DEAD ZONE: This elephant was

killed inside Chad’s Zakouma
National Park last October when
poachers trained automatic
weapons on a grazing herd.
It is one of the estimated 38,000
annual victims of the illegal
ivory trade.

68  S c i e n t i f i c A m e r i c a n 

I

n 1983 while exploring a small forest called
Malundwe on the edge of the Selous Game
Reserve in Tanzania, one of us (Wasser) came
across two elephant skulls lying side by side.
One, from a female, was big, and the other was
small— it had molars just a quarter the size of
the female’s and they had not yet been used
enough to show any signs of wear. The poachers had first shot the young elephant, a ranger
explained, so that they could draw its grieving
mother close enough to kill her for her enormous tusks. This exploitation of familial ties in
the sophisticated social system of elephants has
been repeated thousands of times in Africa.
The Selous Game Reserve is the largest protected area in Africa but was nonetheless among
the most heavily poached during the well-publicized slaughters that occurred between 1979
and 1989. At least 700,000 elephants were
killed during this period—70,000 in the Selous
alone. Then, in 1989, Tanzania’s new director
of wildlife launched a major antipoaching initiative called Operation Uhai. The combined effort of wildlife rangers, police officers and the

military rapidly brought an end to most poaching in the country.
Tanzania then joined six other countries in
successfully petitioning for the agreement administered by the United Nations known as
CITES (Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora)
to list the African elephant as an Appendix I
species. This ruling effectively banned all international trade in elephants and their products. Publicity surrounding the issue turned
public sentiment so far against the ivory trade
that it nearly eliminated the demand for ivory
worldwide; most poaching stopped abruptly
in response. Western nations helped to maintain the calm by pouring large sums of aid into
antipoaching efforts throughout Africa. Collectively, this was probably the most effective
act of international wildlife legislation in history, and public pressure was instrumental to
its success.
But the lull was short-lived. Some African
countries opposed a continent-wide ban from
the outset and never stopped advocating for its
July 2009

Jeff Hutchens Reportage by Getty Images

conservation

 The Ivory Trail
The illegal slaughter of African elephants for ivory
is now worse than it was at its peak in the 1980s.
New forensic tools based on DNA analysis can help
stop the cartels behind this bloody trade

By Samuel K. Wasser, Bill Clark and Cathy Laurie

reversal. Aid from Western countries dried up,
leaving poor African nations with plenty of
antipoaching equipment but no money for upkeep. Ivory also became an important status
symbol among the new middle class in the industrial countries of the Far East such as China
and Japan. Demand from these and other
wealthy nations, including the U.S., drove the
wholesale price for high-quality ivory from
$200 per kilogram in 2004 to $850 per kilogram by 2007. The price doubled again by 2009.
Chinese authorities estimated the retail value of
790 kilograms of ivory seized in southern China in March 2008 at $6,500 per kilogram.
Under pressure from African countries that
wanted to sell their ivory as well as the Eastern
nations that wanted to import it, CITES eventually decided to permit two one-time legal sales
of ivory stocks. In each case, the ivory had to be
obtained by natural deaths or legitimate culling
of problem animals only. Individual countries
had to apply to participate in the sale and demonstrate progress in curbing their country’s illegal ivory trade. A monitoring program was
w w w. S c i e n t i f i c A m e r i c a n . c o m  

also established to determine whether the legal
sales would promote increased poaching (although its data were never deemed sufficient to
answer this question).
By 2006 poaching had become arguably
worse than it was before the ban. That year between 25,000 and 29,000 kilograms of ivory
were seized en route from Africa. Major crime
syndicates had become involved in the trade, eager to capitalize on this growing demand, particularly because prosecution risk remained low
and the liberalization of global trade made it
easy to move large volumes of contraband.
Based on the 2006 seizures, we estimate that
more than 8 percent of the African elephant
population is being wiped out annually [see box
on page 72]. This mortality rate exceeds the elephants’ 6 percent annual reproductive rate under optimal conditions and even exceeds the 7.4
percent annual poaching mortality rate that instigated the ban.
To stop this slaughter, law-enforcement
agents need to target their operations at the locations where the elephants are being poached.

