The Fish and Wildlife Service got an earful after it solicited ideas for an international species-protection conference next year.
White sage needs help, the California Native Plant Society said. The illegal trade in West African hornbills must be reined in, some European zoo managers warned. Masked water snakes require tending, an organization called the Species Survival Network wrote.
And don’t forget the sloths.
“Social media continues to fuel and normalize exotic pet trade and animal interactions, with sloths leading many of those trends,” Danielle Kessler, U.S. country director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, and Sam Trull, executive director and co-founder of The Sloth Institute, wrote, adding that “the trade must be proactively monitored to ensure that it will not be detrimental to wild populations.”
