Conservation news
A major victory in the effort to end the online, ornamental trade in bats
Although the use of wildlife for ornaments is not new, the large-scale harvesting and fashioning of animals into curios is a growing phenomenon, exacerbated by e-commerce. Concern about the conservation threat posed by online or- namental trade to Southeast Asia’s bats (including painted woolly bats Kerivoula picta), which are sold as taxidermied specimens and skeletal remains, was first raised by Lee et al. (2015, Oryx, 49, 204). We (the IUCN Species Survival Commission Bat
Specialist Group, Bat Trade Working Group) systematically quantified the online trade in these distinctive orange and black bats on the USA’s three biggest shopping websites: Amazon, eBay and Etsy (Coleman et al., 2024, European Journal of Wildlife Research, 70, 75). Our results, gathered over just 3 months, suggest that in 2022 alone, hundreds of K. picta were imported into the USA. We determined that this trade was probably illicit (by
analysing relevant laws in source countries and the USA) and recommended enhanced legal protection for K. picta. Before our paper was published, we communicated our findings to the Center for Biological Diversity, which, in May 2024, together with the Monitor Conservation Research Society, submitted a petition to add K. picta to the U.S. Endangered Species Act. This listing should raise border scrutiny and reduce USA imports of ornamental bats. This petition was publicized on the websites of the Center for Biological Diversity and the non-profit Lubee Bat Conservancy, and on social media. The frequent use of seemingly deceptive sales tactics (e.g.
statements that bats had been sustainably sourced) in the listings we analysed suggests that buyers may not be aware of their inadvertent contributions to bat population de- clines. We suggested this issue be publicized, reasoning that heightened public awareness could reduce demand and that media exposure could push e-tailers to ban sales of bats. We acted on our recommendation via carefully co- ordinated efforts by Queens College, City University of New York and the University of California, Davis. Joint press releases by their press offices on 16 July 2024 elicited considerable media attention, including a front-page New York Times article (
nytimes.com/2024/07/25/climate/
taxidermy-bats-kerivoula-picta.html). All these efforts, including those by countless people and organizations who circulated these articles and social media posts, had a major impact. By mid-August 2024, eBay and Etsy had removed all bat listings from their platforms world- wide and in the USA, respectively, with both companies im- plementing concrete policies prohibiting bat trade. This
remarkably swift success story highlights how conservation researchers and practitioners working with the media to effectively communicate their message can galvanize diverse actors around a mission and achieve the ideals of corporate social responsibility. We gratefully acknowledge everyone involved and encourage other e-tailers to adopt similar policies. This outcome has strengthened our commitment to ending the unsustainable ornamental bat trade. We are now working to address supply chains (e.g. market surveys in Southeast Asia) and preparing to push for K. picta to be listed in the CITES appendices at the 2025 Conference of the Parties.
JOANNA L. COLEMAN1,2 (
joanna.coleman@
qc.cuny.edu),
JOE CHUN-CHIA HUANG1,3 ,TIGGA KINGSTON1,4 , BENJAMIN P.Y.-H. LEE1,5 ,JOY M. O’KEEFE1,6 , NISTARA RANDHAWA1,7 ,ABIGAIL L. RUTROUGH1,4 , CHRIS R. SHEPHERD1,8 ,VU DINH THONG1,9 and
SUSAN M. TSANG1,10 1IUCN Species Survival Commission Bat Specialist Group, Bat TradeWorking Group. 2Queens College, City University of New York, Flushing, New York, USA. 3National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei City, Taiwan. 4Texas Tech University,Lubbock,Texas,USA. 5Royal Commission for AlUla, AlUla, Saudi Arabia. 6University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA. 7University of California, Davis, Davis, California, USA. 8Monitor Conservation Research Society, BigLakeRanch,Canada. 9VietnamAcademy of Science and Technology, Hanoi, Viet Nam. 10American Museum of Natural History, New York City, New York, USA
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC BY 4.0.
Marine conservation in Indonesia’s Senayang Islands: addressing threats to dugongs and hawksbill turtles within the coral triangle
The Senayang Islands in the Riau Archipelago, Indonesia, with their abundant coral reefs and inclusion in the Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security, have become a vital area for marine species. These ecosystems provide safe breeding, feeding and migration grounds for threatened marine fauna (Hadi et al., 2020, The Status of Indonesian Coral Reefs 2019). The islands are natural habitats for the dugong Dugong dugon and hawksbill turtle Eretmochelys imbricata, categorized as Vulnerable and Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List, respectively. Other migrating marine animals, such as sharks, green turtles, dolphins and whales, are often observed by the local community, passing these islands on their migration routes.
Oryx, 2025, 59(1), 10–18 © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605324001595
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