Which threatened animals can be legally imported to Europe from the wild?

My question is more to people familiar with the European trade and veterinary bureaucracy.

To my understanding, most rare animals, and many common ones, cannot be imported because of CITES.
Others, like ungulates, cannot be imported because of veterinary directives like BALAI.
Still others, like all Australian fauna, cannot be imported because of laws of the country of origin.

Which new threatened species can still be legally imported to zoos in Europe from the wild?

It looks, that ever growing laws largely killed an important way of conservation - saving new threatened species by breeding ex situ in European zoos. Yes, zoos can import some animals from zoos on another continent. But there must be already a thriving zoo population in zoos elsewhere - and even then, major groups, like all hoofed animals, are banned by veterinary laws.

 

I wonder now that the UK is outside the EU, if we can import some new specimens/species?
I do think that the current European zoo populations could do with some much needed variety, and new focus.

 

(Absolutely nothing political meant in my comment, by the way).
I just wondered if it could lead to the UK being used as a "gateway" for species to be imported to the rest of the continent.
I know that a surprising number of species are being forcibly phased out of collections in Europe due to being listed as potentially invasive.

 

I don´t think that the UK could be used as a "gateway" to import unusual species.

In the past, it was actually the UK that initiated a lot of EU strict animal import laws, including the mentioned law on ban of invasive species or more strict laws for import of domestic animals from non-EU countries. Being an island nation, it had benefited from its insulated position in the past (regarding animal ilnesses/parasites) and was afraid that its EU membership and free circulation of people/animals/goods within the EU is detrimental to it.

If anything, I expect the UK goverment to implement more restrictive rules for animal imports from 3rd countries than the EU itself in the future. You can expect that actually EU zoos might serve as a "transfer station" for new species from 3rd countries on their way to the UK.