January 15, 2018 by Mary Esch
In this Jan. 8, 2018 photo, Wendy Hapgood,
left, and John Steward, directors of the Wild Tomorrow Fund, measure an
elephant tusk at a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
warehouse in Albany, N.Y. The tusk was part of a …more
Scientists are using information gleaned from
both illegal ivory art and elephant dung to provide clues that could help save
the lives of pachyderms that are being slaughtered for their tusks in Africa.
The wildlife detective work involves cutting
up seized artifacts including bangle bracelets and statues of Chinese deities
and subjecting them to carbon dating to determine when the elephants were killed. DNA from the ivory art is then compared to a DNA database derived from elephant
dung to pinpoint where they lived.
What scientists learn may not put a
particular poacher in jail, but will tell the story of where and when an
elephant died on an African savannah so its tusk could be carved in Asia to
make a goddess statue priced at $72,000 in a Manhattan antique shop.
"It's going to be really helpful not
only for scientific purposes, but also to be able to tell people about the
individual lives of elephants that ended up as artwork on our streets,"
said Wendy Hapgood, director of the Wild Tomorrow Fund, which supports African
wildlife preserves, anti-poaching enforcement and efforts to shut down the
ivory trade.
The group cut chips from 21 statues,
bracelets and mounted tusks that were among $4.5 million in illegal ivory
artifacts seized from a Manhattan antiques shop and dramatically destroyed in a
rock crusher in Central Park last August. The chips will be analyzed by
scientists at Columbia University and the University of Washington.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
You only need to enter your comment once! Comments will appear once they have been moderated. This is so as to stop the would-be comedian who has been spamming the comments here with inane and often offensive remarks. You know who you are!