The Covid-19 outbreak has brought about fresh and intensified scrutiny of the wildlife trade, which substantively involves commerce in exotic pets. In response, major policy decisions involving trade bans have ensued, with calls for similar such action to be applied across the trade chain. Yet, these measures have been criticised, largely based on concerns that they risk exacerbating poverty, undermining human rights, damaging conservation incentives, and otherwise harming sustainable development and conservation efforts. Instead, many critics propose improved regulation of the status quo, with the intention of nurturing a legal, sustainable, safe, humane, and equitable wildlife trade. Herein, we provide a countering view that outlines how the risks presented by the wildlife trade are becoming increasingly recognised as being both manifold and severe; and raise concerns that the goal of a well-regulated wildlife trade is becoming increasingly exposed as a mirage. We conclude that while pursuing the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (with their focus on poverty alleviation, food security, public health, and conservation) is enduringly vital, a flourishing wildlife trade is not. Given that the exploitation of wildlife, including for the pet trade, has been identified as one of the dominant drivers of biodiversity loss, emergence of zoonotic infectious disease, animal suffering, and financial instability, perpetuating the concept of utilising a regulated wildlife trade as the default approach to protect people and planet is in urgent need of re-evaluation.

Mangrove forests capture and store exceptionally large amounts of carbon and are increasingly recognised as an important ecosystem for carbon sequestration. Yet land-use change in the tropics threatens this ecosystem and its critical ‘blue carbon’ (carbon stored in marine and coastal habitats) stores. The expansion of shrimp aquaculture is among the major causes of mangrove loss globally. Here, we assess the impact of mangrove to shrimp pond conversion on ecosystem carbon stocks, and carbon losses and gains over time after ponds are abandoned. Our assessment is based on an intensive field inventory of carbon stocks at a coastal setting in Thailand. We show that although up to 70% of ecosystem carbon is lost when mangroves are converted to shrimp ponds, some abandoned ponds contain deep mangrove soils (>2.5 m) and large carbon reservoirs exceeding 865 t carbon per hectare. We also found a positive recovery trajectory for carbon stocks in the upper soil layer (0–15 cm) of a chronosequence of abandoned ponds, associated with natural mangrove regeneration. Our data suggest that mangrove carbon pools can rebuild in abandoned ponds over time in areas exposed to tidal flushing.

No abstract

Fish are traded, caught, farmed, and killed in their trillions every year around the world, yet their welfare is often neglected and their sentience regularly disregarded. In this review, we have sought to (1) catalogue the extent to which fish sentience has featured over the past 31 years in the scientific literature and (2) discuss the importance of fish sentience in relation to their commercial uses. We searched the journal database Science Direct using 42 keywords that describe traits or elements of sentience to find articles that were referring to or exploring fish sentience. Our review returned 470 results for fish sentience in 142 different species and subspecies of fish, and featured 19 different sentience keywords. The top four keywords were; ‘stress’ (psychological) (n = 216, 45.9% of total results), ‘anxiety’ (n = 144, 30.6%), ‘fear’ (n = 46, 9.7%), and ‘pain’ (n = 27, 5.7%). Our findings highlight an abundance of evidence for fish sentience in the published scientific literature. We conclude that legislation governing the treatment of fish and attitudes towards their welfare require scrutiny so that their welfare can be safeguarded across the globe.

Estimating baseline carbon stocks is a key step in designing forest carbon programs. While field inventories are resource-demanding, advances in predictive modeling are now providing globally coterminous datasets of carbon stocks at high spatial resolutions that may meet this data need. However, it remains unknown how well baseline carbon stock estimates derived from model data compare against conventional estimation approaches such as field inventories. Furthermore, it is unclear whether site-level management actions can be designed using predictive model data in place of field measurements. We examined these issues for the case of mangroves, which are among the most carbon dense ecosystems globally and are popular candidates for forest carbon programs. We compared baseline carbon stock estimates derived from predictive model outputs against estimates produced using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) three-tier methodological guidelines. We found that the predictive model estimates out-performed the IPCC’s Tier 1 estimation approaches but were significantly different from estimates based on field inventories. Our findings help inform the use of predictive model data for designing mangrove forest policy and management actions.

Keeping exotic pets has become a popular habit in the UK in recent decades. Yet, information on the current scale of the trade and the diversity of animals involved is lacking. Here, we review the licensed sale of amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals as exotic pets in the UK, identifying current geographical hotspots of trader activity, data gaps, and compliance issues related to this trade. In terms of trade volume, records showed large numbers of individual wild animals, across a wide range of species groups, are being legally sold in the UK. Maximum numbers of exotic pets permitted for sale included 54,634 amphibians, 64,810 reptiles, 23,507 birds, and 6479 mammals. Moreover, nearly 2000 pet traders located in 283 different local authority areas had permission to sell exotic pets. The scope and scale of the trade draws additional attention to the substantial animal welfare challenges associated with it, and our review serves to highlight several shortcomings associated with the licensed exotic pet trade in the UK. Pet shop licences often lacked detailed information about the specific type and number of animals permitted for sale, which raises compliance concerns and hinders efforts to carry out adequate inspection and monitoring. Ninety-five pet traders in England had been given a one star rating, indicating ‘minor failings’ in animal welfare, and some local authorities in England were still operating under the old Pet Animals Act (1951). We recommend that resources should be prioritised and focused towards local authorities in England that are not operating under the new Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations (2018), and that local authorities should improve data reporting on all licenses issued to aid inspection and monitoring.

No abstract

Animal‐related content on social media is hugely popular but is not always appropriate in terms of how animals are portrayed or how they are treated. This has potential implications beyond the individual animals involved, for viewers, for wild animal populations, and for societies and their interactions with animals. Whilst social media platforms usually publish guidelines for permitted content, enforcement relies at least in part on viewers reporting inappropriate posts. Currently, there is no external regulation of social media platforms. Based on a set of 241 ‘fake animal rescue’ videos that exhibited clear signs of animal cruelty and strong evidence of being deliberately staged (i.e. fake), we found little evidence that viewers disliked the videos and an overall mixed response in terms of awareness of the fake nature of the videos, and their attitudes towards the welfare of the animals involved. Our findings suggest, firstly, that, despite the narrowly defined nature of the videos used in this case study, exposure rates can be extremely high (one of the videos had been viewed over 100 million times), and, secondly, that many YouTube viewers cannot identify (or are not concerned by) animal welfare or conservation issues within a social media context. In terms of the current policy approach of social media platforms, our findings raise questions regarding the value of their current reliance on consumers as watch dogs. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.