They include a whistleblower
system to report wildlife crime and a DNA test to pinpoint poaching hot spots
of the world’s most trafficked mammal.
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 3, 2016
HONOLULU, HAWAIIEvery year
about 10
million aquarium fish pass through United States ports, many on
their way to new homes as family pets. But first, federal inspectors must leaf
through mountains of paperwork on the animals, which are shipped from more than
40 countries around the world.
“Until recently, the [inspectors]
didn’t even have wireless access in the warehouses,” says Michael Tlusty,
director of ocean sustainability and science at the New England Aquarium.
That’s why it can be easy to miss
illegal wildlife trade—for instance, an endangered fish swimming about with
other species that’s not declared on a shipment invoice. “Lots of wildlife gets
hidden in plain sight,” according to Tlusty. “How do you know what’s in the
box?”
Enter the aquarium’s new
tablet-based platform that allows people to digitize and quickly track wildlife
trade invoices, and then scan for discrepancies or red flags that point to
illegal activity. “We want to develop this as a real-time solution,” Tlusty
says. Inspectors “can go into the warehouse and use this tablet to decide if
they should or should not inspect a shipment.”
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