Tracking Poached Ivory

Collected ivory samples ready for analysis

The Ivory weighing 3287.21 kilogrammes comprised of 382 whole pieces and 62 cut pieces have been sampled for DNA analysis. 

The consignment had been declared as 240 bags of groundnuts. The container full of ivory disguised as groundnuts had been seized on July 8, 2012 at the Port of Mombasa, thanks to inter-agency collaboration between the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), Kenya Ports Authority, Kenya Police and Kenya Revenue Authority. 

Another container stashed in 69 bundles of several pieces disguised as sun dried fish maws intended to throw off sniffer dogs was also sampled. Some bags had worked polished pieces of ivory while others had raw ivory.with unknown weight of ivory was last evening intercepted in Mombasa and is being held at the port police.  This exercise was co-funded by both KWS and the University of Washington Seattle. 

KWS has cracked down on ivory smuggling at its ports and airports, making Al Shabaab an even more attractive market, with a reputation for good prices, immediate payment, and ready access (prior to the Kenya invasion at the Westgate) to outlets at the ports of Marca and Kismayo as well as the airport in Mogadishu to conduct its smuggling. Yet the real boon for Al Shabaab’s ivory business is soaring demand in consuming countries, which translates into high prices. Illicit raw ivory now fetches over $1,500 per kilogram in Asia; in China the “official” cost for raw ivory is supposedly more than $2,865 per kilogram. That means higher profits for Al Shabaab—and a treasury it can use to wreak chaos.

That cache of money allows Al Shabaab to pay their fighters well and regularly. Shabaab mercenaries get about $300 a month, while soldiers in Somalia’s regular army earn far less. It is these profits that help them recruit and sustain their fighters. 

Raw ivory from one of the seized containers

Ivory finished products in the seized container

Ivory is dentine, composed of organic proteins and very poorly crystallized mineral, all laid down in incremental banded growth structures, which reflect environmental and dietary conditions at the time of deposition.  It is therefore a very useful tissue to sample for molecular analyses.

The idea of being able to distinguish species and identify specimens including incomplete, damaged or immature specimens using a very short gene sequence is one of the many initiatives dedicated to developing it as a global tool for species identification.This will help the KWS new Forensic and Genetics laboratory to analyze the samples and help identify their origin.

Sam Wasser will also be visiting KWS Forensic laboratory in November during which he will closely work in conjunction with KWS new laboratory and make recommendations on procedures, expansion and priorities. Read  Tracing wildlife trophy origin using DNA. The potential of DNA analysis on ivory is limitless.  So far, mitochondrial DNA and single-nucleotide polymorphism data have been used to source ivory and explore population genetics.

 

According to Center for Conservation Biology, University of Washington, the goal is to identify the major elephant poaching hot spots across Africa by determining the geographic origin of large volumes of contraband ivory seized by wildlife authorities. Also, identifying the origins of these large seizures helps reveal where to most efficiently focus law enforcement as well as key strategies used by ivory poachers and dealers. These methods may be among the only reliable means to monitor trade in forest ivory and bushmeat because poached carcasses are difficult to detect in dense forests.


In picture: Senior KWS officers from left Patrick Omondi - Deputy Director Wildlife Conservation and Co-Chair Barcode of Wildlife Project Kenya, Ibrahim Lubia - Chief Licensing Officer, and Vincent Obanda - Senior Research Scientist during the exercise.

KWS has recently constructed a world class forensic laboratory that will bridge the gap between conservation genetics and law enforcement. In the past, several arrested suspects found with the meat have been released by the Courts because KWS didn`t have a laboratory to prove whether the meat is from wildlife or not. Today, with the successful fundraising campaigns to equip the already newly constructed forensic lab, such wildlife crimes will be a thing of the past. In the meantime, the Kenya Government is committed to the fast-tracking of the enactment of the New Wildlife Bill and calls upon all relevant stakeholders to support this initiative to conserve and protect our national heritage for posterity.