Summarizing US Wildlife Trade with an Eye Toward Assessing the Risk of Infectious Disease Introduction

Abstract

The aim of this study was to characterize the role of the USA in the global exchange of wildlife and describe high volume trade with an eye toward prioritizing health risk assessment questions for further analysis. Here we summarize nearly 14 years (2000–2013) of the most comprehensive data available (USFWS LEMIS system), involving 11 billion individual specimens and an additional 977 million kilograms of wildlife. The majority of shipments contained mammals (27%), while the majority of specimens imported were shells (57%) and tropical fish (25%). Most imports were facilitated by the aquatic and pet industry, resulting in one-third of all shipments containing live animals. The importer reported origin of wildlife was 77.7% wild-caught and 17.7% captive-reared. Indonesia was the leading exporter of legal shipments, while Mexico was the leading source reported for illegal shipments. At the specimen level, China was the leading exporter of legal and illegal wildlife imports. The number of annual declared shipments doubled during the period examined, illustrating continually increasing demand, which reinforces the need to scale up capacity for border inspections, risk management protocols and disease surveillance. Most regulatory oversight of wildlife trade is aimed at conservation, rather than prevention of disease introduction.

Dealing in deadly pathogens: Taking stock of the legal trade in live wildlife and potential risks to human health

“…There are many complex multifaceted socio-economic, biological and ecological factors that influence a country's risk of transmitting zoonotic diseases of wild animal origin and its ability to respond to them (Devitt, 2017). The volumes of live wild animals traded between countries is only one of those important factors; yet a proper understanding of this particular trade dynamic is important and can help to direct limited resources (such as funds and expertise) currently available to prevent zoonotic disease outbreaks (Karesh et al, 2005;Pavlin et al, 2009;Smith et al, 2009). In this regard, our review of the CITES Trade Database identified a number of countries that warrant particular attention: China (the largest exporter of live mammals with 98,979 animals representing 58.7% of all such trade), Nicaragua (the largest exporter of live amphibians with 122,592 animals representing 53.8% of all such trade), South Africa (the largest exporter of live birds with 889,607 animals representing 39.2% of all such trade) and Peru (the largest exporter of live reptiles with 1,675,490 animals representing 18.8% of all such trade).…”

“…The USA was the biggest importer of live mammals legally (63,672 animals representing 62.4% of all such mammal trade between 2012 and 2016) and live amphibians (135,327 animals; 63.6% of such trade between 2012 and 2016). In fact, the USA is the global leader in illegal and legal wildlife consumption and between 2000 and 2009, more than 1.48 billion live animals were legally imported to USA where 92% of imports were for commercial purposes, largely the pet trade (Smith et al, 2009(Smith et al, , 2017. Although the USA was second to Hong Kong with regards to legal live reptile imports, it still involved 1,275,892 individual animals and represented 14.3% of all such live trade between 2012 and 2016.…”

“…However, quantifying the global wildlife trade is extremely difficult since it ranges in scale from local barter to major international routes, and much is conducted illegally or through informal networks (Karesh et al, 2005). In fact, the complexity of monitoring of wildlife trade has been compared to that of arms trade (Smith et al, 2017).…”

An Ecological Framework for Modeling the Geography of Disease Transmission

“…This holds great potential for the development of new tools to predict parasite host breadths (H P and H O in our proposed framework), a key component of understanding disease transmission dynamics at the landscape level [56,77]. Additionally, ecophylogenetics may provide insights on potential spillover events that could result in disease emergence, a highly relevant topic under global change and increased international movement of species leading to shifts in host communities and translocation of parasites to new areas and hosts [79,80]. Adoption of the host-space framework under ecophylogenetics could improve epidemiological surveillance, allowing early targeting of potentially suitable hosts (HP) [62,63].…”

Risk Analysis Framework Guidance for Wildlife Health Professionals

“…7 Based upon these summary findings and stakeholder prioritization, three separate Risk Assessments were performed: Aquatic, amphibian, and invertebrate species accounted for approximately 50% of these live shipments, mainly imported by the aquatic and pet industries.…”