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More Than 66,000 Yellow-fronted Canaries Were Recorded in Hong Kong Imports From 2015–2020

Yellow-fronted canary perched in Pilanesberg National Park
Conservation · Trade & poaching

More than 66,000 yellow-fronted canaries (Crithagra mozambica) were recorded in Hong Kong import data between 2015 and 2020, making the species the most numerous African songbird identified in a new study of live-bird trade not covered by CITES species listings. CITES is the international convention that regulates trade in listed wild species, but most of the birds examined here fall outside those species-specific records. The study was first published on 23 March 2026 in Conservation Biology.

The researchers used UN Comtrade records to examine imports of live non-CITES birds from African countries to Hong Kong and Singapore between 2006 and 2020. They supplemented these records with species-specific data from Hong Kong’s Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department for 2015–2020.

Live-bird imports to Singapore and Hong Kong from 2006 to 2020 by world region
Reported live-bird imports to Singapore and Hong Kong by world region, 2006–2020. Figure 1 from Davies et al. (2026), Conservation Biology, CC BY 4.0.

More than one million non-CITES birds were recorded over 15 years

Across the full 15-year period, more than one million non-CITES birds were imported to Hong Kong and Singapore. The species-level Hong Kong data contained between 132,905 and 147,908 birds representing 34 African species imported from five African countries and Malaysia. Some species were also imported via Malaysia, so the authors present ranges when the African origin of those re-exported birds cannot be established with certainty. The figures represent reported trade rather than a complete census: importer and exporter records often disagreed, and export records were missing from some major source countries.

Trade flows of live birds from African exporting countries to Singapore and Hong Kong
Reported live-bird trade flows from African exporting countries to Singapore and Hong Kong, 2006–2020. Figure 2 from Davies et al. (2026), Conservation Biology, CC BY 4.0.

Yellow-fronted canary was the most numerous individual species, with between 66,583 and 66,883 birds recorded. White-rumped seedeater (Crithagra leucopygia) ranked second, with between 45,990 and 57,590. Together, these two species accounted for 84% of the recorded imports from Africa during 2015–2020.

Canaries in the genus Crithagra dominated the trade more broadly. The six most frequently imported species all belonged to this genus and together represented about 95% of the birds imported from Africa in the species-specific dataset.

Yellow-fronted canary is currently listed as least concern on the IUCN Red List, but the study notes that its wild population is considered to be declining and that trapping for trade has been identified as a cause of decline. The Songbirds in Trade Database also identifies trade as a plausible threat to the species.

The records do not reliably separate wild-caught from captive-bred birds

The trade records do not distinguish comprehensively between wild-caught and captive-bred birds. The authors nevertheless conclude that much of the canary trade from African source countries is likely to involve wild-caught birds, based on the economics and regulation of the trade and the limited evidence for large-scale breeding facilities in most source countries.

The authors argue that the scale of trade in birds not covered by CITES is poorly captured by conservation monitoring based only on CITES records. They recommend more taxonomically detailed customs reporting and stronger import restrictions where exporting countries cannot demonstrate legal acquisition or adequate disease-surveillance systems.

Sources and image credit

  1. Davies, A., Andersson, A. A., Martin, R. O., Inglis, S., & Dingle, C. (2026). Using customs data to understand overlooked trade in non-CITES birds between Africa and Asia. Conservation Biology, 40, e70265. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.70265Primary peer-reviewed open-access article first published 23 March 2026 under CC BY 4.0. Hong Kong species-level data for 2015–2020 recorded 66,583–66,883 yellow-fronted canaries; together with white-rumped seedeaters they accounted for 84% of recorded imports from Africa in that dataset.

Image: Derek Keats — wild yellow-fronted canary photographed in Pilanesberg National Park, North West, South Africa, 18 June 2016; Wikimedia Commons / Flickr; representative species image, not a bird documented in the trade dataset · CC BY 2.0 · Source

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