Call to keep secrets on rare species draws reluctant support | Science | AAAS

"The extent to which rare animal poachers piggyback on scientific research became clear to Mark Auliya soon after he published a 2012 paper announcing the discovery of the Borneo earless monitor lizard (Lanthanotus borneensis) in a new part of the southeast Asian island.

The conservation biologist at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig, Germany, had left the lizards’ location vague, in an attempt to shield the animal from collectors and their suppliers. Nevertheless, within a year, the lizard was turning up outside Borneo.

So Auliya embraces a new call, published today in Science, for scientists to keep mum about details that could turn rare and sought-after species into the next easy target for the global wild animal trade. 'It’s terrible,' he says. 'If you describe a new species in the Democratic Republic of Congo, you should probably only list the country.' 

In today’s Perspective, two Australian conservation biologists urge scientists to adopt a policy of strategic 'self-censorship' to shield the animals and plants they study. For species that are likely targets for collectors, they urge scientists to share detailed information about where the species is found only with government agencies, while hiding it from the public.

Such secrecy runs counter to the imperative to share research with the scientific world, and the push to make it quickly and widely available. But that openness is taking a devastating toll, says David Lindenmayer, the article’s lead author and a conservation biologist at The Australian National University in Canberra.  'For some of the really important species, if we don’t do something they’re going to get wiped off the map.'"