Today-Jan 28
A burgeoning online trade of sea cucumber and fish maw in Malaysia and Singapore as well as high levels of international trafficking could endanger their populations if regulators do not step up scrutiny and control, a report by a wildlife trade monitoring network has found. Traffic, a non-governmental organization (NGO), said that it had come across more than 5,000kg of sea cucumber and fish maw for sale while monitoring more than 30 online sites in Singapore and Malaysia over 11 days in 2020. This was from a 42-page report, titled A Rapid Assessment of Online Trade in Sea Cucumber and Fish Maw in Malaysia and Singapore, that it released on Friday (Jan 28). Sea cucumbers and fish maw, which is the dried or processed bladders of fish, are popular in the Southeast Asian region for their perceived medicinal value and are a delicacy in Chinese cuisine, usually available in Chinese eateries and restaurants. Some sea cucumber and fish maw species being traded online in Singapore and Malaysia were of moderate to high conservation concern, Traffic’s report said. For example, three sea cucumber species protected under Malaysian and Singaporean regulations appeared in 21 online advertisements and posts. They were the holothuria fuscogilva, holothuria nobilis and holothuria whitmaei species. Read more at: https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/global-trafficking-booming-online-trade-singapore-malaysia-could-endanger-sea-cucumber-and-fish-maw-populations-ngo-1801396
