Comcom Magazine

Scientists are joining hands to save the wildlife in the country. To curb rising crimes against wildlife, spurred mostly by a booming international trade in wildlife parts, a new breed of sleuths is emerging in India- the wildlife forensic scientists.

The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) at Dehradun has set up a wildlife forensic unit recently to prepare a national perspective plan to develop and standardise reference materials and scientific techniques to identify animals that are being illegally killed and parts that are being poached and illegally traded.

In an another development, scientist at the National Institute of Immunology (NII), New Delhi has developed a genetic probe that can detect rhino horn even if it is crushed into powered or mixed with something else to evade recognition by will life inspectors.
"The probe is so powerful and it can not only find out whether the specimen contained rhino horn but also tells from where it come from rhinoceros in Assam or West Bengal" said Sher Ali, Head of NII's molecular genetic divisions.

Techniques to identify fake samples will also be on the agenda of the project that has been initiated by the Wildlife Institute of India in collaboration with the U. S Fish and wildlife services. The unit would give a real boost to the conservation activities in the country.

Ali and his colleagues who analysed the genetic materials of India's one horned rhinoceros (rhinoceros unicornis) say they discovered a repetitive DNA sequence -a genetic finger print -which is unique to this species. It was not present in any another animal.

"In other word one can use the NII's probe to find out is particular horn come from India or Africa", says Ali. It will be valuable weapon in the hands wild life forensic scientists and conservationists, wanting to track down the sources of rhino in the Illegal market.

Enforcement of wildlife protection is often hampered because of lack of materials and methods necessary to identify species for evidence that can stand in judicial courts. It is need of the hour to have a proper wild life forensic lab and scientific techniques to solve this crucial issue.

Scientists at the WII are there for aiming to standardise techniques to identify meat, skin and any other samples to deals with wildlife offence cases reported by park managers, especially for tiger, deer and birds. WII scientists have recently standardised techniques to identify air samples by studying in detail cell pattern under the microscope.

The NII's genetic probe to identify rhinos will definitely be a great help to the WII scientists. NII scientists identified the unique genetic fingerprint by analysing the DNA extracted from six wild rhinos from Jaldapara park in West Bengal and one Rhino of Assam origin from Delhi Zoo. Scientists have also tried to find out such DNA sequence in other animals but the test was negative.

The Wildlife Institute of India is now perfecting techniques to identify meat samples by studying the protein profiles of these samples. This has already been prepared for buffalo, goat, sheep, chital, chian jungle cow and sarus crane. It has also established a database reference sample of hair, bones, skulls, claws and nails of 65 important mammals being taken from India. The WII has already started extending its services to help enforcing agencies to identify seized antlers from the chattel and sambar hedgehog spines and musk deer pod among others.

International trade in wildlife products amounts to an estimated 20 billion dollars business annually. Illegal trade in wildlife, which account for 5 billion dollars each year is second to narcotics trade, according to WII scientists. Five million live birds are circulating each year on the international market, one and half million reptiles are imported into the USA as 'mascts' and more than 25 million butterflies are exported each year by Taiwan, say scientists

Illegal trade in wild life is thriving in India too. India is the home for 80,000 species of animals and 45,000 species of plants. The country has 60 percent of world's tigers; half of Asiatic lions and 70 percent of Asian rhinos and each of them are facing severe threat from poachers and illegal traders.

Tiger and its parts such as skin and bones alone comprises 26 per cent of total trade, followed by leopard for skin, rhino for horns and elephants for ivory and tail hair.

The Wildlife forensic laboratory set up at the Wildlife Institute of India would certainly be a great help in curbing this increasing crime against the wild life in the country.