Key Concepts
■■

■■

■■

After the near elimination
of elephant poaching following the 1989 ban on
ivory, demand has returned. Elephant populations are now being decimated like never before.
Researchers can now accurately map elephant populations over the entire African continent using the
DNA in their scat.
Scientists use this map
and DNA extracted from
ivory to trace illegal shipments back to their source.
The first results from three
major seizures show that
sophisticated criminal
networks are targeting
specific groups for intense
exploitation.  —The Editors

S CIENTIFIC A MERIC A N

  69

 [tracking tool]

dna fingerprinting

Investigators can trace stolen ivory to a particular population of elephants by applying DNA fingerprinting, a technique that analyzes
sequences of DNA known as microsatellites.

Microsatellite
Basics
A microsatellite is
a stretch of DNA
made up of repeats
of a short sequence
of nucleotides, or
code “letters.”

Microsatellite

The Repeat Code

Microsatellites occur in parts of the genome
that do not appear to have any function, so
the number of repeats can change without
affecting the health of the organism. As a
result, mutations tend to accumulate
quickly, and elephants from nearby populations will tend to have different microsatellite lengths. Such differences can help
distinguish one population from another.

How Ivory is Tracked

DNA fingerprint of dung
from known location

Researchers create a reference map of DNA
fingerprints across Africa by examining the
lengths of different microsatellites from
multiple individuals at known locations.
Then, when an unknown ivory tusk arrives,
they can compare its DNA fingerprint to
the map of known DNA fingerprints
to identify its approximate origin.
DNA fingerprint of tusk
from unknown location

DNA fingerprint of dung
from known location

Dung
sample
locations

Samuel K. Wasser is a professor
of biology and director of the
Center for Conservation Biology
at the University of Washington. He
conceptualized and has coordinated the ivory DNA forensics project.
Bill Clark is chair of the Interpol
Working Group on Wildlife Crime
and a law-enforcement officer at
the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. He has led the application of
these forensics methods to criminal
investigations. Cathy Laurie,
a statistical geneticist at the University of Washington, conducted the
statistical analyses of the Taiwan
and Hong Kong seizures.
Two other individuals contributed significantly to the work. Celia
Mailand is a research scientist at
the Center for Conservation Biology
and conducted all the laboratory
DNA analyses. Matthew Stephens,
a professor in human genetics and
statistics at the University of
Chicago, developed all the statistical methods and software used
in the project.

70  S c i e n t i f i c A m e r i c a n 

tuted nearly 11 metric tons of contraband elephant ivory, representing more than a third of
the record-breaking haul of between 25,000
and 29,000 kilograms of ivory confiscated in
2006. Few populations can sustain that level of
poaching. If this ivory came from elephants living in a relatively constrained geographic area,
it would provide evidence that one of the largest
ivory syndicates in the world is behind the
killing.

The Seizures
Monday, July 3, 2006, Kaohsiung Harbor,
Taiwan— A routine automated scan of shipping
manifests alerts Taiwanese customs officials at
Kaohsiung to two suspicious containers. Both
had departed Tanzania and are at the port en
route to the Philippines, having passed through
Kaohsiung once before during the same voyage.
The containers seem to be shuttling back and
forth between ports in the Far East with no
apparent final destination. Officials check the
hard-copy shipping documents, which report
that the containers hold sisal fiber. Yet exporting sisal fiber from Africa to the Philippines is
like sending snowballs from Sweden to Siberia.
The Philippines grows tons of the fibrous plant.
The inspectors decide to crack open one of the
containers. There, hidden behind 60 bales of
sisal, they uncover 744 elephant
tusks. The second container
holds another 350 tusks. The
cache totals 5.2 metric tons of
illegal African ivory, with an
July 2009

jen christiansen (illustration); nasa/the visible earth (base map)

[The Authors]

