DNA tusks and elephant poop, good track against hunting … – First Time

                 
                      
 

 
     By EFE
 
 
 
 
 
 06/18/2015 | 02: 13 p.m.
 

               

Analysis of DNA in stool elephant tusks and have allowed narrow the source of 85 percent of the illegal ivory two areas in Africa, a savannah and other forest, a basic to fight poaching of these animals data.

A study by the University of Washington and published today in the journal Science, indicates that the result of these analyzes allowed narrow in such a big as Africa, the source of most of the ivory leaving every year illegally continent.

Define the geographical areas may help combat poaching, which causes annually the disappearance of approximately ten percent of the population of African elephants (about 50,000 copies of the existing 500,000).

“Knowing that the majority of transnational trade focuses on two areas makes possible a strengthening of the law in these areas in order to eliminate most of the illegal killing “of elephants, said the biologist Samuel Wasser, the American university.

Africa” ​​is a huge continent and poaching occurs everywhere. When trying to address this problem looks like a burdensome task, “Wasser said.

The team first collected DNA from droppings of elephants, tissue and hair on the entire African continent to make a genetic map populations by region.

They subsequently developed the method to extract DNA from the teeth, allowing to determine the origin of the population from which they came fangs.

samples the animals were collected between 2005 and 2013, while in the case of fangs pieces of at least half a ton, seized between 1996 and 2014 were analyzed.

The result is that 85 percent of Ivory elephants living in protected forest ecosystem comes from Tridom, which expands the northeastern Gabon, northwest of the Republic of Congo and southeastern Cameroon, and the adjacent reserve in southwestern CAR.

As for the ivory of elephants in the savannah, there is also a concentration of 85 percent in East Africa, notably the Selous Game Reserve in southeastern Tanzania and Niassa reserve in northern Mozambique.

However, these regions will probably not be major points of poaching, according to researchers who have identified continuous movement patterns poachers.

For example, in 2011 the savanna elephant hunting began to move from southern Tanzania to the Ruaha National Park and Rungwa Game reserve in the center of the country, and then north towards Kenya.

But the researchers believe that if they improve the accuracy of forensic DNA techniques used as well as its speed, could help police identify the points chase and arrest poachers.