Growth of Damaging and Invasive Species Linked To Pet Trade

A pair of researchers from the University of Lausanne has discovered a connection between invasive animal species and global pet trade commercial success. Jérôme Gippet and Cleo Bertelsmeier explained their analysis of invasive species sales and what they discovered in a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Invasive animals make up about 12.6 percent of the pet trade, according to the researchers. Invasive mammalian species were also found to be 7.4 times more common in the global pet trade than in the wild. They also learned that ants sold as pets were 6.6 times more popular in the foreign trading market than in the wild and were sold 1.7 times more often than non-invasive ants.

According to the experts, much of the proliferation of exotic species is possibly due to the global pet trade industry. They suspect that a significant amount of invasive species bought by people either flee or are released into the wild. They also say that consumers favor invasive species, implying that they will become much more widespread. They conclude by recommending that countries worldwide begin enacting legislation to limit such purchases or face growing problems related to invasive species introduction.

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