Each year, over one hundred million wild plants and animals are removed from their native environment and relocated to other parts of the world as part of both the legal and illegal wildlife trade.  Scientists have long suspected that leaving such significant holes in natural ecosystems has cascading effects, and is therefore unsustainable.

However, until recently, such system-wide effects were difficult to pin down.  Ecologists at the University of Sheffield, England have recently published a global map of wildlife trade impacts in an effort to answer such questions.  Conservation biologist Oscar Morton led the study, and he joins us now by phone. 

Global map of wildlife trade reveals true cost to the planet

 

Image by Michelle Garforth Venter from Pixabay

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