Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What can you guys tell me about CITES? Is everything listed as a CITES animal illegal to sell or own? How do you get around owning and selling captive born and bred species that are listed?

Generally CITES listed animals are legal to own and sell but require permits to be moved across an international border. Each signator country to the CITES has their own government agency responsible for enforcing the treaty. Here in the US the US Fish and Wildlife is responsible for CITES compliance. In Europe since the establishment of the EU the procedures for transport of CITES listed animals across borders of EU nations has become more simple. In some countries the Government does ban ownership of CITES listed animals.
Jeff

>>What can you guys tell me about CITES? Is everything listed as a CITES animal illegal to sell or own? How do you get around owning and selling captive born and bred species that are listed?

FYI, CITES is a treaty that ranks species of plants and animals for which there is international trade interest. The idea is to help member nations protect their vulnerable species even outside their borders. Species with commercial value could be collected or hunted to extinction without some sort of international control of trade (elephant ivory, rhino horns, tiger skins, etc). The treaty includes the whole animal (alive or dead) as well as any products made from it's parts. Member nations who sign the treaty agree to abide by the decisions of several working groups who periodically review and re-classify species based on the trade demand, the perceived threats to and status of their wild populations. Species are listed in several "appendices". Species that are severely threatened with extinction because of collection pressure and other threats are not legal to purchase or ship across international borders of signatory nations (the California condor for example). The only way someone can get one of these is for accepted species recovery programs. Other appendicies list species whose trade is tightly controlled to prevent endangerment (many zoo animals for example), and species whose trade requires import and export permits but isn't really limited (either because there isn't good information either way or because the wild populations can handle the current collection quotas). Individual nations can also choose to restrict importation of some species across their own borders even if CITES would allow it. For example, the USA no longer permits importation of many exotic birds including parrots even though some other nations can still do it. You can check to see if a species you are interested in is listed and on which appendix by going to the US Fish and Wildlife Service's webpages about CITES. Does that help?