Bat Trade Working Group

our vision

We envision a world in which bats are protected from illegal and/or unsustainable exploitation and trade.

our mission

We aim to inform and support evidence-based interventions to end the illegal and/or unsustainable domestic and international trades in live bats and bat specimens. As such, we conduct interdisciplinary research, catalyse legislative change and advise and assist with on-the-ground conservation efforts.

our leadership

Dr Joanna L Coleman, Co-Chair
Dr Chris R Shepherd, Co-Chair

our members

Dr Joe Chun-Chia Huang
Dr Tigga Kingston
Dr Benjamin PY-H Lee
Dr Joy O’Keefe
Dr Nistara Randhawa
Dr Abby Rutrough
Dr Vu Din Thong
Dr Jen Tinsman
Dr Susan Tsang

current projects

Our flagship issue is ornamental trade, and our flagship species is the painted woolly bat, Kerivoula picta. Using data science, we documented e-commerce in K. picta. From October through December 2022, we quantified ornamental-bats offered for sale to consumers in the United States on Amazon, eBay and Etsy. Our study, funded by the Animal Welfare Institute and in collaboration with Monitor Conservation Research Society, paints a very concerning pattern of trade that suggests high demand and a likely unsustainable harvest of this bat. It is also illegal to import K. picta into the United States under the Lacey Act because hunting, selling and/or exporting it is illegal in all 11 countries where K. picta occurs.

Our work was featured in numerous popular media articles, including National Geographic, the New York Times and Mongabay.com, among others, and our paper is in the European Journal of Wildlife Research.

Less than one month after our paper was published, this media attention, combined with careful and concerted efforts by many parties, led to new corporate policies banning all bat trade on eBay (worldwide) and Etsy (in the United States)—a significant win that we lauded in our 2025 note in Oryx.

Thanks to a generous IUCN SSC grant, in 2024, we performed a follow-up study of the ornamental bat trade in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Using direct observation and intel gathered from vendors, we determined that the trade caters mainly to tourists and that demand is higher for K. picta than for any other bat species. Our legislative review revealed opportunities to enhance legal protections for K. picta by including it in Vietnamese legislation barring all trade in "precious, rare and endangered" species in addition to including it on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES). Our in-revision manuscript (Global Ecology and Conservation) is available as a preprint.

The outcomes of all these studies are intended to provide evidence that would justify a proposed amendment to CITES. Looking ahead to the 2028 Conference of Parties (CoP), we will work with a proponent nation (e.g., Vietnam) on this proposal and perform lobbying activities to enhance support among other CITES parties. In the meantime, we will work with all range states to secure Appendix III amendments, which Parties can make unilaterally and any time.

Our work has also led to a petition to add K. picta to the US Endangered Species Act, a move that would heighten scrutiny at the border. The 90-day findings by the US Fish & Wildlife Service indicated that the petition contained enough evidence for the status review (the next step). In late 2025, we are working (and appealing to the bat-research community) to provide additional scientific and/or commercial data for this review. We urge individuals with deeper knowledge of this issue, especially on K. picta population trends, to contact us.