Newswise – Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have published the results of an international investigation which concluded that online trade of jaguar parts could be publicly detected on multiple online platforms, presenting an emerging and serious threat to jaguar populations across the range of this Latin American wildlife icon.
The results have been published in PLOS One as well as summarized in a summary publication available in Chinese, EinglishAnd SpanishAnd Portuguese.
The study involved 23 WCS researchers working across seven different languages (Spanish, Portuguese, English, Dutch, French, Chinese, and Vietnamese) searching 31 online platforms—including online marketplaces, video sharing, social media sites, and blogs—using standardized search terms and methodologies.
The results revealed that between 2009 and 2019, trade in jaguar parts was openly detectable and focused specifically on jaguar tusks. A total of 230 jobs containing potential Jaguar parts for sale were discovered across more than a dozen body parts categories. A conservative examination of the images showed that, at least, 71 posts contained images of various parts of Jaguar, on 12 different platforms in four languages (50.7 percent posts in Spanish, 25.4 percent Portuguese, 22.5 percent Chinese and 1.4 percent French), including a total of 125 Jaguar pieces. Teeth were by far the most frequently detected body part with 156 functions presenting at least 367 teeth, 95 of which were accompanied by visually verified images by experts such as jaguar teeth, Mexico (19), China (18), Bolivia (12), and One of the leading countries to offer visually verified Jaguar teeth for sale was Brazil (9). Jaguar skins were the second most traded part and included posts rated as being associated with South America.
Jaguar generic domain (Panthera onca) has increased by nearly 50 percent over the past century. However, a combination of protected area commitments by Latin American governments, along with a 1975 ban on trade in spotted cats by CITES, has helped restore some strategically important strongholds across the species’ diminishing range.
However, over the past decade, concerns have risen that renewed levels (or previously poorly disclosed levels) of illegal domestic and international trade in Jaguar parts could derail progress in these strongholds.
This research provides an overview of the jaguar trade over the Internet and the methods that may be beneficial for the many species now traded over the Internet. The study was conducted as part of a long-term project to help law enforcement agencies in host countries better identify potential illegal Internet trade, with research findings informing centers in Latin America to build such capacity.
Lead author of the study, Dr John Polisar, said: “Our team is pleased to share this study with the hope that it will strengthen efforts to disrupt the currently widespread illegal trade in Jaguar parts. The standardized methodology we developed has already been productively applied to document online visual trading and combating neighborhood trafficking. wild across the many diverse taxa in the region.”
In addition, the report provides another tool that management authorities in each country of the jaguar’s range can apply to combat illegal wildlife trade, and that these methods and findings complement international collaborative efforts to conserve jaguars such as Jaguar Roadmap 2030 initiative And sites In the united multinational effort to actively advance Jaguar conservation.
WCS maintains grounds for Jaguars in a range of large landscapes of global importance for Jaguar conservation that contribute to the scope of Jaguar conservation on a large scale.
Dr. Rob Wallace, WCS Senior Conservation Scientist and one of the study’s co-authors noted: “WCS remains committed to preserving the landscape range, which is essential for rare and naturally wide-ranging apex predators such as the jaguar. While conservation efforts remain on the ground with a large range With a variety of legitimate local actors in these global strongholds our primary approach, WCS is proud to provide additional technical assistance to region governments in the huge and dynamic challenge of tackling the illegal trade in highly endangered species in the region, including, in particular, the jaguar.”
The study of illegal jaguar trade online was supported by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Wildlife Conservation Society, and WCS’s broader efforts to combat wildlife trafficking in Latin America are also supported by the European Union, the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund of for the Darwin Initiative from the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Bureau of Drug Affairs and International Law Enforcement (INL) at the US Department of State.