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Evaluation of the Captive Breeding Potential of Selected Amphibian and Reptile Taxa Included in Appendices I and II at CITES CoP18 Evaluation of the Captive Breeding Potential of Selected Amphibian and Reptile Taxa Included in Appendices I and II at CITES CoP18 Results of the identical F+E-project (FKZ: 3520 53 2054)
Abstract and Figures
The European Union (EU) is one of the world's main importers of live reptiles and their parts and products (such as leather). Within the EU, Germany is also a central transit country in the reptile trade and thus bears a special responsibility for the protection of the traded species. The Washington Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) ensures that international trade in specimens of wild animal and plant species does not endanger the survival of the respective species. While international trade was initially based primarily on wild-caught specimens, today more than 83% of reptiles and amphibians traded are declared as having an origin other than "wild". In some cases, however, these indications of origin are questionable. While legal trade in captive-bred specimens can contribute to species conservation, trade in wild specimens declared as farmed to circumvent trade restrictions is often very damaging to wild populations. Against this background, the verification of breeding is an increasing challenge for national and international CITES enforcement authorities and is becoming more and more important in the work of the international bodies of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Detailed information on the reproductive biology and husbandry requirements of the species concerned is of utmost importance for the plausibility check of breeding data. However, especially for rarely kept species, species newly listed in the CITES Appendices, newly described or little researched species, such information is often not available or not freely available. In Germany, there are some specialised keepers who have sound experience in keeping and breeding rarely kept reptile and amphibian taxa, but this is often not published and thus not accessible. The German Society for Herpetology and Terrarial Science (DGHT) was commissioned by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation to compile relevant reproduction data for all reptile and amphibian species listed in Appendices I and II at the last CITES Conference of the Parties CoP18. Data and experience were collected from specialised keepers, wholesalers and zoological institutions and compiled together with literature data and based on our own expertise in the form of this handout. This assistance is intended to support the authorities in the enforcement of species protection in the plausibility check of the breeding of certain species and to contribute to an improved implementation of the CITES Convention. vention. In addition, the information provided can be used by scientists or for conservation breeding projects.
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Résumé – Affinités écologiques de Tylototriton asperrimus Unterstein, 1930 à Bainiu, Dayaoshan, province du Guangxi en Chine avec mise en exergue sur sa diversité cryptique. La salamandre crocodile du Mont Dayao a été observée dans le comté autonome de Jinxiu Yao, dans la province du Guangxi en Chine du sud. Nous reportons brièvement ses affinités écologiques. Cette espèce cryptique se rencontre dans les zones montagneuses de forêts denses humides sempervirentes de feuillus et de forêts subtropicales humides entre 300 et 1 400 mètres d’altitude. Nous présentons la biogéographie complexe de T. asperrimus comprenant quatre clades séparés. Un clade correspond à la forme topotypique distribuée du comté de Tian’e au nord-ouest jusqu’à Yulin au sud-est, incluant Dayaoshan (centre), province du Guangxi et une petite zone mal définie à l’extrême sud de la province du Guizhou en Chine. Un second clade nommé provisoirement T. cf. asperrimus “E’Huangzhang” occupe les massifs karstiques de Xinyi à Yangchun au sud de la province du Guangdong, Chine. Un troisième clade correspond à T. cf. asperrimus “Baise” connu des alentours des comtés de Baise, Napo et Jingxi au sud-ouest du Guangxi, Chine. Enfin, un quatrième clade, T. cf. asperrimus “Northern Vietnam” se compose de petites populations distribuées dans les provinces de Hòa Bình, Phú Thọ, Sơn La, Lào Cai jusqu’à Lai Châu au nord du Vietnam. D’après nos dernières études, les trois derniers clades méritent un nouveau rang taxinomique. Nous discutons de leur distribution actuelle et de la conservation de ce complexe d’espèces.
The commercial captive breeding of wildlife is often seen as a potential conservation tool to relieve pressure off wild populations, but laundering of wild-sourced specimens as captive-bred can seriously undermine these and provide a false sense of sustainability. Indonesia has been at the centre of such controversy, therefore we examine Indonesia's captive breeding production plan (CBPP) for 2016. A number of the quotas were found to be based on inaccurate and unrealistic biological parameters, and included species with no reported breeding stock. For 38 species, the quota exceeded the number of animals that can be bred based on the biological parameters (range 100% - 540%) using the equations used in the CBPP. A lower reproductive output was calculated for 88 species using published biological parameters compared to the parameters used in the CBPP. The equations used in the production plan also did not appear to account for other factors involved in breeding the proposed large numbers of specimens. We recommend that the captive breeding production plan be adjusted by using realistic published biological parameters, and remove quotas for species for which captive breeding is unlikely or for which no breeding stock is available. The shortcomings in the current captive breeding production plan create loopholes where mammals, reptiles and amphibians from Indonesia declared as captive-bred may have been sourced from the wild. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
The "One Plan Approach", supported by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), describes activities targeting the intensified development of integrative strategies to protect threatened animal species, and advancing cooperative concurrence of in situ and ex situ measures and expert groups. Here we give an overview about what our international working group could achieve in the past two years, since our latest review of our German-Vietnamese long-term cooperation between the Cologne Zoo and the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources in terms of herpetodiversity research and conservation in 2017.