Until recently, though, investigators were generally unable to track a container of contraband
back to the location where the elephants were
killed. An illegal shipment could be poached in
one country, processed in another and shipped
out of a third.
Knowing where elephants are being killed
also helps to bring pressure to bear on countries
with ineffective antipoaching operations. In addition, the pattern of geographic origin can provide clues about how poachers operate. If, for
example, most of the ivory in a shipment comes
from a common locale, we can conclude that
poachers are targeting a specific elephant population. In this case, law enforcement should look
for a well-organized and exclusive poaching
ring. On the other hand, if the ivory in a given
shipment comes from widely separated locations, the traffickers may be acquiring their
stock via a network of opportunistic purchases
from small-time dealers.
In an effort to connect a shipment with its
source, we have developed DNA forensic methods to determine where elephant poaching is
most concentrated in Africa. Our molecular
methods are similar to those used to match
crime scene evidence, such as human blood and
other tissues, to specific suspects. In this case,
though, the crime scene material is elephant ivory, and we are attempting to match it to elephant
populations in Africa.
Here we present the first evidence from three
seizures all made within two months of one another in 2006. Combined, these seizures consti-

 estimated wholesale value of $4.6 million and a
retail “street value” upward of $21 million.

Michael Freeman Aurora Photos (seals); Patrick Robert Corbis (market)

Saturday, July 8, 2006, Sai Ying Pun, Hong
Kong Island — Five days after the Taiwanese
seizure, a local resident reports a terrible burning stench coming from a neighbor’s apartment.
Police and fire units respond quickly. No one
replies to their knocks on the door, so the units
force their way in. They discover seven people
cutting and packing what turns out to be 2.6
metric tons of elephant ivory. Hong Kong authorities seize 390 tusks plus another 121 cut pieces.
Some clues indicate an East African origin.
Monday, August 28, 2006, Osaka Harbor,
Japan — Japanese customs agents discover 608
pieces of raw ivory, which, when carefully
matched, produce 260 whole tusks. At 2.8 metric tons, this is the largest ivory seizure ever
reported in Japan. Many of the tusks are numbered with Swahili writing [see illustration on
page 76], suggesting an East African shipping
source. Also in the incoming consignment are
17,928 carved ivory cylinders, obviously intended for the signature seal, or hanko, market. The
Japanese and Chinese engrave their individual
seal at one end of these signature seals — also
called chops— and use them to stamp their personal checks, legal documents and letters.
(Though currently among the most common
uses of ivory, this is a relatively recent development; hankos were historically made of materials such as jade.) Yet the Japanese do not report
the seizure at the 2006 CITES standing committee meeting that was to decide whether to allow
Japan to be a purchaser of a one-time ivory sale
from southern Africa. On October 7, 2006, the
newspaper Asahi Shimbun breaks the story, and
Japanese authorities acknowledge the shipment
soon thereafter.
When we learned of the seizures, we requested samples of the ivory so that we could subject
them to DNA analysis at the University of Wash-

w w w. S c i e n t i f i c A m e r i c a n . c o m  

ington Center for Conservation Biology. The results would be shared among the donor countries, the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) and the Lusaka Agreement
Task Force, an agency of African countries cooperating to fight wildlife crime. Hong Kong
and Taiwan voluntarily agreed to provide ivory
samples. Despite numerous requests, Japanese
authorities have not yet supplied any samples.

DNA Map
We extract DNA from ivory using a pulverization technique borrowed from dental forensics.
We place a piece of ivory about the size of a peanut inside a polycarbonate tube along with a
magnet, then seal the tube with stainless steel
plugs. Next, we drop the sample into liquid
nitrogen at –240 degrees Celsius inside a device
called a freezer mill. There a magnetic field oscillates rapidly back and forth, smashing the ivory
against the plugs and breaking it into a fine powder. Throughout this process the low temperature maintains the integrity of the DNA. Using
now standard techniques, we isolate the DNA
from the powder and obtain a profile of variation in DNA segments called microsatellites to
get a DNA fingerprint [see box on opposite
page]. Microsatellites consist of anywhere from

The pattern
of geographic
origin can
provide clues
about how
poachers
operate.

white market: Open ivory

markets such as the one below
in Kinshasa, Democratic
Republic of Congo, have
expanded to support the
rising ivory trade. But the
real surge in ivory demand
is driven by the industrial
nations of the Far East, where
indivi­duals use signature seals
called hankos (below left) to
stamp documents.

