Authors: Juergens, Jacqueline; Bruslund, Simon;Staerck, Johanna;Oegelund Nielsen, Rikke ;Conde, Dalia;

Even though wild bird imports into the EU have been banned since 2005, live birds are regularly among the most seized wildlife commodities entering the EU. However, confiscation reports have focused on parrots and birds of prey, although the EU has been implicated in the international songbird trade recently .

Here we analysed data from the Songbirds in Trade Database (SiTDB) on songbird trade in the EU. The SiTDB holds records of wild songbirds on sale from 2006-2020, relative trade volumes in the EU compared to the population size in the wild, difficulty of captive breeding and reports of EU captive breeding. We found 907 (13.8 %) wild-sourced songbird species on sale including 30 (3.3 %) threatened species and 38 (4.2 %) species protected under the EU Wildlife Trade Regulations. Most species had low relative trade volumes though 96 (10.6 %) species were reported with high or extreme trade volumes including 3 threatened species. Half of the species were traded wild despite having EU captive breeding reported.

Our results highlight a largely undocumented illegal trade in wild songbirds in the EU showing that demand for songbirds continues despite the import ban on wild birds and captive breeding within the EU.