Captive breeding of wildlife resources—China's revised supply‐side approach to conservation

ABSTRACT The conservation and utilization of wild animals in China often raises public concerns. Thus, the Chinese government is increasingly exploring sustainable development of wildlife resources, and has implemented a series of measures, such as the modification of the Wildlife Protection Law (WPL), implementation of captive breeding licenses, an animal marking system, forest certification, and other actions to regulate captive breeding and utilization of wildlife. At the same time, the government tries to meet the Chinese traditional demand for wildlife products. We first introduce wildlife utilization as an internationally accepted conservation tool, and describe market‐based wildlife farming as a legal substitute for wild‐hunted animals. Second, we highlight the importance of wildlife products in Chinese culture and economy and review some successful examples of wildlife utilization in China, showing that the supply‐side approach is a viable alternative to classical conservation. Subsequently, we outline benefits of, and drawbacks to, China's ‘conservation through utilization’ approach, resulting in the implementation of China's new, revised WPL. We discuss merits and shortcomings of China's revised WPL and respond to recent national and international criticism on China's supply‐side approach to conservation. We strongly propose that captive breeding is a feasible approach to China's wildlife conservation–utilization dilemma, and much work is needed to promote the progress, such as legislation restructure, government attention, duties clarification, and so on. © 2019 The Wildlife Society.