S CIENTIFIC A MERIC A N

  71

 Savanna elephant samples
Forest elephant samples
Taiwan ivory (July 3, 2006), container 1
Taiwan ivory (July 4, 2006), container 2
Hong Kong ivory (July 8, 2006)

[data analysis]

Tracking
the Poachers
Scientists and volunteers collect elephant
dung samples across Africa to identify the
DNA “fingerprint” of elephants at those
locations (orange and green spots). Researchers use these data to build a map of
how DNA fingerprints vary across the continent, then compare the DNA of illegally poached
tusks against this map. Here results from the 2006
seizures in Hong Kong and Taiwan provide strong
evidence that the ivory was poached in a relatively
small area on the Tanzania and Mozambique border
that includes the Selous and Niassa Game Reserves.

Rampant poaching in the period
between 1979 and 1989 reduced
the elephant population across
Africa from 1.3 million to fewer than
600,000 individuals, a loss of
7.4 percent a year. Fast-forward
to 2006, and the illegal ivory trade
had once again escalated to levels
few people anticipated. Between
August 2005 and August 2006,
authorities seized more than 25
metric tons of ivory. Customs commonly assumes that a 10 percent
seizure rate for “general goods”
contraband is successful, and so the
authors estimate that more than
250 metric tons of ivory were smuggled that year. Using the commonly
accepted estimate of 6.6 kilograms
of ivory per elephant, they conclude
that 38,000 elephants — 8 percent
of the entire African elephant population — are being killed annually.

72  S c i e n t i f i c A m e r i c a n 

two to four nucleotides repeated from 10 to 100
times. Unlike functional genes, microsatellite
DNA does not code for proteins. Thus, the number of repeats in the microsatellite can vary
without affecting the health of the organism or
its ability to reproduce, and changes in the
repeat number tend to arise frequently and persist. Over time, then, microsatellites in one population come to differ among geographically
separated populations.
With a DNA fingerprint of microsatellite repeats from a tusk in hand, we now compare this
to a map of DNA fingerprints from elephants
across Africa. A decade ago we set out to create
a reference map across the whole of the continent that would plot the variation in microsatellite DNA. This project turned out to be a much
bigger challenge than we anticipated.
Africa is a huge continent and the precision
of our ivory assignments is directly tied to the
comprehensiveness of our DNA map. To facilitate the collection of reference DNA, we extracted it from elephant populations in the least
invasive way possible — through their feces.
Each gram of elephant feces contains DNA from
millions of sloughed off intestinal mucosal cells.
Collecting enough feces to create a reference
map across Africa required the help of many sci-

entists and wildlife wardens, and we are indebted to them for their efforts. But no matter how
many elephant dung samples we are able to collect, we will never have enough to completely
cover the entire continent.
To knit together swatches of patchy data, we
use a statistical technique we devised called the
smoothed continuous assignment technique
(SCAT). Software employing the SCAT method
extrapolates data gathered at discrete locations
to compose a continuous geographic distribution of DNA fingerprints — the microsatellite
DNA lengths at each of the 16 loci— across the
entire elephant range. This method relies on the
fact that populations close to one another tend
to be genetically more similar than populations
that are more distant. We validated the SCAT
procedure by using it to determine the origin of
dung samples taken from known locations.

Anatomy of a Shipment
We first applied our DNA assignment method
to a case that exemplifies the magnitude and
complexity of the modern ivory trade. In February 2002 authorities in Malawi, working with
Zambian authorities and the Lusaka Agreement
Task Force, raided a family ivory-carving factory that was ostensibly using ivory legally
July 2009

nasa/the visible earth (base map)

how Many
Elephants Are
Being Killed?

