
==== Front
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
0027-8424
1091-6490
National Academy of Sciences

202409775
10.1073/pnas.2409775121
letterLetterecoEcologyecon-sciEconomic Sciences414
415
42
Letters
Biological Sciences
Ecology
Social Sciences
Economic Sciences
Wildlife trade data capture: National policy is foundational to science
Reaser Jamie K. Reaserjk@si.edu
a 1 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3879-0100

Kolby Jonathan E. a https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8241-4711

aSmithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA 22630
1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: Reaserjk@si.edu.
5 9 2024
17 9 2024
5 9 2024
121 38 e2409775121Copyright © 2024 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.
2024
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).

access-typefree
==== Body
pmcTlusty et al. (1) propose that digitization of species-level wildlife trade data will enable governments to meet Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework conservation targets. Here, we make the case that wildlife trade data policy, which drives data use intent, is foundational to data collection and scientific application.

Collecting a greater quantity and/or quality of wildlife trade data will not, in and of itself, improve national capacities to achieve conservation targets. As a general practice, national governments do not systematically capture wildlife trade data for the purpose of conducting scientific inquiry to inform biodiversity conservation goals. Rather, wildlife trade data are collected as a regulatory management function for compliance with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). National policies establish which species and what associated trade data are documented. If wildlife trade data are to be sufficient to answer scientific questions regarding such topics as harvest sustainability or zoonoses risk mitigation, governments must first set science-driven data collection goals and procedures.

The use of Harmonized System codes is not a barrier to species-level data capture at ports of entry. National governments can and do establish policy requiring importers to state species names on requisite importation documents and they may adopt their own form of species codes (e.g., Harmonized Tariff System codes with scientific names) for record-keeping purposes. The use of standard scientific identifiers has also been proposed to improve species-level data capture in the trade context (2, 3).

Governments vary in the way they intake import data, but direct entry by importers into online platforms is increasingly standard practice. The tradeoff between the time wildlife or customs officers spend managing trade documents versus physically inspecting shipments is a false dichotomy. Because wildlife officers must clear large import volumes rapidly to facilitate trade and protect animal welfare, they are typically guided by standard operating procedures (SOPs) that facilitate time management decisions according to shipment-specific risks of legal violation. Documents contained in import declaration packages inform assessments of physical inspection necessity. Random inspections are also executed as standard practice to monitor and improve risk assessment capacity. Once a shipment enters a country, wildlife trade officers have little, if any, role in data review or analysis. Even the US government lacks a position dedicated to wildlife trade data oversight. Data are not reviewed, corrected, or analyzed as a routine practice beyond the minimum data handling necessary to prepare CITES Reports.

We agree that governments need to increase wildlife trade data analysis capacity for science-based biodiversity conservation and public health decision-making. Progress starts with policy formulation. National governments need to expand their wildlife trade data collection goals and make the legal and administrative infrastructure changes necessary to support these goals. This is likely to require establishing and/or amending legal authorities, instituting interministerial cooperation, modifying wildlife trade officer SOPs and training, hiring wildlife trade officers with scientific credentials, aligning data flows and management platforms with goal sets, and interfacing data platforms with analytical tools, other relevant datasets, and reporting mechanisms.

Author contributions

J.K.R. and J.E.K. wrote the paper.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interest.
==== Refs
1 M. F. Tlusty, P. Cassey, A. L. Rhyne, D. A. Omrow, P. Stoett, Species-level, digitized wildlife trade data are essential for achieving biodiversity targets. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 121 , e2306869121 (2024).38598344
2 H. Gerson , Monitoring international wildlife traded with coded species data. Conserv. Biol. 22 , 4–7 (2008).18254847
3 G. Fragoso , Monitoring international wildlife trade with coded species data: Response to Gerson et al. Conserv. Biol. 22 , 1648–1650 (2008).19076876
