Leakey Richard - Animal investigators: how the worlds first wildlife forensics lab is solving crimes and saving endangered species

As a child growing up in the African bush at Olduvai Gorge, where animal sounds and storybook sights filled my soul, I gained an appreciation of our intimate relationship with and interconnectedness to nature. That realization inspired me to dedicate my life to ensuring that wild animals and places will be around for generations to come.

Since the 1980s, when I worked to stop the elephant slaughter in Kenya and establish a ban on trade in elephant ivory, it has become apparent that illegal wildlife trafficking is threatening the very existence of already endangered plants and animals around the globe. Such trafficking is so massive it ranks a close third in illicit international commerce, behind only drugs and weapons. Ultimately, it cannot be stemmed without both greater investment in enforcement and increased awareness.

Animal Investigators provides an excellent account of how a little-known group of dedicated scientists is providing a new and vital weapon in the arsenal of wildlife law enforcement officers. It is my hope that the telling of their fascinating stories will help generate the public support necessary to expand both their efforts and the work of their colleagues and allies around the world.

R ICHARD L EAKEY , renowned paleontologist,
conservationist, and founder of WildlifeDirect

Until the early 1980s, wildlife poachers and smugglers had an easy time getting away with murder. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) special agent Terry Grosz aimed to change that. Since 1976 hed been the FWS Law Enforcements endangered species desk officer in charge of facilitating the agencys endangered species investigations nationwide. His agents were tasked with protecting animals such as elephants and rhinoceroses, whose populations were endangered from hunters and middlemen seeking to supply ivory, horn, and other products to consumers worldwide, and hed quickly grown fed up with seeing suspects avoid prosecution for lack of proof. It wasnt that the agents didnt have the evidence. They just couldnt find anyone who would testify. Scientists who were willing to examine the evidence, such as an ornithologist at a museum or biologist at a research institute or university, typically refused to present and defend their results in court, which was a necessary step for conviction. That made their evaluations worthless.

Even if they had been willing to testify, other complicating matters would have come into play. Unlike regular crime labs, the museums and universities that did the analysis typically had inadequate security and procedures. That meant they could not maintain a secure chain of custody, so that during subsequent legal proceedings the defendant could have argued that the evidence was corrupted. Other times researchers had competing commitments that took precedence, so much so that their results would have arrived too late for trial, or else they could not prove the species of origin, making the results inconclusive and therefore of no use.

Human forensic labs were accustomed to testifying in criminal proceedings. Yet no crime lab could justify working an animal case over a human one. After being laughed out of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) lab once too often because of its higher-priority human cases, Grosz appealed to anyone who would listenand even others who wouldntfor a wildlife crime lab. He lobbied his superiors within FWS and pleaded with others who had influence over the agency, such as Amos Eno, then executive director of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (a nonprofit organization established by Congress in 1984 to sustain the nations fish, wildlife, plants, and habitats through leadership conservation investments) and members of Congress who controlled its budget: FWS needed its own forensic lab dedicated to wildlife.

Forensics applies science to crimes. It is based on the theory that, for virtually every infraction of the law, the suspect, victim, and crime scene interact in such a way as to exchange trace evidence, which can then be analyzed to link the perpetrator to his or her misdeed. By establishing a wildlife crime lab, Grosz hoped to put a damper on the rampant illegal killing of wild animals.

Killing wild animals is big business. While much wildlife trade is legal, a huge black market exists, especially in rare and endangered species. Legal trade in animals, which ranges from reptilian leather goods to pets like tropical fish and turtles to seafood and meat, amounts to about $15 billion to $55 billion a year. Of this, the United States processes about $2.8 billion in shipments a year. However, that figure reflects only wildlife consignments that are reported by the importer to authorities. An unknown volume of wildlife cargo is never declared, meaning that a booming illegal trade takes place outside official channels.

Illegal wildlife trafficking is worth perhaps $20 billion annually, and some say more. It is the third most lucrative criminal trade in the world, ranking behind drugs and human trafficking and in front of arms smuggling. Ounce for ounce, illicit products such as rhino horn and deer musk can be worth more than gold, diamonds, or cocaine and other drugs. In the 1990s, crystallized bear bile sold in South Korea for over $1,000 a gram, about twenty times the price of heroin.

The number and diversity of illegal wildlife products is huge, including everything from exotic pets, such as live primates, birds, and reptiles, to traditional Chinese medicines, art, and high-fashion accessories made from animal parts. The United States is both one of the worlds largest markets for illegal wildlife and wildlife products, with many believing it ranks second only to China, as well as one of the largest suppliers. Yet the scope of the problem is really global, with both illicit and legal products and animal parts passing from east to west, developing to developed countries, and vice versa. For example, endangered Tibetan antelopes, known as chiru, are killed for their wool, which is then woven into soft, thin shahtoosh shawls destined for New York and Europes fashion elite. A single shawl, worth up to $15,000, uses the wool from five slaughtered animals. In Caspian Sea countries like Russia, sturgeon eggs are cut from these protected prehistoric fish as a culinary delicacy. The caviar, some of which is legal and some illegal, is then sold in Europe and New York for over $2,000 for a small 250-gram tin. South Americas rare reptiles are processed into boots, purses, and belts, while endangered primates from Africa both feed the growing domestic market for bushmeat and supply the foreign market for exotic pets. And literally tons of legal and illegal wildlife products are used for traditional medicine in China and the rest of Asia.