A lawmaker of the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) said Thursday that there are no laws to regulate online trading in many wild animals, as some species sold on the Internet are not included on the list of protected species. Legislator Ting Shou-chung said the current Wildlife Conservation Law only prohibits the sale of endangered animals, but some animals sold online are not considered endangered, which he said could result in a potential threat to the environment should such animals later be abandoned. Ting said the government should provide an effective mechanism for animal trading, better quarantine conditions for all species and should pass laws on animal protection and online marketing. Michelle Chou, a spokeswoman for the Life Conservation Association, told selfnews that the association has found 66 websites in Taiwan selling a total of 263 species of animals, of which only 71 are protected by law. Chou said reptiles are the most common pets sold online, followed by mammals and arthropods. While stores have a policy of taking back abandoned pets such as hedgehogs, for which there was once a fad in Taiwan, Internet operators have no responsibility to face or deal with the issue, she said. Lee Tao-sheng, deputy director-general of the Forestry Bureau, said the bureau, which is responsible for regulating animal trading, has done its best with insufficient human resources, noting that it has cracked down on 25 illegal online trading cases, rescuing 113 animals and arresting 27 people since 2009. Lee agreed to meet with experts in a month's time to further discuss the possibility of including species traded online in the conservation law. He said the bureau will make a comprehensive review of the law and study how best to regulate animal imports and trading. 