North Korea's Wildlife Is Disappearing as Hunger, Illegal Trade and State Exploitation Drive Hunting

42 interviews reveal forests losing their wildlife

Almost every native mammal weighing more than half a kilogram is being hunted for food or trade in North Korea, according to a peer reviewed study published in Biological Conservation. Drawing on interviews with 42 North Korean defectors conducted in 2021 and 2022, researchers warn that hunger, black markets and exploitation linked to state institutions are draining the country's forests of wildlife.

The research team, led by scientists working with University College London and partners in Europe, compiled the first baseline picture of contemporary wildlife use inside the isolated country. Its findings cover tigers, leopards, bears, otters, deer and smaller animals caught for meat, fur or body parts. Some species that once helped define the Korean Peninsula's wildlife are now gone from the North.

Sable, a small forest carnivore prized for its dense fur, is believed to be functionally extinct in North Korea. That means any remaining animals are too few to carry out their usual role in the ecosystem. Endangered Amur tigers and Amur leopards face another danger: animals moving into North Korea from northeast China or Russia risk being killed, weakening recoveries beyond the country's borders.

Joshua Elves-Powell, an associate lecturer in biodiversity conservation and ecology at University College London and a co author of the study, described the danger as defaunation, the loss of animals from a landscape even when its forests remain standing.

There is a strong risk of defaunation of North Korea's forests, a scenario where they are effectively emptied.

Elves-Powell also described how widely hunting pressure reaches across the country's mammals.

Almost every mammal species in North Korea larger than a hedgehog is opportunistically captured for consumptive use or trade.

How researchers studied an inaccessible country

Independent scientists face severe difficulties working inside North Korea. The researchers therefore used structured interviews with former residents, including soldiers, hunters, traders and consumers, to reconstruct how animals were caught, used and sold.

The method draws on local ecological knowledge: information people gain through living and working around wildlife. Researchers commonly use it where access, safety or transparency is limited. Here, the interviews yielded detailed descriptions of wildlife use during periods of scarcity and in the years that followed.

The study's evidence comes from testimony rather than camera traps or direct field surveys. Locations and exact animal numbers remain uncertain, and the interviews cannot replace a full wildlife census. However, detailed accounts across dozens of respondents, together with similar descriptions from regional markets, provide a baseline that future research can test.

Respondents described harvesting almost all native mammal species above half a kilogram. They also said animals protected under North Korean law were used as an economic resource by state bodies. The study connects those practices to a wider risk: continued exploitation could interrupt wildlife movement between the Korean Peninsula and mainland Asia, harming conservation gains in China and Russia.

How famine helped build lasting trade networks

North Korea's economic collapse in the 1990s pushed people toward hunting for survival. Many interviewees traced the sharp increase in hunting and wildlife trading to the famine of the late 1990s, after the public distribution system collapsed. Millions faced deprivation, and families turned to forests, rivers and coasts for food and income.

Informal markets, known locally as jangmadang, became the backbone of daily life. Wildlife served two purposes: it helped households get through shortages and supplied goods that traders could sell to domestic customers and buyers across the border in China.

The skills, contacts and routes developed during the famine later grew into durable trading networks. Animals and their parts continued moving through those networks after the immediate survival crisis that helped create them.

The main dates in the research show how the investigation reaches back to that period:

• During the 1990s, economic collapse increased pressure on residents to hunt for food and income.
• In the late 1990s, the famine and collapse of public food distribution helped expand hunting and informal wildlife markets.
• In 2021 and 2022, researchers conducted structured interviews with 42 North Korean defectors.

State institutions were also described as buyers and suppliers

Multiple defectors described wildlife exploitation involving authorities as well as individual hunters and traders. Local officials collected animal skins and other products as tribute. Households were told to meet quotas, while children were tasked with raising rabbits for their pelts.

Respondents also described farms run by state bodies that kept bears for bile extraction and bred deer, otters and pheasants for parts and skins. State institutions were said to supply wildlife products that eventually reached buyers outside North Korea.

