Combating the illegal trade in African elephant ivory with DNA forensics

Conservation Biology

Volumn 22, Issue 4, 2008, Pages 1065-1071

  Wasser, Samuel K ^a   Joseph Clark, William ^b   Drori, Ofir ^c   Stephen Kisamo, Emily ^d   Mailand, Celia ^a   Mutayoba, Benezeth ^e   Stephens, Matthew ^f  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON   (United States)

^b Israel Nature and Parks Authority   (Israel)

^c Last Great Ape Organization   (Cameroon)

^d Lusaka Agreement Task Force   (Kenya)

^e SOKOINE UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE   (Tanzania)

^f UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO   (United States)

Author keywords

African elephant; Assignment tests; DNA; Ivory trade; Poaching; Wildlife trafficking

Indexed keywords

DNA;

DNA; ELEPHANT; FORENSIC SCIENCE; GLOBAL TRADE; IVORY; LAW ENFORCEMENT; NATURE CONSERVATION; POACHING; SMUGGLING; TRAFFICKING;

ANIMAL; ARTICLE; COMMERCIAL PHENOMENA; CRIME; ELEPHANT; ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION; FORENSIC GENETICS; GENETICS; INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION; METHODOLOGY;

ANIMALS; COMMERCE; CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES; CRIME; DNA; ELEPHANTS; FORENSIC GENETICS; INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION;

AFRICA; ASIA; CAMEROON; CHINA; EAST AFRICA; EURASIA; FAR EAST; HONG KONG; MALAWI; SINGAPORE [SOUTHEAST ASIA]; SOUTHEAST ASIA; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA; WEST AFRICA;

LOXODONTA;

EID: 48749111674     PISSN: 08888892     EISSN: 15231739     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2008.01012.x     Document Type: Article

References (20)

1. Blake, S., et al. 2007. Forest elephant crisis in the Congo Basin. Public Library of Science 5 : DOI :.
2. Blanc, J. J., R. F. W. Barnes, G. C. Craig, H. T. Dublin, C. R. Thouless, I. Douglas-Hamilton, and J. A. Hart. 2007. African elephant status report 2007. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.
3. China News (English Edition). 2008. Guangxi seizes the nearly 800 kilograms of smuggled ivory (18 March). China News, Beijing. Available from http://www.chinanews.com.cn/tp/shfq/news/2008/03-19/1196792.shtml (accessed March 2008).
4. Clark, W. 2008. Testimony of William Clark to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources (5 March). Hearing on Poaching American security: impacts of illegal wildlife trade, before the Committee on Natural Resources. U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.
5. Comstock, K. E., N. Georgiadis, J. Pecon-Slattery, A. L. Roca, E. A. Ostrander, S. J. O'Brien, and S. K. Wasser. 2002. Patterns of molecular genetic variation among African elephant populations. Molecular Ecology 11 : 2489 2498.
6. Courable, M., F. Hurse, and T. Milliken. 2003. More ivory than elephants: domestic ivory markets in three West African Countries. Traffic International, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
7. Douglas-Hamilton, I. 1988. African elephant database project: phase two, December. United Nations Environment Program, Nairobi.
8. EIA (Environmental Investigation Agency). 2002. Back in business: elephant poaching and the ivory black markets of Asia. EIA, London.
9. Interpol. 2008. Wildlife crime. Interpol, Lyon, France. Available from http://www.interpol.int/Public/EnvironmentalCrime/Wildlife/Default.asp (accessed April 2008).
10. Loder, N. 2008. Trade bans and conservation. The Economist 8-14 March : 85 87.
11. McMurray, C. 2008. Testimony of Claudia McMurray to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources (5 March). Hearing on: poaching American security: impacts of illegal wildlife trade, before the Committee on Natural Resources. U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.
12. Mailand, C., and S. K. Wasser. 2007. Isolation of DNA from small amounts of elephant ivory. Nature Protocols 2 : 2228 2232.
13. Mainichi Daily News (English edition). 2007. Customs and police show off 3 tons of ivory confiscated from smugglers. Mainichi Daily News, 1 March. Available from http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/ p20070301p2a00m0na017000c.html (accessed March 2008).
14. Martin, E. 2007. U.S. exposed as leading ivory market. Report. Care for the Wild International, Kingsfold, West Sussex, United Kingdom.
15. Paetkau, D., W. Calvert, I. Stirling, and C. Strobeck. 1995. Microsatellite analysis of population structure in Canadian polar bears. Molecular Ecology 4 : 347 354.
16. Roca, A. L., N. Georgiadis, N. J. Pecon-Slattery, and S. J. O'Brien. 2001. Genetic evidence for two species of elephant in Africa. Science 293 : 1473 1475.
17. Said, M. Y., R. N. Chunge, G. C. Craig, C. R. Thouless, R. F. W. Barnes, and H. T. Dublin. 1995. African elephant database. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.
18. Stiles, D., and E. Martin. 2001. Status and trends of the ivory trade in Africa, 1989-1999. Pachyderm 30 : 24 36.
19. Wasser, S. K., A. M. Shedlock, K. Comstock, E. A. Ostrander, B. Mutayoba, and M. Stephens. 2004. Assigning elephant DNA to geographic region of origin: applications to the ivory trade. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 101 : 14847 14852.
20. Wasser, S. K., C. Mailand, R. Booth, B. Mutayoba, E. Kisamo, B. Clark, and M. Stephens. 2007. Using ivory to track the origin of the largest ivory seizure since the 1989 trade ban. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104 : 4228 4233.