Evaluating the reliability of media reports for gathering information about illegal wildlife trade seizures

Abstract

Illegal wildlife trade (IWT) is threatening many species across the world. It is important to better understand the scale and characteristics of IWT to inform conservation priorities and actions. However, IWT usually takes place covertly, meaning that the data on species, trade routes and volumes is limited. This means that conservationists often have to rely on publicly available law enforcement reports of seizures as potential indicators of the magnitude and characteristics of IWT. Still, even these data may be difficult to access, leading conservationists to use media reports of seizures instead. This is the case in countries like Nepal, which have limited capacity in data keeping and reporting, and no centralized data management system. Yet reliance on media reports risks introducing further biases, which are rarely acknowledged or discussed. Here we characterize IWT in Nepal by comparing data from three sources of information on IWT between January 2005 and July 2017: seizure reports from three Nepali national daily newspapers, official seizure records for Kathmandu district, and data on additional enforcement efforts against IWT in Nepal. We found a strong positive correlation between the number of official and media-reported seizures over time, but media under-reported seizure numbers, with 78% of seizures going unreported. Seizures of charismatic, protected species were reported more often and seizure reports involving tigers were most likely to be reported (57%). Media reports appeared to be a good indicator of trends and the species being seized but not overall seizure number, with the media largely underestimating total seizure numbers. Therefore, media reports cannot be solely relied upon when it comes to informing conservation decision-making. We recommend that conservationists triangulate different data sources when using seizure data reported in the media to more rigorously characterise IWT.

A systematic survey of online trade in the caterpillar fungus Ophiocordyceps sinensis

“…Non-charismatic taxa such as plants and fungi are subject to large-scale international trade, yet there are no fungal species listed on the CITES Appendices. Trade in plants and fungi is also poorly documented because of plant and fungal blindness (Phelps & Webb, 2015), and is also underrepresented in seizures (Paudel et al, 2022). This highlights the need for more research and legislation attention for these taxa (Goncalves et al, 2021; Oyanedel et al, 2022) and for more attention to be focused on the growing online trade.…”

Insights from the media into the bird trade in India: an analysis of reported seizures

“…The species accumulation curve and existing information on bird ownership in India suggest that the 25,850 birds of 58 species identified in the media-reported seizures are only a small fraction of the birds in legal and illegal trade during 2010–2020. Trade in many bird species is permitted or weakly regulated and so will not appear in seizures, and a large proportion of illegal trade is probably not included in our sample because of the challenges of detecting and intercepting illegal trade and because the media might not report all seizures (Paudel et al, 2022).…”

“…Parrots (Psittacidae) were the most frequently reported bird family in seizures of exotic and native species, accounting for 65% of all birds seized. It is possible that this group is overrepresented in our sample because parrots are charismatic and recognizable and therefore attract greater enforcement and media attention (Paudel et al, 2022). However, this finding matches international trends in which parrots have been reported to be the most commonly traded avian family (Bush et al, 2014).…”

From pets to plates: network analysis of trafficking in tortoises and freshwater turtles representing different types of demand

“…Given that we constructed the supply networks using media reports alone, these networks may be incomplete, because of potential incomplete reporting on seizure incidents (Mendiratta et al, 2017). In addition, the role of some locations or links could have been over- or under-represented because of variable enforcement efforts and media reporting rates across regions (Mendiratta et al, 2017; Paudel et al, 2022). For example, in our study Kolkata emerged as a key destination in the trafficking of soft-shell turtles.…”