Who is slaughtering Africa’s elephants? DNA study identifies three criminal ivory cartels
The breakthrough realisation that different tusks from the same animal were often passing through the same port helps bolster the criminal cases against the smugglers
DNA tests on smuggled elephant tusks have identified three major ivory cartels in Africa and are helping investigators bolster the criminal cases against some of the most dangerous traffickers, researchers said Wednesday.
Around 40,000 African elephants are killed every year for their tusks, which are illegally traded as part of a multibillion-dollar industry that extends from Africa to Asia and beyond.
Traffickers conceal their ivory in shipping containers – but inspectors peer inside just one per cent of the one billion containers sent around the world each year.
Lead author Samuel Wasser, a professor of biology at the University of Washington, said an “important breakthrough” came when experts realised about half of the tusks were not in pairs. Often, one was missing.
So they ran DNA tests on 38 seizures from 2006 to 2015 to find out where the tusks came from.