Summarizing US Wildlife Trade with an Eye Toward Assessing the Risk of Infectious Disease Introduction.
The aim of this study was to characterize the role of the USA in the global exchange of wildlife and describe high volume trade with an eye toward prioritizing health risk assessment questions for further analysis. Here we summarize nearly 14 years (2000-2013) of the most comprehensive data available (USFWS LEMIS system), involving 11 billion individual specimens and an additional 977 million kilograms of wildlife. The majority of shipments contained mammals (27%), while the majority of specimens imported were shells (57%) and tropical fish (25%). Most imports were facilitated by the aquatic and pet industry, resulting in one-third of all shipments containing live animals. The importer reported origin of wildlife was 77.7% wild-caught and 17.7% captive-reared. Indonesia was the leading exporter of legal shipments, while Mexico was the leading source reported for illegal shipments. At the specimen level, China was the leading exporter of legal and illegal wildlife imports. The number of annual declared shipments doubled during the period examined, illustrating continually increasing demand, which reinforces the need to scale up capacity for border inspections, risk management protocols and disease surveillance. Most regulatory oversight of wildlife trade is aimed at conservation, rather than prevention of disease introduction.
EcoHealth Alliance, 460 West 34th Street, New York, NY, 10001, USA.
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Smith
EcoHealth Alliance, 460 West 34th Street, New York, NY, 10001, USA.
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Zambrana-Torrelio
EcoHealth Alliance, 460 West 34th Street, New York, NY, 10001, USA.
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White
EcoHealth Alliance, 460 West 34th Street, New York, NY, 10001, USA.|Centro de Ecología, Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas, Caracas, 1020-A, Venezuela.
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Asmussen
EcoHealth Alliance, 460 West 34th Street, New York, NY, 10001, USA.
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Machalaba
The Food System Institute, LLC and Veterinary Population Medicine Department, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA.
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Kennedy
Veterinary Population Medicine Department, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA.
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Lopez
Veterinary Population Medicine Department, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA.
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Wolf
EcoHealth Alliance, 460 West 34th Street, New York, NY, 10001, USA.
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Daszak
Veterinary Population Medicine Department, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA.
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Travis
EcoHealth Alliance, 460 West 34th Street, New York, NY, 10001, USA. Karesh@EcoHealthAlliance.org.
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Karesh
D000818:Animals; D000835:Animals, Wild; D002681:China; D003132:Commerce; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D007214:Indonesia; D008800:Mexico; D011634:Public Health; D014481:United States; D015047:Zoonoses / Q000635:transmission*
disease; illegal trade; legal trade; species; wildlife trade