International research involving the University of Adelaide has found almost 30,000 wild species have been traded in the United States, according to data captured by US wildlife trade monitoring organisation Law Enforcement Manage Information System.
Led by the University of Hong Kong, the study examined trade data captured over 22 years, during which time more than 2.85 billion individuals were traded. Fifty per cent of these individuals were taxa sourced from the wild.
“The United States is one of the world’s largest wildlife importers and is unique in documenting trade in species not covered by international regulation,” says Freyja Watters, a PhD student at the University of…