Hong Kong’s Invisible Pets”, a report by the ADM Capital Foundation

HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach – 18 May perhaps 2022 – An extraordinary 4 million exotic animals, from all corners of the environment have been imported into Hong Kong in between 2015 and 2019, compounding risk of species extinction, a new report has discovered.

The ADM Money Foundation report, “Wild, Threatened, Farmed: Hong Kong’s Invisible Animals” suggests the unique pet trade in the town is contributing to excessive pressure on hundreds of species globally.

The report will come as global conservationists seem the alarm about a biodiversity crisis, pushed by land-use and weather improve, air pollution and overexploitation.

“With at minimum 4 million animals imported in just 5 years, Hong Kong’s exotic pet trade has an outsized ecological footprint. Our demand from customers for species like the Yellow noticed river turtle, African spurred tortoise and Pancake tortoise exacerbate unsustainable pressures on wild populations,” explained Sam Inglis, the report’s direct author. “The trade is rapid-shifting and large quantity, comprising hundreds of species, both of those captive-bred and wild-caught, originating from nearly each individual biome. A lot of are threatened with extinction.”

The trade has expanded noticeably in recent a long time, with rollbacks in restrictions in the mid-2000s suspected to have performed a function. Assessment exposed that though fewer than 15,000 CITES[1] regulated exotics ended up imported in 2000, this variety experienced greater to almost 800,000 by 2016.

The exploration highlights the advanced requires of exotics in the trade at just about every place alongside the provide chain, and provides proof suggesting a fragmented and outdated regulatory routine that is insufficient to assure environmental, animal and community wellness.

Among several problems talked over is the suitability of a lot of as animals supplied their distinct husbandry needs and characteristics. Popular pets include things like African spurred tortoises that can reside up to a hundred decades Frequent inexperienced iguanas that can reach two metres in length and Alligator snapping turtles that have highly effective jaws and a tendency to chunk. African gray parrots have to have significant psychological stimulation, social conversation and place that is challenging to fulfill. Mentally deprived parrots are susceptible to destructive behaviors such as anxiousness, aggression and self-mutilation.

Fears are compounded by the emergence of ‘Trash Pets’, exactly where the price of ample care and veterinary therapy significantly exceeds the value of purchase and the means and/or willingness to pay. These animals are usually considered ‘disposable’.

“There is a misunderstanding that exotic pets that are lesser-sized entail much less expensive costs of veterinary and house treatment,” reported Christie Wong, report co-creator, “nonetheless, therapy and surgical procedures for exotics call for specialised techniques, and to sustain an suitable setting that supports excellent overall health for exotics with complicated needs is by no signifies affordable.”

The exotics in trade had been located to be largely untraceable. Re-exports show up to have been small, with less than fifty percent a million officially departing the metropolis, suggesting that a large selection may perhaps keep on being in Hong Kong’s homes and pet outlets. Most likely many animals have died. Alternatively, huge numbers of exotics could have been smuggled out of the metropolis. It is not doable to determine which of these situations is legitimate, with implications for controlling lots of aspects of the trade, like the transmission of pathogens.

Exotics are also sourced and offered for mercy launch, which is a continuing and unregulated exercise in Hong Kong. The practice raises animal welfare fears and increases the chance of invasive species and pathogens staying released into the city, presenting an ecological threat.

“Hong Kong’s deficiency of a favourable checklist of suitable unique animals and failure to search driving imports of huge numbers of animals from suspicious source countries, which really should established off alarms for regulation enforcement agencies, encourages the importation of smuggled animals for the pet trade and is sending species that are at critical chance of extinction a lot more rapidly to that destiny” stated HKU Associate Professor Amanda Whitfort. “Our recent policies and laws undermine the aims of the UN Convention on Organic Variety” she added.

The report aims to promote evaluation of restrictions related to Hong Kong’s unique pet trade. Its call for maximizing Hong Kong’s Just one Wellbeing strategy to guarantee a holistic and pragmatic regulatory regime sets the scene for a raft of suggestions. These are huge-ranging in scope, like amendments to present statutes, modifying and applying policies wherever the powers to do so are vested with the Director of AFCD, and selling improved techniques within the trade and by conscientious pet entrepreneurs.

They consist of:

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• Introducing a ‘positive list’ of exotics that comprise pre-screened and pre-authorised species that can be traded as animals

• Amending the Posession License system for endangered species

• Requiring permits for non-public pet owners to offer exotics, modelled on the specifications introduced to the pet dog trade in 2017

• Reviewing biosecurity protocols and make certain rigid border control for unique animals

• Implementing traceability mechanisms this kind of as microchipping

• Introducing strategies to positively incentivise the trade to boost techniques

[1]Animals controlled underneath the Conference on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Fauna

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