Introduction
Did you know that there are such people in the world who make a living out of elephant poaching? Since Africa has a bigger population of elephants in the world, that’s where most of the hunting happens. Why poach elephants? For their tusks, which can be traded illegally as ivory.
Background
According to the World Wildlife organization, “poachers kill about 20,000 elephants every single year for their tusks...” The reason why elephants die from the removal of their tusks is as if our canine tooth was being removed without any treatment. Since tusks are deeply rooted into elephants, their “nerve endings” would be exposed after removal and it’d be infected to the point that it reaches death.
The death rate of these elephants keeps increasing every year and continue to endanger their population. Elephants are a keystone species: the species that’s most essential to an ecosystem and supports the whole ecosystem chain. It’s important to know this because the removal of the elephants’ population would go on to affect other species’ populations within the ecosystem. Often predicted, a rapid increase in one species will lead to a rapid decrease in the rest.
Approach
Today, many scientists and researchers have begun to work on combating these illegal ivory trades by using different methods to connect DNA between one elephant’s tusk to another as a tracking system.
Published in 2018 report, Dr. Samuel Wasser, a director of the UW Center for Conservation Biology and a professor in biology led his team to discover the three largest ivory smugglings cartels in Africa that participated in the illegal ivory trading. Their first step was to create a “genetic reference map” of elephant populations across Africa to determine which sample of elephant DNA was from which region. Dr. Wasser and his team would use the same genetic tools, based on DNA analysis, to pinpoint the elephant population where the ivory came from and to identify where the larger organized crime syndicates were.
DNA profiling, or DNA fingerprinting is used to identify an individual’s unique genetic information. DNA fingerprinting doesn’t use fingerprints to identify. The difference between the two is that DNA fingerprinting shows a pattern of bands on an electrophoresis gel, which fingerprint scanning is just physical patterns. Gel electrophoresis is a method to show the separation of DNA in fragments based on size and charge. Applying to the elephants, the fragments would be in different sizes because every elephant’s uniquely different within their genetics. After electrophoresis, Dr. Wasser’s team would use the multiple markers on each elephants’ profiles to distinguish between each elephant as much as possible.
To conclude, it’s important to be aware and informed of what’s happening to our ecosystem today. Though our world is now heavily shaped by humans, it’s not too late to be like Dr. Wasser and his team to prevent further damage from continuing.
References
ifaw. (2021). what is ivory and how can we protect elephants? Retrieved from ifaw: https://www.ifaw.org/journal/what-is-ivory#:~:text=Elephants%20feel%20an%20immense%20amount,become%20infected%2C%20leading%20to%20death.
Urton, J. (2018). DNA testing of illegal ivory seized by law enforcement links multiple ivory shipments to same dealers. Retrieved from UW News: https://www.washington.edu/news/2018/09/19/ivory-smuggling-dna-testing/
Urton, J. (2022). DNA testing exposes tactics of international criminal networks trafficking elephant ivory. Retrieved from UW News: https://www.washington.edu/news/2022/02/14/ivory-trafficking/
World Wildlife. (n.d.). What is ivory and why does it belong on elephants? Retrieved from WWF: https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/what-is-ivory-and-why-does-it-belong-on-elephants#:~:text=Poachers%20kill%20about%2020%2C000%20elephants,ivory%20in%20parts%20of%20Asia. Assessed and Endorsed by the MedReport Medical Review Board