Tokay gecko (Gekko gecko) is a large-sized gecko from the genus of Gekko, which is most commonly found from South Asia, southern China, and Southeast Asia. In Indonesia, these species are common to inhabit human-modified habitat in Sumatera, Borneo, Java, Bali, Lesser Sundas, Sulawesi, and Moluccas. In recent years, the demand for Tokay gekko with high use-value in both national and international markets has increased, one of which is used for traditional medicine. This situation raised the concern on the decreasing of the wild population and the validity of captive breeding programs that produced a large number of individuals. Several reports had estimated millions of individuals have been exported from Indonesia either legally or illegally, however, the exact number never been reported. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the trend on the harvested Tokay gecko and its origin based on the source code information. The data were collected from government records, including specimens harvested from the wild and specimens produced from captivity during 2013 - 2018 (six years). The results showed that the legally exported specimens were sourced from wild (W) and captive breeding (C or F). The total numbers of individuals exported from the wild harvest are 97.146, and all export realization is below the wild harvest quota. However, there are the large numbers of individuals exported and declared as specimens produced from the captive breeding facilities (6.965.000 with source code F, and 1.236.000 with source code C). More importantly, the high level of specimens produced from captive breeding facilities is unlikely to match with the biological capacity of this species. Therefore, we predict that specimens labeled captive breeding were likely sourced from the wild.
Ethnopharmacological relevance:
Worldwide, one of the drivers of substitution and adulteration is the cost of the natural resources (plants, animals, fungi) that are ingredients of traditional medicines. Relatively few studies have been done that link prices of traditional medicine ingredients to what drives changes in price, yet this is an important topic. Theoretically, prices have been widely considered as an economic indicator of resource scarcity. Rare, slow growing medicinal plants sell for high prices and common, less popular species for low prices. Price levels also influence the viability of farming vs. wild harvest (and incentives to overharvest high value species when tenure is weak). Prices can also influence the harvesting or buying behaviour of harvesters, traders or manufacturers. When prices are high, then there is a greater incentive to use cheaper substitute species or adulterants. As previous studies on herbal medicine ingredients have shown, adulteration applies in a wide variety of cases, including to some Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) species.
Aim of the study:
The aim of this study was to gain a better understanding of which factors influenced changes in the market prices of document prices for four popular, but very different traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) species (2002 - 2017).
Materials and methods:
Fluctuations in market prices were followed over a 15-year period (2002-2017) for four very different TCM ingredients: two plant species (one wild harvested for fruits (Schisandra sphenanthera Rehder & E.H. Wilson) the other in a transition from wild harvest to cultivation (Paris polyphylla Smith), an animal species (the Tokay gecko (Gekko gecko L.)) and the entomophagous "caterpillar fungus" (Ophiocordyceps sinensis (Berk). G.H. Sung, J.M. Sung, Hywel-Jones & Spatafora).
Results:
High prices of medicinal plants are widely considered to reflect resource scarcity. Real-time market prices for three of the four very different TCM species we studied all showed major price fluctuations. The exception was P. polyphylla, whose wild populations are widely known to be increasingly scarce, where there was a steady increase in price, with few fluctuations in the upward price trend. The three other species showed significant price fluctuations. These were driven by multiple factors. Ecological and biogeographic factors that influence abundance or scarcity of supply certainly played a role. But other factors were also influential. These included both national and global economic factors (the influence of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC)), national policy changes that in turn influenced businessmen giving expensive gifts (that included O. sinensis)), climate change (influencing fruiting success of S. sphenanthera), price speculation by traders and lack of information (e.g: reduction in G. gecko prices due to traders incorrectly believing that domestication would increase supplies).
Conclusions:
Price fluctuations in the four TCM species we examined are influenced by many factors and not just resource scarcity. And the situation is more complex than the trajectory based on Homma's (1992) model, where he predicted that higher prices would result in a shift to cultivation, thus replacing wild harvest. In case of both O. sinensis and P. polyphylla, Homma (1992, 1996) was right in terms of scarcity and high prices stimulating a major investment in cultivation (P. polyphylla) and artificial production (O. sinensis). But in both cases, intensive production through cultivation or artificial propagation do not yet occur on a large enough scale to reduce harvest of wild stocks. Substitution and adulteration occur with all four species. Improving information to medicinal plant traders on the supply status of TCM stocks, whether from wild harvest or from cultivation could benefit product quality, cultivation initiatives and conservation efforts.