North Korea has wildlife protection laws, lists of protected species and a formal network of protected areas. Interviewees nevertheless described frequent breaches by citizens and officials, with hunting and trapping serving personal consumption, local markets and state demands.

The accounts place official collection requirements alongside household need and commercial demand. Families seeking food, traders seeking income and institutions seeking wildlife products can all put pressure on the same animal populations.

Sable skins became rare, then disappeared

Sable were once common on the Korean Peninsula and were sought for their dense, glossy fur. Hunters and traders told researchers that the animal had disappeared from North Korea. Defectors recalled sable skins progressing from a routine market sight to a rarity, before vanishing.

The study concludes that sable are functionally extinct in the country. Their loss reaches beyond the fur trade: these small carnivores eat rodents and birds and help keep forest food webs balanced.

The reported decline resembles accounts from other parts of East Asia, where intensive trapping removed animals valued for their fur from forests within a few decades. In North Korea, the disappearance of a once familiar market product forms part of the warning about sustained hunting pressure.

Sable are one example within a much wider inventory. Respondents named tigers, leopards, bears, deer, otters, long tailed goral, wild boar, red foxes, badgers and weasels. Animals were taken for meat, skins and bones, as well as parts used in traditional medicine.

Tigers and leopards face danger at the border

Small but growing populations of Amur tigers and Amur leopards have been documented in northeast China and the Russian Far East. Conservation work over the past decade has created room for animals to disperse toward the Changbai mountains and the Tumen River region adjoining North Korea.

Researchers warn that cats crossing into North Korean territory face a high risk of being killed for their skins, bones and other parts valued in regional markets. Losses there could weaken fragile recoveries on the other side of the border.

Tigers and leopards travel over large areas. They need connected habitats and enough prey, including deer and wild boar. A forest that looks suitable may offer little security if hunters are taking both the predators and the animals they eat.

The concern extends to the wider metapopulation, meaning connected groups of the same species whose animals can move between areas. If North Korea becomes a dead end for dispersing cats, the damage can reach those connected groups in neighboring countries. Other species that range over large distances face similar risks.

Bears, deer and otters supply several markets

Asiatic black bears were described as sources of bile, paws and organs. Bile was extracted for use in traditional medicine. Deer were valued as food associated with high status, while their antlers and organs supplied a longstanding trade in traditional remedies.

Otters were hunted for their pelts. The long tailed goral, a goat antelope that lives around cliffs and is classified as vulnerable, was taken for meat. Other accounts described badgers trapped for oil and foxes and weasels killed for their skins.

Respondents described widespread use of snares in forests near villages. A snare catches an animal in a tightening loop, allowing hunters to capture wildlife without remaining at the trap.

Farms keeping bears, deer and otters were reported alongside harvesting from the wild. Once products pass into traders' hands, that combination can make their origins difficult to trace. Parts from wild animals can move through markets alongside products from captive animals.

Interviewees also mentioned coypu, an introduced rodent farmed for fur, spreading through wetlands as an invasive species. The reported escape and spread of farmed animals adds another form of pressure to the loss of native wildlife.

Why empty forests affect more than individual species

Tigers and leopards are apex predators, animals near the top of the food chain. Predators often act as keystone species, organisms whose activities help hold an ecosystem together. By limiting prey numbers, they can allow plants and smaller animals to flourish.

Ecologists have studied these relationships through wolves in North America and sea stars on Pacific shores. The same basic concern applies in East Asia: losing a species that shapes the behavior or abundance of other animals can change the wider landscape.

Removing top predators can allow herbivores to overgraze forests and grasslands. Smaller predators may increase, while changes across the food web can reduce biodiversity and harm people who depend on natural resources. Where tigers and leopards disappear, increases in deer and boar can mean more crop damage and fewer surviving tree seedlings.

The loss of predators and smaller carnivores such as sable can also weaken the ecological relationships that help forests withstand fire, disease and climate stress. Defaunation removes more than familiar large animals: wildlife includes pollinators, seed dispersers and animals that carry nutrients between places.

