Using news reports to track wildlife black markets

The International black market in wildlife—alive or dead—is notoriously difficult to track. Hunters and smugglers don’t report their take for the same reasons that drug dealers don’t report profits to the IRS. “Tigers, rhinos and elephants are by no means the most widely traded of taxa. It’s things like seahorses, plants, pangolins, ornamental birds, corals for fish tanks, endangered fish for restaurants—these are the things that represent the bulk of illegal wildlife trade,” says Jacob Phelps, a scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research. “We see a lot more reporting on tigers rather than turtle eggs or softshell turtles being served at a restaurant. We need to be aware that bias carries through.”