Illegal trade in wild cats and its link to Chinese‐led development in Central and South America

Abstract

Seizures of hundreds of jaguar heads and canines in Central and South America from 2014 to 2018 resulted in worldwide media coverage suggesting that wildlife traffickers are trading jaguar body parts as substitutes for tiger parts to satisfy the demand for traditional Asian medicine. We compiled a data set of >1000 seized wild cats (jaguar [Panthera onca], puma [Puma concolor], and ocelot [Leopardus pardalis]) from 19 Central and South American countries and China. We ran generalized additive mixed models to detect trends in wild-cat seizures from 2012 to 2018 and assess the effects of socioeconomic factors of source countries and between those countries and China on the number of wild cats seized. Jaguar seizures increased over time, and most of the seized jaguar pieces were canines (1991 of 2117). Around 34% (32 of 93) of the jaguar-part seizure reports were linked with China, and these seizures contained 14-fold more individuals than those intended for domestic markets. Source countries with relatively high levels of corruption and Chinese private investment and low income per capita had 10-50 times more jaguar seizures than the remaining sampled countries. The number of Chinese residents in Central and South America was not significantly related to the number of jaguars seized. No socioeconomic factors influenced the seizures of puma and ocelots. Legal market chains may provide structure for the illegal chain; thus, the influx of illegal jaguar products is potentially a side effect of the economic partnership between Central and South American countries and China. Poverty and high levels of corruption in the source countries may motivate local people to engage in illegal activities and contribute to the growth of this trade. Supply-side interventions to curb this threat to Neotropical wild cats may include improved training for officials and promotion of governance and the value of protecting these animals to local people.

Complex interactions between commercial and non-commercial drivers of illegal trade for a threatened felid

“…This is in contrast to studies that have characterized jaguar trade as Chinese-driven based on seizure data (e.g. Morcatty et al, 2020;Nunez and Aliaga-Rossel, 2017). Although these seizures remain a concern, and may indicate an emerging trend of externally driven commodification and export of jaguars, this discrepancy reiterates the importance of considering multiple evidence sources and of investigating these behaviours on the ground.…”

“…Determining whether the system is supply or demand driven is necessary, and requires exploring the temporal variation in the price and quantity of the traded parts, in hunting effort, in trader networks, and in the condition of jaguar populations (McNamara et al 2016). While increasing awareness and enforcement of laws may go a long way (given that many of our participants were unaware about jaguar protections), it may not be enough to stop jaguar killing and trading due to strong market incentives, a high prevalence of human-jaguar conflict, financial need, and the potential ties between trade and corruption (Challender & MacMillan 2014;Morcatty et al 2020).…”

“…While large-scale commercial jaguar trade stopped following their listing on CITES Appendix I, killing and trading continued, with traditional and commercial motivations sometimes outweighing retaliatory ones (Garcia-Alaniz et al 2010;Jędrzejewski et al 2017). The past decade has seen an increase in the evidence of jaguar trade, with seizures occurring throughout their range, some of which have been associated with a new demand from people of Asian descent (Verheij 2019;Morcatty et al 2020).…”

“…While conflict, domestic use, and trade (domestic or foreign) are all important threats to jaguar populations, the relationship between these threats is not well understood. As the evidence of jaguar trade increases, potential links between trade, retaliatory killing and domestic use have been suggested (Reuter et al 2018), but have so far been overshadowed by a growing concern about the role of foreign markets driving the demand for jaguar products (Lemieux & Bruschi 2019;Morcatty et al 2020), a narrative that has caught the attention of the media and which has guided recent jaguar conservation actions. Here, we use a case study of human-jaguar interactions in northwestern Bolivia, a region with an active history of interactions between humans and jaguars, which has also been at the epicentre of recent jaguar trade cases involving foreign demand (Nunez & Aliaga-Rossel 2017;Knox et al 2019), to develop an integrated understanding of the various factors that lead to jaguar killing, trade and consumption and their interactions.…”

Indigenous peoples' displacement and jaguar survival in a warming planet

“…Now, the Guna's primary source of sustenance – seafood – is dwindling, and their island livelihoods are changing. The culmination of factors, fueled by an emerging influx of illegal trade in wild cats (Morcatty et al, 2020), drives locals into the market economy (Ventocilla et al, 1995), promoting unsustainable hunting practices focused on commercially attractive species.…”