A forest emptied of those roles may take decades to recover, even after protection improves. That makes the survival of animal populations a concern for communities relying on forests, as well as for conservation across national borders.

Wildlife laws meet trade and sanctions concerns

North Korea is not a party to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, known as CITES. The treaty regulates international trade in threatened wildlife. North Korea's position outside it places greater weight on domestic enforcement and controls in neighboring countries.

China is a major destination for wildlife products from the Korean Peninsula. Researchers warn that some sales from North Korea involve protected species and may conflict with China's obligations under CITES and United Nations Security Council resolutions. They urge compliance on both sides of the frontier.

Public information about seizures and prosecutions connected to wildlife trading across this border is limited. More transparent reporting, data sharing and joint patrols could help authorities understand and disrupt the routes.

Customs officers, border police and market inspectors would need to coordinate enforcement. Demand also matters: buyers seeking tiger bone, bear bile, deer antlers and other products provide an incentive for hunting and trafficking.

DNA analysis, isotope testing and digital tracking offer ways to investigate where wildlife products came from. DNA can identify biological material, while isotope testing examines chemical patterns that can help trace origin. These methods could make it harder to disguise illegal products as farmed goods or move them under false labels.

Protection also depends on food and income

Researchers recommend that North Korea enforce its existing wildlife laws and end state backed exploitation through farms and collection quotas. They also call on China and other neighbors to act against supply chains and buyers who profit from North Korean wildlife.

Residents who depend on hunting need reliable alternatives. Stronger law enforcement alone leaves the underlying need for food and income unresolved. Humanitarian measures therefore matter to conservation: reliable food supplies and earnings can reduce pressure on forests and rivers.

Programs paying residents to monitor animals or remove snares can work when they are trusted and funded. Support for domestic livestock, better fish farming and alternatives to medicines made from wildlife could also reduce demand for wild meat and animal parts.

Education campaigns in consumer markets could address the social status attached to owning products such as tiger bone or bear bile. These measures target both ends of the trade, the people obtaining wildlife and the customers whose purchases keep it profitable.

Border habitats offer opportunities for protection and research

The Korean Peninsula lies between continental East Asia and seas rich in islands to the south. Protecting corridors linking China, Russia and the peninsula would give tigers, leopards and other animals that travel widely a better chance of moving safely.

South Korea's Demilitarized Zone and the adjacent Civilian Control Zone hold thousands of species documented by the National Institute of Ecology. They show how wildlife can recover when human intrusion is limited. Lasting protection inside North Korea would require areas where hunting and trading are genuinely controlled.

Researchers can also gather information despite restricted access. Camera traps and acoustic sensors near borders can record rare species. Satellite images can show logging tracks, cleared woodland and fire scars. Forensic analysis of products in markets can help trace wildlife trade back to North Korea.

Regional scientists already cooperate on monitoring tigers and leopards. Expanding those networks to gather more information from the peninsula could help track movement, identify threats and test the baseline established by the interviews. Protection of connected habitats would then serve animals inside North Korea and recovering populations beyond its borders.

The Essentials

• The Biological Conservation study used interviews with 42 North Korean defectors conducted in 2021 and 2022.
• Respondents described hunting almost all native mammals weighing more than half a kilogram for consumption or trade.
• Hunting expanded during the famine of the late 1990s, and informal markets developed into lasting trade networks.
• Sable are believed functionally extinct in North Korea. Amur tigers and leopards entering from China and Russia face a high risk of being killed.
• State bodies were described as collecting wildlife products and running farms for bears, deer, otters and pheasants.
• North Korea is outside CITES. Researchers warn that some trade into China may breach international obligations.
• Wildlife losses threaten forest food webs, communities dependent on natural resources and conservation gains in neighboring countries.
• Recommended responses include enforcing existing laws, ending state backed exploitation, reducing demand and improving livelihoods.
• Border monitoring, forensic analysis, transparent data sharing and protected wildlife corridors could support conservation despite limited access.