CITES Animals Committee to review status of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins
WDCS participated in the annual meeting of the Animals Committee to CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, last week. Our representative and wildlife trade expert, Sue Fisher, was part of a working group considering international trade in live Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) from the
The captures and trade have occurred despite a fundamental lack of knowledge about the population targeted, even though this is a requirement of CITES: An exporting country must state that trade will not be detrimental to the survival of the population before issuing an export permit for any species listed in CITES’ Appendix II.
Since 2003, when over 100 dolphins were captured in the waters of the Solomon Islands and export began, WDCS and others have questioned whether the Solomon Islands has made valid 'non detriment findings' considering the lack of information on the population. CITES declined to address our concerns at its meeting last year and deferred further discussion pending an IUCN Scientific Assessment Workshop on Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins in
Given the obvious threat posed to the population by continued captures and trade, WDCS sought a halt on captures and exports while the surveys and analysis recommended by IUCN were undertaken, and we pressed for a detailed review by CITES of the status of the population. In spite of the strong recommendations of a Animals Committee working group that the review be undertaken and the harvest quota reduced to fewer than 10 animals a year, we were disappointed that the Animals Committee ultimately agreed only to enter the population in CITES’ Review of Significant Trade and dropped the recommendation of measures to reduce the impact of trade in the meantime.
As WDCS's Sue Fisher notes: “We are concerned that trade has the potential to cause significant damage to the viability of the population and there is ample evidence of the need for an immediate trade ban. While we are happy that CITES is sufficiently concerned about the trade to begin assessing its impacts on the dolphin population, Animals Committee is a slow-moving and increasingly political beast. If captures continue, these dolphins may not survive long enough to see the conclusion of the process. We continue to call on the Animals Committee and Parties to CITES to move quickly to save this population from extirpation.”