DNA Forensics May Prevent Elephant Poaching Law enforcement
officials investigating the source of confiscated ivory (605
elephant tusks) in Hong Kong had no clue where the stash
originated before leaving Douala, a port city in Cameroon. DNA
technology, however, was able to verify that many of the tusks
once belonged to forest elephants that lived in southern Gabon,
near the Republic of Congo border. Extracting elephant DNA from
confiscated ivory could be an important tool to take wildlife
investigations a step farther and to stop poaching at its
source. Such expensive forensic work may become necessary to
protect dwindling elephant populations and curb the illegal
ivory market before it grows completely out of control. "In big
seizures, there's a very strong tendency to ship ivory out of a
different country than where it's poached... It's a bit of a red
herring," said Samuel Wasser, director of the University of
Washington's Center for Conservation Biology and the lead author
of the study, published in this m