This Songbird Is Nearly Extinct in the Wild. An International Treaty Could Help Save It -- but Won't.
Source: New York Times
This Songbird Is Nearly Extinct in the Wild. An International Treaty Could Help Save It — but Won’t.
Over a quarter of the species threatened by commercial trade are not protected by Cites, the global agreement intended to save them.
By Rachel Nuwer
March 15, 2019
Fewer than 500 black-winged mynas remain in the wild in Indonesia, but each year more of the songbirds are captured and sold as pets.
Banteng — “the most beautiful and graceful of all wild cattle,” according to the World Wide Fund for Nature — were listed as endangered in 1996, but their horns still are sold in markets across Southeast Asia.
And the critically endangered giant carp, a Mekong River native that can weigh up to 600 pounds, recently began turning up on restaurant menus in Vietnam. Experts warn that the fish might soon be pushed into extinction.
International trade poses a threat to all of these species, yet not one is subject to key regulations that would help protect it. They are not listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), a treaty meant to ensure that trade does not imperil the survival of threatened and endangered species.
These are not isolated cases: Cites oversights are all too common for many of the world’s endangered species, conservationists warn. “There’s a backlog of species that are being over-exploited and traded internationally, but lack protection,” said David Wilcove, an ecologist at Princeton University.
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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/science/endangered-species-cites.html
There are just a few hundred black-winged mynas left in the wild, but the species is not protected by an international conservation agreement.CreditCreditH. Willford/Journal of the Foreign Bird Club, via Wikimedia Commons
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