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How is the complicated empire of the cartels that kill hundreds of thousands of elephants every year for their ivory? You put on the tail an international group of gumshoe geneticists.
These geneticists have discovered the three largest ivory cartels in Africa – located in Mombasa, Kenya; Entebbe, Uganda; and Lome, Togo – analyzing the DNA of elephant tusks found in illegal traffic shipments.
The results reveal that cartels often put the right and left tusks of the same elephant in different shipments. By linking these defenses, scientists have discovered that these cartels sometimes collaborate, and the results reveal the interdependence of the largest ivory smuggling cartels in Africa, researchers reported in a new study. [Photos: Seized Elephant Ivory Reveals How Multimillion-Dollar Cartels Operate]
In addition, by assigning smuggling defenses to specific cartels, scientists can help prosecutors strengthen their lawsuits against ivory "kingpins," said Samuel Wasser, director of the Center for Conservation Biology and professor of biology at the University of Washington.
In Kenya, in April 2016, thousands of defenses were burned; Some of these captured pieces were sampled by Samuel Wasser, seen here, and his team for a forensic analysis.
Credit: Kate Brooks / The Last Animals
Chasing cartels
The fight against ivory cartels is not new. International trade in elephant ivory has been illegal since 1989, but elephants are still being killed in record numbers. According to a 2016 report of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, between 2005 and 2015, poachers killed up to 111,000 elephants, leaving only 415,000 elephants in Africa.
Ivory smuggling is now a $ 4 billion industry, driven in part by growth in the marine container industry, Wasser said. Ports can only inspect about 2% of the nearly 1 billion containers shipped each year around the world, he said. "Traffickers are only now containerizing their smuggling and putting it in transit, and their shipment is virtually assured," Wasser said at a press conference yesterday (18 September).
In a study published in 2015 in the journal Science, Wasser and his colleagues identified the two main hotspots of poaching in Africa. The researchers did this by associating DNA with the DNA smuggling defenses found in the cocoa, tissue and hair elephants that they had previously collected in nature and mapped. But this discovery did not help catch poachers, discovered Wasser.
"To our surprise, poachers remain very difficult to stop," said Wasser. "What we 've realized is that poachers are hard to find because they operate in these large areas that they know very well, and even when they are apprehended, they do not get caught. have as much ivory as they can carry. "
The researchers have therefore decided to take on the cartels, which probably pay poachers to kill elephants. (For example, "it costs about 25 dollars for a bullet to kill an elephant, and these poachers do not have a lot of money", so it makes sense for cartels to fund them, a said Wasser.)
Breakthrough defense
It was at this point that the researchers achieved "a major breakthrough", realizing that more than half of the defenses of the large ivory seizures were not matched, which means that the Right and left defenses of the same elephant were different.
To find out more, researchers sampled 38 large ivory seizures made around the world between 2006 and 2015, including bones from 10 elephants killed by poachers from a helicopter in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In total, the researchers combined 26 pairs of tusks with 11 items, an impressive number, as they tested on average one third of the defenses of each seizure. [Saving Elephants: Ivory Crush in Central Park (Photos)]
Although these right and left defenses were separated, they were still being shipped from the same port from 2011 to 2014, at a time when ivory traffic was at its peak, Wasser said. In addition, separate tusks were almost always shipped within 10 months of each other, and tusks' defenses tended to come from the same elephant habitats, Wasser and his colleagues found.
The Wasser process to identify and match the defenses of poached elephants uses DNA tests to match pairs smuggled into separate shipments to the same smugglers. The maps show different deliveries – indicating the location, date and weight of the entry. Using the process, the geographical origins of the defenses are determined, as indicated by the blue circles. Using open red circles, some of the recovered defenses were matched to a number of poached elephant corpses. The connection of the pairs of tusks is noted by double-headed arrows.
Credit: Wasser et al. 2018 / Scientific advances
By analyzing the geographical origins of the defenses, the researchers were able to determine where each cartel was hunting elephants. Scientists also determined the size of each cartel, based on the number of genetically matched defenses found in different shipments. They found that cartels often change the final destination point for these shipping containers during the trip, making containers difficult to track.
All of this data helped identify the three main cartels, which are clearly operating across the African continent, Wasser said.
Ivory traffickers
There is substantial evidence that one of these cartels is related to Feisal Mohamed Ali, one of the most notorious ivory traffickers in Africa, Wasser said. The Wasser group's research helped convict Feisal two years ago, when Feisal was sentenced to 20 years in prison. But Feisal was recently acquitted on appeal for irregularities at his trial.
"Feisal was first tried for one seizure, which illustrates the power of connecting individual cartels to multiple foreclosures," said Wasser. "And our hope is that the data presented in this article and discovered by others can help strengthen the case against this cartel."
Emile N 'Bouke, who would be the largest ivory trafficker in West Africa, was also sentenced for the work of the Wasser group. At the time of his trial, N-Bouke argued that he was not a big trafficker, but evidence shows that he was linked to Feisal's network in East Africa, Wasser said.
There is yet another Wasser trafficker refused to name because of an ongoing investigation that appears to be related to "a major international incident where Ugandan helicopters flew over northeastern Garamba. [in the Democratic Republic of the Congo] and would have been responsible for the shooting of 22 elephants, "said Wasser.
Rangers from Zakouma National Park pose for a photo.
Credit: Copyright Wolfe Art / Art Wolfe Inc.
Cartels that smuggle ivory are often involved in the destruction of forest rangers, the displacement of drugs and money laundering. It is therefore essential that law enforcement authorities stop them, added Wasser. In addition, these cartels involve intelligent business people, who create rumors that elephant ivory and parts of other animals – such as rhinoceros horn and pangolin scales – can cure diseases. , which raises the price and the demand. [Pangolin Photos: Scaly Mammals Threatened with Extinction]
Indeed, the results show that "wildlife genetics needs to be better integrated into policy development and strategy implementation," said Sergios-Orestis Kolokotronis, professor of epidemiology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in New York. York. l & # 39; study.
Go from the front
Many challenges remain. It costs $ 110 to analyze each defense's DNA. "So, you can imagine, if you have 1,000 defenses and you make each one, well, that's $ 100,000, and your budget is not going to last very long," Wasser said. In addition, it can be difficult to ensure that countries give scientists immediate access to recently seized smuggling – which is essential because sometimes evidence disappears soon after it is collected, Wasser said.
The study is "excellent," said Al Roca, an associate professor in the Department of Animal Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who was not involved in the study. But he also noted the price. "This involves a lot of work and genotyping of many defenses, so a financial concern would be whether law enforcement agencies will continue to support these efforts, which are critical," Roca told Live. Science.
Roca noted that many measures must be taken to combat wildlife trafficking.
"The most important are the political will of governments to stop smuggling, fighting both the supply and demand for wildlife products on the part of consumers rather morally bankrupt," he said. Mr. Roca. "The message of this study is that DNA-based methods can play a role in exposing smuggling operations and in determining geographical areas and countries targeted for poaching."
The study was published online today (September 19) in the journal Science Advances.
Original article on Live Science.
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