Wildlife populations can face trade pressures that authorities are unable to measure, with little to no information for most traded species on volumes, origins or whether commerce threatens their survival. The true number of species involved may be well above the current count because records remain incomplete.
Researchers say the gap persists because most countries do not systematically track trade in species outside the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, known as CITES. Alice Hughes, the lead researcher and a professor at the University of Melbourne School of BioSciences, said representative monitoring is necessary to manage trade, and said pet and ornamental markets are poorly captured by current data.
Until now, estimates based on analysis by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services put the global total at about 50,000 plant, animal and fungal species. Hughes and her team compiled data on species in global trade at the University of Melbourne's School of BioSciences, producing a new assessment led by the university and published in Science Advances.
The team identified at least 107,356 species used and traded worldwide, more than double the earlier estimate.
The trade reaches far beyond the illegal markets often associated with elephants, tigers and pangolins, Hughes said. It includes timber, seafood, medicinal plants, pets, cut flowers, ornamental fish and fungi, and most of it is legal.
An estimated 99.99% of detected or observed trade is legal. Legal wildlife trade is estimated to be worth around US$ 220 to 300 billion annually, approximately 10 times the estimated value of illegal trade, which stands at US$ 28.4 to 39.5 billion annually.
The study found up to 47,685 animal species in trade, equal to 42% of all described vertebrate species. Its count of traded butterfly species alone exceeds the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services' entire estimate for traded terrestrial invertebrates.
Coverage by CITES remains limited beside those figures. The treaty, established in 1975, monitors and regulates international trade in about 40,000 species. The global biodiversity framework target on trade accounts for around 2% or 3% of species in commerce, leaving the other 97% outside its measure.
Reptiles show the extent of the gap. CITES covers around 9.5% of reptile species, while international trade includes more than 45%, or 4047 species.
The United States is the only country systematically recording and publicly sharing trade data across a wide range of taxa. For some groups, 75% of traded species appear in US datasets, while most other countries have no comparable system for species outside CITES.
That leaves global pet and ornamental markets with minimal oversight, according to the researchers. Their data cannot fully capture transactions involving cut flowers, ornamental fish and other decorative species. International trade in taxidermy bats, sought by US consumers for Halloween and Christmas decorations, is one example of ornamental commerce outside most monitoring systems.
Hughes said species can become virtually extinct in the wild before gaining protection. The Chinese tiger gecko was discovered only in 1999 and was driven to extinction in China shortly after 1999 after animals were captured for the pet trade.
The consequences identified in the study extend beyond individual markets. Wildlife trade has directly or indirectly contributed to the global extinction of 294 species, extinction in the wild of 25 species and 192 local extinctions. Among species with population-level data, traded populations have an average 50 to 60% lower abundance than untraded populations.
Molly Brown, a study co-author and programme officer for wildlife use and trade at the International Union for Conservation of Nature, said the 107,356-species total remains an underestimate because researchers lack access to the monitoring data required to capture global trade fully. Chris Shepherd, a conservation advocate at the Centre for Biological Diversity, said demand is rising rapidly, especially for live animals sold as pets, alongside the number of species in the trade.
Hughes proposed adapting existing customs and zoosanitary processes into a stronger trade-monitoring system. She said wider implementation would require further engagement.
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