More than 50,000 dead butterflies were traded on eBay in a one-year period, including endangered species protected by international treaties on wildlife trade.
Tens of thousands of butterflies are sold on eBay each year and endangered species covered by trade restrictions command some of the highest prices, an analysis has found.
Zhengyang Wang at Harvard University and his colleagues monitored sales of dead butterflies on eBay for one year starting in September 2020 by automating the search of 150,000 butterfly names – both present and historical – on the site.
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| Many butterfly collectors purchase specimens on eBay Leo Bild/Alamy |
The team recorded more than 50,000 transactions involving 3767 species, close to a fifth of all known butterfly species.
Only 2 per cent of the butterflies traded on the site were considered to be endangered, but they include 4 out of the top 10 most expensive species in the transactions analysed. For example, a male and female pair of the Ludlow’s Bhutan swallowtail (Bhutanitis ludlowi) that originated in India sold for $8998.
“Just like in the world of all collectibles, rare things are more expensive,” says Wang. “It might just be about the label.”
The vast majority of the butterflies sold on the site originate from South-East Asia and Latin America, but appear to be sold by traders located in Europe and the US, says Wang.
Laws vary between countries, but many require permits to collect butterflies or ban the collection of the insects from certain protected sites, says Blanca Huertas at the Natural History Museum in London. The sales of some endangered butterflies, as listed on the CITES trade database, require permits or are prohibited outright, says Huertas. Wang says they didn’t see any permits displayed on the eBay listings.
The researchers also enlisted 200 people online to assess the aesthetic qualities of the traded butterflies. The judges’ ratings closely matched the trade volume of each butterfly species.
Wang says he was surprised by this. “Normally, you would expect that collectors just want the ‘rare’ specimens,” he says. “But our study shows that a butterfly collection is more like a home decoration piece rather than collecting a piece of abstract modern art – people are buying butterflies because they are beautiful.”
The findings suggest that there are two types of people who buy butterflies online: professional collectors who will pay high prices for the rarest species and hobbyists who simply want the prettiest butterflies, says Wang.
He suggests that the global trade of butterflies could be a good thing for butterfly conservation. “Unlike [for] large mammals, human collection is not a cause of insect extinction,” he says. “Butterflies are never collected to extinction [as they can reproduce so much] – habitat destruction is what kills butterflies.”
Some butterflies only feed on plants found in a few habitats, so when those habitats are under threat, so are the butterflies, says Wang. He suggests that the global market for butterflies could be used to help fund conservation efforts to protect their habitats. “If done correctly, it’s a win-win for stakeholders and the environment,” he says.
But Tim Shreeve at Oxford Brookes University, UK, says there is some risk in further legitimising the butterfly trade. “This type of trade could lead to more exploitation with people incentivised to collect the rarest type of butterflies, potentially threatening the insects’ existence,” he says. “Moreover, you have to actually make sure that the money goes to the Indigenous population collecting these butterflies and not profiteering middlemen.”
In a statement, an eBay spokesperson said the site has strict policies and guidelines to regulate the listing of animal products and the company promotes the protection of wildlife.
“To reinforce our regulations, we have global teams dedicated to upholding standards on our marketplace. eBay is a founding member of the Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online and we work alongside organisations such as WWF and IFAW [the International Fund for Animal Welfare] to continually update our measures,” the spokesperson said.
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