SINGAPORE - The thriving online trade and growing appetite for two seafood items - fish maw and sea cucumber - in Singapore and Malaysia are threatening their population in the wild, warned a wildlife trade monitoring organisation.

Notably, several threatened and internationally regulated species, including those protected under Singapore and Malaysia laws, are being sold online, said non-governmental organisation Traffic in a report released on Friday (Jan 28).

The report, which is calling for more stringent monitoring of the trade in the two marine delicacies, had tracked advertisements and listings for those products online over 11 days in 2020. It then returned to the sites on Jan 14 this year and found that trade was still active and, in fact, included species not offered in 2020.

Among the sites monitored by Traffic were Singapore-based e-commerce and seafood websites such as Carousell, Shopee, Lazada, Song Fish Dealer and Natural Brand.

Between June 17 and July 6 in 2020, 33 online sites from both countries had numerous listings offering at least 5,540kg of sea cucumber and fish maw products altogether.

Sellers on online trading platforms Tradekey Singapore and Tradekey Malaysia claimed they could supply 4,100kg of sea cucumber, with 2,300kg on a monthly basis and 100kg on a weekly basis, the report highlighted.

"The volumes of sea cucumber and fish maw seen in the online trade in Malaysia and Singapore are large. However, the actual volume of trade is much higher than what was recorded during the assessment," said Ms Kanitha Krishnasamy, director for Traffic in South-east Asia.

"We know this not just because these products are widely available in outlets, but some online sellers also claimed they were able to supply large amounts on a monthly basis."

Fish maw and sea cucumber are two of the four traditional seafood delicacies widely enjoyed in Asia, alongside abalone and shark's fin.

The sea cucumber - which is found on the sea floor worldwide - is highly valued for its nutritional and medicinal benefits. Fish maw refers to the dried swim bladders of large fish such as the sturgeon.

For the report, A Rapid Assessment Of Online Trade In Sea Cucumber And Fish Maw In Malaysia And Singapore, researchers were able to identify about 20 species of sea cucumbers put up for sale online. Of these, six species are listed as endangered under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.

Those include the prickly sea cucumber and the sandfish, also known as wen tu shen in Chinese.

Three of the 20 species are currently listed under Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites). This means that the trade of the three species, including the white teatfish or zhu po shen, and the black teatfish, must be controlled to ensure their survival and conservation in the wild.

Of the 18 identified taxonomic groups of fish that the fish maw came from, many species of sturgeons are critically endangered under the IUCN Red List. Sturgeons are also listed in Cites.

Under Singapore's Endangered Species (Import and Export) Act, businesses need a permit to import and export any Cites-listed species.

In addition to recommending that the authorities monitor both the physical and online trade of these products, the Traffic report suggested countries introduce a traceability system to verify that only legal and sustainable products are sold in the market.

They should also carry out DNA analysis of the products being sold online and in physical stores, so that the species being traded can be better identified.

This will help the authorities to zero in on the proportion of species that are threatened, endangered or prohibited from trade, said the report.

Mr David Lim, managing director of local sea cucumber wholesaler Mr SeaCucumber, said the majority of his dried products come from wild-caught species instead of farms.

Associate Professor Matthew Tan, chief executive of aquaculture engineering firm Assentoft Aqua Asia, noted that the Maldives has been a prime location to farm sea cucumbers sustainably. 

The archipelago has hatcheries, and atolls - ring-shaped coral reefs encircling lagoons - are used to rear sea cucumbers.

For example, local mariculture company Isles of Eden has been rearing the popular sandfish sea cucumber - or Holothuria scabra - in the Maldives. The company's website states that all its sea cucumbers can be traced to the exact lagoon where they were grown. 

Chinese restaurant chain Tung Lok Group obtains its sea cucumber products from Isles of Eden, said the group's CEO Andrew Tjioe.

Local fish producer Barramundi Group's chief marketing officer James Kwan noted that sea cucumbers grown via mariculture can help to clean the ocean floor by feeding on waste materials and recycling nutrients. 

Prof Tan said it is more challenging to obtain fish maw sustainably since it would take aquaculture farmers too much time and resources to breed a fish just for its swim bladder.

"Today's main source of fish maw is from wild-captured fish... from large fish species such as totoabas and the Nile perch. In 1975, after the totoaba was declared endangered, Mexico outlawed its fishing, but crime syndicates took control of totoaba swim bladder trafficking," he noted.

However, Barramundi Group's fish maw products are sourced from the swim bladders of the barramundi reared in its offshore open-sea farms here. 

Mr Kwan said: "This is part of our approach to ensure we fully utilise each fish from head to bones."

With the Chinese New Year approaching, restaurants and suppliers here are seeing demand for sea cucumber and fish maw delicacies spike. 

Mr Tjioe said: "Both are part of several popular Chinese New Year delicacies, such as pen cai - a potpourri of seafood, meat, mushroom and vegetables in a casserole."

To find out if a seafood product on the market is sustainable, consumers can look out for two certification standards - the Aquaculture Stewardship Council for farmed seafood and the MSC Fisheries Standard used to assess if a fishery is well-managed with wild populations and ecosystems not suffering, said Prof Tan. 

Mr Kwan added that a sustainable aquaculture farm should have minimal environmental impact on the surrounding sea, with fish feed made from marine ingredients and raw materials that do not come from endangered species.