Primate conservation: Measuring and mitigating trade in primates

Abstract

Trade in primates is seen as a significant impediment to their conservation. Primates are traded both domestically and internationally, in order to supply, amongst others, biomedical industries and pharmaceutical markets, the entertainment business, or pet markets. Primate meat is consumed globally, whereas body parts are used as ingredients in traditional medicine or sold as curios. All international trade in primates is regulated through the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), to which all but 2 primate range countries are signatory. The last 15 years has seen a linear increase in the export of live primates (each year 3500 more individuals are exported), with China being, numerically, the largest exporter. While the trade in live primates worldwide involves tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of individuals a year, the trade in dead primates involves millions of animals a year. We introduce here a series of studies dealing with various aspects of the primate trade. We hope that these studies will urge others to quantify the extent of trade in primates alive and dead in both domestic and international contexts, allowing us to find ways to mitigate the consequences of this trade to the conservation of primates.

Full text

ENDANGERED SPECIES RESEARCH
Endang Species Res
Vol. 13: 159–161, 2011
doi: 10.3354/esr00336 Published online February 16
International wildlife trade is seen as one of the lead-
ing threats to biodiversity conservation (Sutherland et
al. 2009). The trade in primates, be it as live individu-
als, as body parts or as meat has been invoked as a sig-
nificant threat to their conservation (Cowlishaw &
Dunbar 2000, Mittermeier et al. 2009). Recognising the
need to control this trade, the Convention on the Inter-
national Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora
and Fauna (CITES), first drawn up in 1973 and enter-
ing into force in 1976, has now been ratified by 175
countries or states. From the inception of CITES, it has
been recognised that the international primate trade
needs to be regulated, and indeed all species of pri-
mates are either listed in Appendix II of CITES (regu-
lating all commercial trade) or in Appendix I (preclud-
ing all commercial trade). As of 2010, all but 2 primate
Range States (Angola and possibly Timor Leste) are
Party to CITES.
In December 2008 the Primate Society of Great
Britain organised a conference in London entitled ‘Pri-
mate conservation: measuring and mitigating trade in
primates’ where new data on the primate trade were
presented and where its various aspects were dis-
cussed. Here we present a brief overview of the nature
of the primate trade putting the different contributions
to this Theme Section in context.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s the international
primate trade peaked to supply the demand for the
biomedical industry and pharmaceutical markets. Dur-
ing this period, India exported between ~50 000
(1960s) and ~20 000 (early 1970s) primates per annum
(Southwick & Siddiqi 2001), whereas Peru exported on
average ~30 000 primates per year (Smith 1978). These
official export figures were quite possibly underesti-
mates, and in the years which followed several coun-
tries implemented trade bans (Held & Wofle 1994,
© Inter-Research 2011 · www.int-res.com*Email: vnijman@brookes.ac.uk
OVERVIEW
Primate conservation: measuring and mitigating
trade in primates
V. Nijman1,*, K. A. I. Nekaris1, G. Donati1, 2 M. Bruford3, J. Fa4
1School of Social Sciences and Law, Oxford Brookes University, Gipsy Lane, Oxford OX3 0BP, UK
2Department of Ethology, Ecology and Evolution, University of Pisa, Via Volta 6, 56126 Pisa, Italy
3Cardiff School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, Museum Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3AX, UK
4Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Les Augrès Manor, La Profonde Rue, Trinity, Jersey JE3 5BP, UK
ABSTRACT: Trade in primates is seen as a significant impediment to their conservation. Primates are
traded both domestically and internationally, in order to supply, amongst others, biomedical indus-
tries and pharmaceutical markets, the entertainment business, or pet markets. Primate meat is con-
sumed globally, whereas body parts are used as ingredients in traditional medicine or sold as curios.
All international trade in primates is regulated through the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), to which all but 2 primate range countries are
signatory. The last 15 years has seen a linear increase in the export of live primates (each year 3500
more individuals are exported), with China being, numerically, the largest exporter. While the trade
in live primates worldwide involves tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of individuals a year, the trade
in dead primates involves millions of animals a year. We introduce here a series of studies dealing
with various aspects of the primate trade. We hope that these studies will urge others to quantify the
extent of trade in primates alive and dead in both domestic and international contexts, allowing us to
find ways to mitigate the consequences of this trade to the conservation of primates.
KEY WORDS: Bushmeat · CITES · Conservation · Reintroduction · Wildlife trade
Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisher
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Contribution to the Theme Section ‘Primate conservation: measuring and mitigating trade in primates’

