Exposed: the illegal Hong Kong trade in endangered coral reef fish
Despite more than 1,000 counted on sale, no imports of the fish took place last year according to official records, exposing extent of illegal trade
Hong Kong plays a major role as an import and transshipment hub for the endangered humphead wrasse despite regulations to protect the reef fish implemented nearly a decade ago, a new report has found.
At least 1,197 living humphead wrasses – also known as Napoleon fish – were counted on sale in the city during a study of live fish shops between November 2014 and December 2015 by wildlife trade monitoring network Traffic and the University of Hong Kong’s Swire Institute of Marine Science.
The report’s results suggested many of the fish had entered the city illegally given that no official imports were carried out last year and the fish are typically sold within a few weeks of import, the authors said.
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Live wrasses were also found on sale at markets and on e-commerce sites in Shenzhen, some of which researchers said may have been smuggled via Hong Kong.
“The market surveys clearly indicate illegal and unreported trade ... which is indicative of insufficient patrolling and enforcement and undermines existing trade regulations,”said Traffic senior programme officer Joyce Wu, one of the authors.
In 2005, the species was placed under Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, to regulate the international trade through the issuing of export permits by source countries to prove trade in the species would not affect its population.
