Ants need urgent protections from global trade, conservationists say

Ants need urgent protections from global trade, conservationists say

As the recent seizure of more than 5,000 endemic ants in Kenya reveals, ants have become part of a thriving global wildlife trade. Transnational traffickers are mopping up ants from the wild to sell them to hobbyists and collectors worldwide. In a recently published letter, conservationists are now calling for greater trade protections for all ant species under CITES, the global wildlife trade treaty. Ants play an important ecological role as se…