Endang Species Res 13: 159–161, 2011
Southwick & Siddiqi 2001). Now, over 30 yr later, there
seems to be a general consensus, at least among con-
servationists and primatologists, that the main threat to
primates is habitat loss and hunting (e.g. Cowlishaw &
Dunbar 2000, Strier 2011), although trade is recog-
nised as a leading threat for selected species (e.g. bar-
bary macaque Macaca sylvanus [Van Lavieren & Wich
2009] and slow lorises Nycticebus spp. [Nekaris & Nij-
man 2007]). Including domestic trade, however, the
live primate trade involves tens, if not hundreds, of
thousands of individuals a year (see below), whereas
the trade in dead primates involves millions a year
(e.g. Fa et al. 2006). While one would perhaps expect
that levels of trade in live primates have diminished
somewhat, data from the CITES trade database
(www.cites.org/eng/resources/trade.shtml) show that
this is not the case (Fig. 1). Since 1995 there has been a
linear increase in the export of live primates (R2 =
89.9%), with 3500 more individuals being exported
each year. Since 1995 China (31%) and Mauritius
(18%) supply almost half of all primates traded in-
ternationally; the single largest importer of live pri-
mates is the USA (26%) followed by Japan (14 %) and
China (13%).
Between 1990 and 1999 the numbers of wild-caught
and captive-bred primates were more or less equal;
after that there was a massive increase in captive-
breeding. Whether or not all these ‘captive-bred’ indi-
viduals are indeed derived from the wild has been
questioned (e.g. Eudey 2008). Another issue is whether
or not these figures represent real volumes or whether
there is a significant illegal international trade in addi-
tion to that which has been reported to CITES. Eudey
(2008) presented data on the large-scale illegal trade in
long-tailed macaques Macaca fascicularis from main-
land Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam) into
China, to supply the booming biomedical trade. Like-
wise, Maldonado et al. (2009, this Theme Section)
report on the trade of over 4000 night monkeys (Aotus
spp.) per annum from Peru and Brazil into Colombia to
supply a biomedical research facility with primates. No
records are available for night monkeys in trade from
Peru and Brazil into Colombia in the CITES trade data-
base. Data on domestic trade in primates are more dif-
ficult to acquire (cf. Mack & Mittermeier 1984), but
work presented in this Theme Section by Nijman et al.
(2009) Ceballos-Mago & Chivers (2010), Ceballos-
Mago et al. (2010) and Shepherd (2010) shows that this
can involve considerable numbers.
Apart from the live primate trade, there is a signifi-
cant international trade in dead primates and their
derivatives. For instance, data from the CITES trade
database show that in the last 30 yr 1365 primate bod-
ies (mainly macaques and baboons), 6143 skins
(colobus monkeys) and 11292 skulls (baboons and
vervets) were exported. Unbeknownst to many per-
haps, there exists a significant market for primates to
be hunted as trophies, with almost 20 000 primates
(of >32 species) having been exported as such over the
last 30 yr.
Fa et al. (2006) calculated that, of over a million car-
casses traded as bushmeat per year at 100 sites, close
to 15% were of primates, and Alves et al. (2010), pro-
viding an overview of the global use of primates in tra-
ditional folk medicines, noted that >100 species were
traded for this purpose. Wright & Priston (2010, this
Theme Section) provide a case study of the bushmeat
trade in Cameroon, showing that even at a local scale,
capture of bushmeat for sale far
exceeds that for local consumption.
Starr et al. (2010, this Theme Section)
quantify the dramatic impact of domes-
tic trade on Cambodia’s 2 slow loris
species, demonstrating that their key
role in folk medicine may be driving
them towards extinction. Whereas
trade in live individuals, skins and tro-
phies is by and large attributable to
individual species (or higher taxa), the
trade in primate body parts or primate
meat often involves unidentifiable
items. Rönn et al. (2009, this Theme
Section) provide a novel way to iden-
tify primates in the bushmeat trade by
microarray sequencing to facilitate law
enforcement.
Since 2000, the Primate Specialists
Group of the International Union for
the Conservation of Nature in associa-
160
Number exported
All
Wild-caught
Captive-bred
1975
1978
1981
1984
1987
1990
1993
1996
1999
2002
2005
2008
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
80000
Fig. 1. Export of a total of 1.1 million live primates as reported by exporting Par-
ties to the CITES Secretariat, showing total numbers, and the number of wild-
caught and captive-bred individuals. China, the largest exporter of primates at
present, joined CITES in 1980. Numbers in the early years and for 2009 (and
possibly 2008) are artificially low because of under-reporting

Nijman et al.: Primate conservation: overview
tion with the International Primatological Society and
Conservation International have brought out a list of
the World’s top 25 most endangered primates. Mitter-
meier et al. (2006) mention trade as threatening only
one of the 25 listed taxa, whereas only 4 yr on, trade for
meat, medicine and pets is implicated as a major
source for the decline of 9 of the world’s rarest primate
taxa (Mittermeier et al. 2009). We urge further studies
such as those presented in this Theme Section to quan-
tify the extent of this serious threat.
Acknowledgements. We thank the Primate Society of Great
Britain for sponsoring the meeting that inspired these contri-
butions and for funding the travel expenses of several key
speakers. We are grateful to the Zoological Society of London
for sponsoring the event. We thank P. Kuhn and B. Godley for
their patience throughout the editorial process.
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