A snake.

Drawing.

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Foto-Rabe

Monitor lizard without ears, cave gecko… Several thousand species of reptiles, captured in the wild for sale, escape international regulations, according to a study which is alarmed by this new threat to biodiversity.

About 35% of reptile species (nearly 4,000, mostly wild) are sold online across the planet, often as pets.

But three-quarters of them are not subject to the regulations of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), reveals this study published Tuesday in

Nature Communications

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A slight increase in trade

This convention, signed in 1975, aims to control the international trade of hundreds of millions of specimens of plants and wild animals, so that this traffic does not threaten their survival.

It is based on a list, regularly updated, which limits the marketing of species according to their sustainability.

Reptile specialists searched the private sales sites between 2000 and 2019 (25,000 web pages), and combined these results with international databases, including that of CITES.

Their work revealed a slight increase in the reptile trade over this period, with new species appearing every year.

However, many of them "are still unknown, in particular small animals, or those found in inaccessible places, such as the cave gecko in Vietnam, or the monitor lizard without ears in Borneo", explains Alice Hugues, lead author of the study.

Intensive but legal traffic

They are attractive specimens and often have a small population.

Once collected, they are sold quickly: "Forums encourage people to" buy them now, before they are listed "by CITES," continues this biologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

“There is a delay between the commercialization of species and their scientific description, which is a difficult process,” she emphasizes.

The result: intensive but legal trafficking, which escapes the international protection that certain species would need.

Many are indeed considered threatened or vulnerable, because they populate very limited geographical areas, points out the study, which cites the South African Blanding's turtle or the Seychelles tiger chameleon as an example.

Researchers have identified Southeast Asia, particularly Vietnam, as a major source of this trafficking, with Europe and North America as the main markets.

The study suggests “reversing the status quo”, that is, only species listed by CITES can be traded, requiring a priori proof of sustainability.

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