drops below a certain level, the probability they are going to encounter a mate is vanishingly small, meaning that you may no longer have a viable wild population density to enable them to keep breeding," she said.
While the study was based on online and documented trades, the team said the consumption of spiders as food and regional exports in Asia may mean the overall numbers of arachnids traded greatly exceed what they detected.
For example, fried spiders sold at night markets across parts of southern China, for example, Xishuangbanna in the southwestern Yunnan province, are probably trafficked from neighbouring Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.
Although the supplies have declined dramatically as a result of Covid-19 border restrictions, large tarantulas, which are more common in these countries compared with China, are one of the most popular spiders for eating because of their size.
"There's a biosecurity risk. They can spread diseases to native animals, cause allergic reactions in some instances and spread pests and pathogens to different regions," Hughes said.
Compounding the problem, the team said they suspect some traders are not correctly describing the animals they are selling - possibly because they cannot identify them or because the species had not been classified by scientists - making it harder to track what species are being sold online.
Hughes said countries should better control the wildlife trade by introducing comprehensive regulations and public education, pointing to the example of wild bird import bans in Europe and the US.
Trade of wild birds has dropped about 90 per cent globally since the European Union (EU) banned bird imports in 2005, according to a 2017 study from the Universities of Copenhagen and Porto, which also found the number of birds traded annually dropped from about 1.3 million to 130,000.
Hughes said the ban, which transformed the market to become largely reliant on captive-bred animals, removed the pressure on wild populations and the risk of disease and invasive species.
China, where the arachnid trade has started to take off as they become more popular as pets, needs to introduce regulations to make sure the animals are being exported sustainably or have better facilities for captive breeding, according to Hughes.
She also said the country should manage the high potential for species invasion to avoid losing its diverse native species, adding: "It's in everyone's interest for China to better regulate trade, to transit to a system reliant on captive breeding and better police land, sea and airports to prevent unregulated trades."
So if I ordered them I’d contribute to spiders and scorpions going extinct? Great!
Only I don’t want to receive them. Who can I send them to? Hmmmm
Chuck Norris had pet scorpions when he was a kid.
Nope, nope and nope.
We used to catch them and make them fight when we were kids.
Maybe people should start collecting pet mosquitos
Found this tiny one dry mopping the floor:
You can tell a lot about a person by the kind of pet they have.
Ah, the hobbies of creeps. Tattoos, tarantulas, S&M, snakes, skanks — just the kind of people you don’t want around your children.
She is adorable!!!!
She is sweet! Back in the 70s, Labs were America’s favorite dog. Now it’s Pit Bulls.
What does that suggest about our society? Forget Scorpions, snakes, spiders and other weird ghoulish creatures.
Look, I can see the argument for exotic pets, but some creatures aren’t meant to be kept as pets.
But scorpions? Nope.
I've had a couple of girls ask why I do what I do before putting on shoes.
Scorpions.
They either thought I was joking, or didn't believe me.
Cute! Not like a scorpion.
Kids adore my snakes.
What a cutie.
My late father-in-law had Black Lab. Had to put him down years ago.
Broke my heart. Still miss that dog.
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