 KWAI CHOW WONG Getty Images

acquired from the Malawi government. The
factory, however, had far more ivory than it had
legal documentation for, and very few of the
samples had the requisite government stamp.
The haul included many residual scraps of ivory
with bored holes from which short cylinders
had been cut. These cylinders were thought to
be hanko signature seals destined for Japan.
(Japanese traditionally prefer cylindrical seals,
whereas Chinese prefer square ones.)
Detailed records recovered in the Malawi
raid described 19 separate shipments made by
these traffickers during the preceding nine
years. All shipments identified the same shipper,
the same shipping codes (either soapstone or
sawn timber) and the same origin. Nearly all
had the same destination. One of these consignments included a 6.5-metric-ton shipment of
ivory (recorded as soapstone), which was at a
hidden location, waiting to be delivered.
That June authorities suddenly learned that
the missing ivory had been trucked to Beira,
Mozambique, and loaded on a ship to Durban,
South Africa, where it was transferred onto another ship destined for Singapore. Local authorities were notified of the shipment just four
hours before its arrival and confiscated the container. The shipment included 532 tusks, with
an atypically large average weight of 12 kilograms per tusk, and 42,000 hanko seals. The
signature seals were cylindrical, and their diameters matched the bored holes in the ivory scraps
seized in Malawi. Several tusks in the seizure
were marked with “Yokohama,” a port city
near Tokyo.
The shipping documents recovered in the
Malawi raid did not list the weights of the 18
other illegal ivory shipments. If we assume that
each shipment was similar in size to the Singapore seizure, however, they would collectively
represent close to 110 metric tons of ivory, or
approximately 17,000 poached elephants.
The huge quantity of seized contraband was
a striking indicator of the growth of the illicit
ivory trade. It also revealed how much of it is
controlled by major crime syndicates. Moving
this much ivory requires expertise in commodity trade, international finance and other commercial disciplines. The business requires significant infrastructure in the Far East capable of
receiving and processing tons of ivory, factories
that can produce tens of thousands of hankos a
year, and a marketing, distribution and retail
network to sell them. The millions of U.S. dollars generated in sales must be illegally launw w w. S c i e n t i f i c A m e r i c a n . c o m  

dered through legitimate business channels and
then moved around the world to pay for new
shipments. Further, high-level bribery is evident. There have been reports of poachers using
large volumes of wildlife products as barter currency for the weapons and ammunition needed
to keep corrupt officials in power.
And while profit is high, the risk to traffickers is low. Few major wildlife traffickers ever get
prosecuted, because wildlife crime is generally
considered a low priority among law-enforcement agencies when compared with terrorism,
drug trafficking, murder and financial crime.
Virtually no one involved in the Singapore seizure was ever prosecuted, including the customs
agents who signed their names to the manifest
declaring the ivory to be soapstone. In several
other countries, penalties for getting caught are
cheaper than paying sales tax.

The huge
quantity of
contraband
revealed how
much of the
illicit ivory
trade is
controlled by
major crime
syndicates.

Hard and Fast
Although investigators strongly suspected that
the ivory confiscated in Singapore was processed
at the facility in Malawi, DNA analysis was necessary to determine whether the samples came

Elephants Are Not Alone

I

llegal wildlife trafficking of many species and their products is burgeoning throughout the
world, far exceeding current monitoring and enforcement capacity. Credible studies from
multiple sources indicate that illegal trade in wildlife can be valued at tens of billions of U.S.
dollars annually. The liberalization of global trade has helped spread the market for illegal
wildlife products, as has technology: recent research indicates significant amounts of dubious elephant ivory are being offered for sale on the Internet. The considerable legal trade in
rare wildlife — more then 100 million individuals of rare species are bought and sold every
year under CITES — also provides an ideal conduit for illegal trade. And as with ivory, it is
becoming clear that criminal syndicates are behind much of it. In just the past few years,
authorities have made a series of disconcertingly large busts, confiscating 55,000 reptile
skins in India, 19,000 bigeye thresher shark fins in Ecuador, 23 metric tons of pangolins in
Asia, 3,000 Tibetan (shahtoosh) shawls from at least 12,000 antelopes in India, and 2,000
Indian star tortoises (below), also in India.  
— S.K.W.

