The world has again convened for Cop, the annual ritual to confront humanity’s greatest-ever threat. Aside from its own lore and acronyms, this conference is starting to feel a little like Groundhog Day.
Representatives from almost all countries, bar the recalcitrant version of the US under Donald Trump, are here in Antalya, Turkey, to face a familiar if worsening challenge. (Even the Taliban are attending.)
Reptiles are captivating creatures – so captivating that people keep them as pets, or wear clothes and carry handbags fashioned from their patterned skins.
At first glance, these practices may appear to be a major threat to reptile conservation. Every lizard, snake, turtle or crocodile taken for the pet or skin trade means one less reptile in the wild, right?
Actually, that’s far from the full story.
Our newresearch reveals the true impact of the commercial reptile trade – and why it may not be as worrying as we think.
Reptiles at risk
Globally, our ecosystems are rapidly becoming less rich and diverse. This has alarming consequences for the plants and animals that call them home – including reptiles.
In Australia, for instance, research shows the country’s most threatened reptiles and frogs are already disappearing, with their populations declining by 96% on average since 1985.
The reasons for this are many and complex, including habitat destruction, pesticide use, natural disasters, diseases, and invasive species such as cane toads and cats. However, human-induced climate change remains the foremost threat to wildlife worldwide.
What about the reptile trade?
You may have seen footage of people being arrested for smuggling reptiles, or harrowing images of wild animals being stuffed into shoes. These scenes may trigger feelings of anger, disgust, sadness or even shame. Coupled with strong regulation and enforcement, these emotions are key to combating illegal “wildlife crime”.
However, the vast majority of international trade in reptiles is legal and well-regulated, thanks to a series of traceability and on-the-ground monitoring systems.
Is the commercial reptile trade, both legal and illegal, actually threatening the world’s reptiles? To answer this question, we took a closer look at how reptile populations are faring.
First, we examined the trade in reptiles for leather. We collated data compiled by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and various government agencies and conservation organisations. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) keeps a careful count of how many individual animals and skins are being traded worldwide. Those not counted on the list are governed by national quotas.
A group of IUCN reptile experts led by Timothy Colston, co-author of this article, trawled through reptile skin trade data collected between 2000 and 2020. These researchers found more than 70 million reptile skins traded over that period came from fewer than 50 species – mostly crocodiles, snakes and lizards. This is only a handful of the more than 10,000 known reptile species globally.
Most surprisingly, wild populations of the most heavily traded reptiles still appear to be healthy. This may be because these reptile species are ecological generalists, meaning they thrive in a range of habitats and typically have high reproductive rates. These species also benefit from sustained research and population management efforts.
We observed similar trends in the reptile pet trade.
In 2026, a team of Australian researchers assembled and analysed data on more than 340,000 live reptiles and amphibians, put up for sale by commercial traders in the United States and United Kingdom between 1989 to 2004. This period marked the heyday of hard-copy published pricelists, which were soon to be replaced by online reptile sales.
The researchers found those pricelists were dominated by a handful of docile, colourful species of lizards and snakes. The most popular were the kingsnake, cornsnake and python, alongside the Australian bearded dragon and leopard gecko. These species generally mature quickly, reproduce rapidly and adjust well to captivity.
These data reveal most pet reptiles are born or hatched in captivity, instead of being taken from the wild. Many pet owners prefer captive-born animals as they are less likely to be stressed or diseased. Captive breeding also produces more vividly coloured reptiles.
It’s worth noting, wild reptiles and amphibians are still taken – using legal and illegal methods – for the pet trade. However, our analysis suggests these activities have little impact on the health of wild populations.
The exception is the handful of species that are either restricted to small islands or have very slow rates of growth and reproduction, such as turtles. For such a species, removing even a few adult females can have a major impact on the slowly reproducing wild population.
Some people oppose the trading of wild animals on ethical and animal welfare grounds. However, our analysis suggests far fewer wild reptiles are traded than are run over by cars, harvested for traditional medicines or killed by habitat destruction, invasive pests, disease or climate change.
When it comes to protecting our wild reptiles, it’s tempting to direct our resources and attention to the most visible threats. For example, authorities may confiscate smuggled lizards at an airport, but arresting someone hiding a few common lizards does nothing to protect wild populations of that lizard species.
Likewise, banning a sustainable skin trade may actually hamper conservation efforts by fostering illegal trade and removing incentives for locals to protect certain animals.
Instead, we must shift our focus to curbing the persistent threats of global warming, invasive pests and habitat destruction. To protect our precious reptiles, we need to tackle the most urgent threats – not just those that grab our attention.
