New Study Uncovers Emerging Threat to Vulnerable Pinyon Jay: Conservation organisations call for CITES protections

The Pinyon Jay, assessed as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, is in decline due to its continued decline in the wild caused by impacts to its unique pinyon-juniper woodland habitat. Commercial trade has not been considered a threat to this unique species, and no information is given in the IUCN Red List assessment on use and trade at all. The authors recommend immediately listing the species in Appendix III of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to enable the monitoring of international trade and considering listing it in a higher appendix of CITES at the next Conference of the Parties, as a more restrictive measure to provide a necessary tool to prevent illegal international trade from becoming an additional threat for this unique North American songbird. 

Observation of threatened pinyon jays Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus in the EU pet market was published in the European Journal of Wildlife Research.