Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS AND VIEWS

Convictions show scale of wildlife hunting in China

An analysis of convictions reveals that around one-fifth of China’s terrestrial vertebrate species were illegally hunted over a six-year period. Improved efforts to reduce such crimes are needed to control this threat to biodiversity.
  1. David P. Edwards

    1. David P. Edwards is in the Department of Plant Sciences and at the Conservation Research Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EA, UK.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

The illegal harvest and trade in wildlife is a problem on a global scale that is driving many species towards extinction1,2. Detailed records of legal international trade of wildlife to supply pets and products, such as those under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), point towards a high number of species traded, often between major exporter and importer nations3. What is lacking is a coordinated, spatially explicit assessment of the diversity of species in illegal trade in individual nations. Writing in Nature, Liang et al.4 present a landmark study quantifying the severity of illegal wildlife hunting in China. The country is a centre of high biodiversity (seventh globally for vertebrates5), has strong domestic demand for wildlife products and had a fast-growing economy during the time frame studied.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 623, 33-34 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-02942-6

References

  1. Benítez-López, A. et al. Science 356, 180–183 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Morton, O., Scheffers, B. R., Haugaasen, T. & Edwards, D. P. Nature Ecol. Evol. 5, 540–548 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Harfoot, M. et al. Biol. Conserv. 223, 47–57 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Liang, D. et al. Nature 623, 100–105 (2023).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Fan, P.-F., Yang, L., Liu, Y. & Lee, T. M. Nature Ecol. Evol. 4, 1162–1167 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Scheffers, B. R., Oliveira, B., Lamb, I. & Edwards, D. P. Science 366, 71–76 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Marshall, B. M., Strine, C. & Hughes, A. C. Nature Commun. 11, 4738 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Hughes, L. J. et al. Nature 620, 351–357 (2023).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Hughes, L. J., Morton, O., Scheffers, B. R. & Edwards, D. P. Biol. Rev. 98, 775–791 (2023).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links