Rick Shine receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Daniel Natusch is a director for a wildlife charity that has received funding from groups that use reptile leather, and from groups that oppose the use of reptiles for leather. None of this funding is related to reptile skin trade and those organisations have not influenced the findings of this research or article.
Timothy J. Colston receives funding from the United States National Science Foundation. He is affiliated with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Snake Specialist Group.
An Australian billionaire couple has made one of the biggest donations to conservation in Australia’s history. An environment group says it could make their “incredible ambition” to manage 5 per cent of Australia’s landmass possible.
Increasing use of renewables and the Iran war contribute to a drop in emissions from burning oil, coal and gas, but there are questions as to how long the shift will last.
A remarkably strong El Niño has formed in the Pacific.
This natural phenomenon drives variations in temperature, rainfall and winds across the globe. The ongoing El Niño has already contributed to sudden floods in eastern Africa, blistering heatwaves in Europe and intense hurricanes in the eastern Pacific.
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology warned us of this El Niño in June, which is currently the earliest point at which reliable predictions can be made.
Our new study suggests it may be possible to accurately predict some El Niños up to 12 months ahead of time, buying valuable time for farmers, emergency services and disaster-prone communities.
How models predict El Niño and La Niña
Climate and weather forecasting largely relies on physics-based models of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. These models work by applying the laws of physics, such as Newton’s laws of motion, to Earth’s geography.
A model is given information like the shapes of continents, the locations of mountains and the speed of Earth’s rotation. The models then solve equations representing the laws of physics to simulate a version of our Earth, complete with its own storms, ocean currents, waves and wind patterns.
To make predictions of El Niños and La Niñas, forecasters supply these models with information about present conditions, including ocean temperatures, currents, winds and humidity. This data comes from a vast global network of satellites, weather stations, ocean buoys and moorings.
The models use this information about the present as a starting point. They then simulate the ocean and atmosphere’s movements and temperatures a few months into the future, showing whether an El Niño or La Niña is about to emerge.
Why is it difficult to make early forecasts?
In the 1960s, meteorologist Ed Lorenz and computer scientist Margaret Hamilton made a startling discovery. Using an early weather model, they found changing the starting conditions by a tiny amount, such as a millionth of a degree Celsius, could radically alter the model’s predictions.
This spawned the mathematical field of chaos theory, the idea that no matter how perfect a model is, there are some situations where the system being predicted is so sensitive to minuscule changes, it’s almost impossible to make correct predictions. This makes it extremely difficult to form accurate forecasts of weather more than a week or two in advance.
El Niños and La Niñas are largely shaped by the ocean, which moves much more slowly and takes longer to heat up and cool down, compared to the atmosphere. As a result, El Niño and La Niña predictions can be made over a longer period. These events typically peak around December and can be accurately predicted about six months ahead.
But these predictions also have limits. Forecasts made between March and May are notoriously unreliable. Because of the conditions in the atmosphere and ocean at this time of year, it becomes susceptible to the butterfly effect, with even small fluctuations preventing models from making accurate predictions. This period is like a Bermuda triangle for climate forecasting.
Our latest study examined whether it’s possible to overcome this uncertainty to reliably predict future El Niños.
Chaotic systems are not unpredictable all the time. Sometimes the conditions are right for good predictions. A few studies of particular years suggest some El Niño and La Niña events might be accurately predicted before the March-May period.
But our research team wanted to know for sure if we should believe early forecasts. To do this, we used a massive dataset of 7,500 forecasts generated by nine models, developed in different countries. By analysing this data, we were able to check whether early predictions came true and search for patterns in early forecast performance.
Our findings suggest the conditions in which a forecast is made has a significant effect on its accuracy. We sorted forecasts based on what was happening in the Pacific when they were first initiated – La Niña, El Niño or neutral conditions.
A clear pattern emerged: forecasts that began during a La Niña were most successful in predicting what would happen a year later. By contrast, forecasts initiated in neutral conditions were very likely to be wrong.
These findings were consistent across all nine models we studied. This suggests La Niña conditions have a stabilising influence, meaning predictions are more likely to be reliable.
What next?
These findings are valuable for communities worldwide. During La Niña years, we have an opportunity to make early forecasts and issue early warnings so communities, emergency responders and governments can prepare for future El Niños.
However, we need more research to translate these findings into practice. Studies should focus on why La Niña events support better model performance and if there are particular ocean or atmosphere patterns that can tell us when a model is making correct predictions. Research should also investigate how best to apply these findings to interpreting real-time forecasts.
This information will allow scientists to distinguish between unreliable predictions and those that might protect communities from harm.
Nandini Ramesh receives funding from the CSIRO. She has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council and the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Department of Energy. She is affiliated with the University of New South Wales.
Mandy Freund receives funding from The University of Melbourne and the ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather.
