January
4, 2019
Scientists
tackling the illegal trade in elephant ivory got more than they bargained for
when they found woolly mammoth DNA in trinkets on sale in Cambodia, they
revealed Friday.
"It
was a surprise for us to find trinkets made from woolly mammoth ivory in
circulation, especially so early into our testing and in a tropical country
like Cambodia," said Alex Ball, manager at the WildGenes laboratory, a
wildlife conservation charity based at Edinburgh Zoo.
"It
is very hard to say what the implications of this finding are for existing
elephant populations, however we plan to continue our research and will use
genetics to work out where it has come from."
The giant
mammals have been extinct for around 10,000 years and are not covered by
international agreements on endangered species.
WildGenes
has been using genetic data to
tackle wildlife crime by determining the origin of ivory finding its way to the
marketplace.
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