Poaching of elephants is now occurring at rates that threaten African populations with extinction. Identifying the number and location of Africa’s major poaching hotspots may assist efforts to end poaching and facilitate recovery of elephant populations. We genetically assign origin to 28 large ivory seizures (≥0.5 metric tons) made between 1996 and 2014, also testing assignment accuracy. Results suggest that the major poaching hotspots in Africa may be currently concentrated in as few as two areas. Increasing law enforcement in these two hotspots could help curtail future elephant losses across Africa and disrupt this organized transnational crime.
The illegal ivory trade recently intensified to the highest levels ever reported. Policing this trafficking has been hampered by the inability to reliably determine geographic origin of contraband ivory. Ivory can be smuggled across multiple international borders and along numerous trade routes, making poaching hotspots and potential trade routes difficult to identify. This fluidity also makes it difficult to refute a country's denial of poaching problems. We extend an innovative DNA assignment method to determine the geographic origin(s) of large elephant ivory seizures. A Voronoi tessellation method is used that utilizes genetic similarities across tusks to simultaneously infer the origin of multiple samples that could have one or more common origin(s). We show that this joint analysis performs better than sample-by-sample methods in assigning sample clusters of known origin. The joint method is then used to infer the geographic origin of the largest ivory seizure since the 1989 ivory trade ban. Wildlife authorities initially suspected that this ivory came from multiple locations across forest and savanna Africa. However, we show that the ivory was entirely from savanna elephants, most probably originating from a narrow east-to-west band of southern Africa, centered on Zambia. These findings enabled law enforcement to focus their investigation to a smaller area and fewer trade routes and led to changes within the Zambian government to improve antipoaching efforts. Such outcomes demonstrate the potential of genetic analyses to help combat the expanding wildlife trade by identifying origin(s) of large seizures of contraband ivory. Broader applications to wildlife trade are discussed.African elephant ͉ forensics ͉ Loxodonta africana ͉ DNA assignments ͉ poaching
International wildlife crime is burgeoning in this climate of global trade. We contend that the most effective way to contain this illegal trade is to determine where the wildlife is being removed. This allows authorities to direct law enforcement to poaching hot spots, potentially stops trade before the wildlife is actually killed, prevents countries from denying their poaching problems at homePalabras Clave: ADN, comercio de marfil, elefante africano, pruebas de asignación, tráfico de vida silvestre
This protocol describes a method for the extraction of DNA from elephant ivory. These techniques are being used to assign geographic origin to poached ivory by comparing the ivory genotype to a geographic-based gene frequency map, developed separately. The method has three components: ivory pulverization, decalcification and DNA extraction. Pulverization occurs in a freezer mill while the sample is deep frozen in liquid nitrogen, preventing degradation of DNA during the process. Decalcification involves repeated agitation of the sample in 0.5 M ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid over a 4-d period. Extraction follows a modified Qiagen protocol for the extraction of DNA from animal tissue. This method can be used on all forms of ivory. However, DNA recovery is highest when the outermost layer of the tusk, the cementum, is used. When applied to extract DNA from 11 samples, in duplicate, the entire protocol can be completed in 6 d, although much of this time consists of pause points that do not require effort. The protocol provides 0.8 +/- 0.11 ng microl(-1) (mean +/- s.e., n = 48) of DNA per sample.
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