Militz Thane A, Kinch Jeff, Southgate Paul C
Australian Centre for Pacific Islands Research and Faculty of Science, Health, Education and Engineering, University of the Sunshine Coast, Maroochydore, Australia.
National Fisheries College, National Fisheries Authority, Kavieng, Papua New Guinea.
Environ Manage. 2018 Apr;61(4):661-670. doi: 10.1007/s00267-018-1006-9. Epub 2018 Feb 14.
A major difficulty in managing live organism wildlife trade is often the reliance on trade data to monitor exploitation of wild populations. Harvested organisms that die or are discarded before a point of sale are regularly not reported. For the global marine aquarium trade, identifying supply-chain losses is necessary to more accurately assess exploitation from trade data. We examined quality control rejections and mortality of marine invertebrates (Asteroidea, Gastropoda, Malacostraca, Ophiuroidea) moving through the Papua New Guinea marine aquarium supply-chain, from fisher to importer. Utilizing catch invoices and exporter mortality records we determined that, over a 160 day period, 38.6% of the total invertebrate catch (n = 13,299 individuals) was lost before export. Supply-chain losses were divided among invertebrates rejected in the quality control process (11.5%) and mortality of the accepted catch in transit to, and during holding at, an export facility (30.6%). A further 0.3% died during international transit to importers. We quantified supply-chain losses for the ten most fished species which accounted for 96.4% of the catch. Quality control rejections (n = 1533) were primarily explained by rejections of oversized invertebrates (83.2% of rejections). We suggest that enforceable size limits on species prone to size-based rejections and elimination of village-based holding of invertebrates would reduce losses along the Papua New Guinea supply-chain. This case study underscores that low mortality during international transit may mask large losses along supply-chains prior to export and exemplifies the limitations of trade data to accurately monitor exploitation.
管理活体野生动物贸易的一个主要困难通常在于依赖贸易数据来监测野生种群的开发利用情况。在销售点之前死亡或被丢弃的捕获生物往往未被报告。对于全球海水水族贸易而言，识别供应链中的损失对于更准确地根据贸易数据评估开发利用情况是必要的。我们研究了从渔民到进口商的巴布亚新几内亚海水水族供应链中海洋无脊椎动物（海星纲、腹足纲、软甲纲、蛇尾纲）的质量控制拒收情况和死亡率。利用捕捞发票和出口商死亡率记录，我们确定在160天的时间里，总无脊椎动物捕获量（n = 13299只）中有38.6%在出口前损失。供应链损失分为质量控制过程中被拒收的无脊椎动物（11.5%）以及在运往出口设施途中和在出口设施存放期间被接受的捕获物的死亡率（30.6%）。另有0.3%在运往进口商的国际运输途中死亡。我们对捕获量占96.4%的十种捕捞量最大的物种的供应链损失进行了量化。质量控制拒收（n = 1533）主要是由于对体型过大的无脊椎动物的拒收（占拒收量的83.2%）。我们建议，对容易因体型原因被拒收的物种实施可执行的尺寸限制，并取消在村庄存放无脊椎动物的做法，将减少巴布亚新几内亚供应链中的损失。本案例研究强调，国际运输期间的低死亡率可能掩盖了出口前供应链中的巨大损失，并例证了贸易数据在准确监测开发利用方面的局限性。