S CIENTIFIC A MERIC A N

  73

 from the same source. The results provided
strong evidence that all the ivory had a common
origin. The tusks and hanko seals from the Singapore seizure as well as the ivory scraps seized
in the Malawi factory raid all originated from a
population of savanna elephants centered on
Zambia. Linking the hankos to the same population as the tusks in the Singapore seizure
explained the mysterious absence of small to
medium tusks in that seizure. Smaller tusks were
likely carved into hankos at the ivory-carving
facility in Malawi. This strategy almost certainly served to increase the value of the consignment to a Japanese market, as the Japanese historically prefer large tusks. It also indicated that
animals of all ages fell victim to these poachers.
It takes a very large number of young elephants
to provide enough ivory to manufacture 42,000
signature stamps.
This 2002 seizure occurred in the same year

Are There Too Many Elephants?

F

ollowing the ivory ban, some people became caught up in the myth that Africa now has
too many elephants. Media reports focused on a small number of southern African
countries that demanded to legally cull elephants because of high population densities in
protected areas such as wildlife refuges; escalating human-elephant conflict seemed to
back those claims. Yet the problem is far more complicated than it appears.
Most of the protected areas with high elephant densities in southern Africa are fenced,
which severely restricts the elephants’ natural movements. Far more countries throughout
Africa, including several countries in southern Africa, are experiencing substantial poaching-related declines among elephants. The raging debates over culling frequently overshadow these points, yet they offer a simpler solution: tearing down those fences and creating
megaparks that transcend international boundaries. Many of the now fenced populations
border countries with low human and elephant population densities that offer considerable
land for elephant movement. The megaparks would dilute any high-density pockets of
elephant activity and thus blunt the impact on the rest of the food chain.
There is also disagreement as to the causes of human-elephant conflict. Such conflict
most often happens when elephants wander outside their protected areas and into nearby
farms. Loss of habitat is usually cited as the prime cause, but the
effect of poaching on elephant social structure also plays a large
role. Older adult females have consistently been among the first
to be poached — aside from big adult males, they have the
largest tusks, and female social groups are a lot easier for poachers to find than solitary adult males. A 1989 study found that 80
percent of the skulls recovered from poached elephants were
females, with a mean age of 32 years. These old females, called
matriarchs, play a pivotal role in elephant society, directing
group movements and maintaining the group’s competitive
standing and social cohesion. With their leaders lost and “protected areas” no longer offering safe haven because of poaching, elephants wander. Indeed, massive elephant exoduses have
been well documented during the slaughters that occurred in the
civil wars of Mozambique, Angola and elsewhere. These leaderless elephants move out of their protected areas, encounter rich
crops, mistake the poor people defending them for poachers,
and fight for their lives.  
— S.K.W.

74  S c i e n t i f i c A m e r i c a n 

that Zambia petitioned CITES to allow its
stockpiled ivory to be included in a one-time
sale to the Far East. Yet CITES ultimately rejected this proposal, in some degree because of suspicions that some of the ivory recovered in Singapore came from Zambia. Our results help to
validate that decision.
Analysis of the ivory in the Singapore seizure
showed for the first time how poachers were targeting specific populations for intense exploi­
tation. Populations were hit hard and fast, presumably to satisfy specific purchase orders from
buyers. This finding contradicted the more common belief that traffickers were employing a decentralized plan of assembling large consignments by opportunistically procuring ivory
stockpiles as they became available across Africa.
It also meant that using these techniques to focus
law enforcement on identified hotspots should
prove to be a viable antipoaching strategy.

Business as Usual
Our more recent studies of the summer 2006 seizures in Taiwan and Hong Kong show just how
much the current destruction mirrors the slaughter of the 1980s. The 2006 operations also
involved a high level of organization and much
political intrigue. Our DNA analysis revealed
that the tusks came from an area centered on the
Selous ecosystem in Tanzania, spilling over into
the Niassa Game Reserve in northern Mozambique [see box on page 72]. It ap­­pears that Tanzania has once again become a hotbed of illegal
poaching activity. This is the country that is
home to Serengeti National Park; Gombe Stream,
where Jane Goodall carried out her famed chimpanzee research; Mount Kilimanjaro; the Eastern Arc Mountains, a world-re­nown­ed hotspot
on the edge of the Selous that has more endemic

John Hrusa Corbis

If the trade is
not brought
under control
soon, most
of Africa
will lose the
majority of its
free-ranging
elephants.

