BEWARE all ivory poachers. The cops are on your case, thanks to a DNA test that reveals the geographical origin of ivory.
Developed using comparisons of elephant DNA from different regions, the test can theoretically pinpoint to between 500 and 1000 kilometres the origin of a particular sample. In its first use, the test showed that a huge cache of 532 tusks, seized in Singapore in 2002, came mainly from Zambia, not from multiple locations as originally suspected (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0609714104). “We were delighted with the results,” says team leader Sam Wasser of the University of Washington, Seattle.…