July 2009

 UNSOLVED BUST: Just weeks after

the Hong Kong and Taiwan
seizures, authorities in Osaka,
Japan, confiscated 608 pieces of
raw ivory totaling 2.8 metric
tons (left). The authorities have
not yet provided samples for
DNA analysis, so it is impossible
to say with certainty where the
ivory originated; however,
circumstantial evidence such as
Swahili lettering on many of the
tusks (below) implies Tanzania
as an origin (Swahili is primarily
spoken in Tanzania and Kenya).

76  S c i e n t i f i c A m e r i c a n 

ivory carvings be entered into retail
consumer trade, if not via conventional retail merchants?
Industrial consumer countries
with markets for contraband ivory
have not been providing credible
support for wildlife agencies in African elephant habitat countries, despite the fact
that it is their citizens who provide the financial
incentive for nearly all the poaching. Developing
countries in Africa are left extremely vulnerable
to the power and money that wildlife crime syndicates wield, power that is fueled by the wealth
of industrial economies. Although DNA analysis
can help concentrate law-enforcement efforts,
more help is needed to stop the slaughter. As we
write, the killing continues: on March 9, 2009,
Vietnam authorities confiscated a shipment of
6.2 metric tons of ivory, which was reportedly
smuggled from Tanzania. This constitutes the
second-largest ivory seizure since the ban.
Public sentiment contributed significantly to
stopping the illegal ivory trade in 1989, and improved public awareness of the elephant’s peril
could achieve this again. By our estimates, more
than 38,000 African elephants were killed for
ivory in 2006 alone. All evidence suggests that
the poaching rate has still not slowed, and indeed there are reports of intensified poaching
from some countries. If the illegal ivory trade is
not brought under control soon, most of Africa
will lose the majority of its free-ranging elephants, and Africa will never be the same. That
is too great a price to pay for a commodity whose
principal use is vanity.  
■

➥ More To

Explore

Elephant Reflections. Photographs
by Karl Ammann. Text by Dale
Peterson. University of California
Press, 2009.
The Center for Conservation
Biology. University of Washington.
www.conservationbiology.net
Animal Investigators: How
the World’s First Wildlife Forensics Lab Is Solving Crimes and
Saving Endangered Species. Laurel
A. Neme. Scribner, 2009.
Combating the Illegal Trade in
African Elephant Ivory with DNA
Forensics. Samuel K. Wasser et al. in
Conservation Biology, Vol. 22, No. 4,
pages 1065–1071; 2008.
July 2009

japan wildlife conservation society

species per square kilometer than any other
place in the world; and of course the Selous
Game Reserve itself. Tanzania petitioned CITES
to sell its stockpiled ivory that same year but
withdrew its application in response to international pressures.
One open question is whether the ivory impounded in Osaka also originated in Tanzania.
While our lab was analyzing the seizures from
Taiwan and Hong Kong, Japanese authorities
concluded their work on the bust— the biggest
ivory-smuggling attempt in Japanese history. In
2007 a Japanese court convicted a man of attempting to smuggle the 2.8 metric tons of ivory. He received a suspended sentence and a fine
equivalent to less than 1 percent of the customs
estimate of the ivory’s retail street value. Japanese authorities then incinerated the ivory,
thereby making it unavailable for DNA analysis. They did retain a collection of about 100
small pieces, each weighing an average of 0.3
gram. Yet these pieces have not been made available and, even if they were, we are uncertain
that they could yield enough DNA for analyses.
Earlier that year Japan received final CITES approval to purchase ivory from a legal sale that
would occur in 2008.
These sales are problematic, no matter how
carefully they are monitored. The existence of
legal domestic ivory markets, particularly in the
Far East, influences public perceptions and legitimizes the fashion for ivory. Legal markets
likely absorb a large portion of the smuggled
ivory and provide an easy way to launder the
rest. How else can hundreds of thousands of