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Cycle 4 (2015 Deadline)
Enhancing elephant conservation and protection in East Africa with molecular genetic tools
PI: Moses Otiende (motiende@kws.go.ke), Kenya Wildlife Service
U.S. Partner: Samuel and David Wasser and Schindel, Smithsonian Institution
Project Dates: October 2015 - December 2020
Project Overview
DNA tools are becoming increasingly useful for investigating and prosecuting wildlife crimes, including matching carcasses to smuggled biological products and determining the location of poaching hotspots. Elephant-specific microsatellite DNA markers have been accurately used to map elephant populations over the entire African continent using DNA extracted from their feces. The map is currently being used to trace illegal ivory shipments back to their origin using DNA extracted from seized ivory.
Elephant poaching within East Africa has progressively increased since 2006, with the greatest concentration of large ivory seizures coming from East Africa and especially southern Tanzania. Identification of the origins of these seizures is vital, not only for timely prosecutions but also to provide intelligence on major shifts in poaching activities across East Africa. This project aimed to build a collaborative forensic network between Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda by enhancing the forensic capabilities of newly formed wildlife DNA labs in both Kenya and Tanzania, where the largest elephant populations reside in East Africa and considerable cross-border movements of elephants occur.
A major part of this effort also involved enhancing coverage of the existing continent-wide elephant DNA database by sampling and genotyping elephant dung in all important elephant areas within the region where samples are still lacking. Enhancing this comprehensive elephant DNA database for East Africa will greatly increase the capacities of authorities to monitor changes in areas of concentrated poaching as well as bring cases to successful prosecution on a timely basis.
Final Summary of Project Activities
Dr. Otiende, Dr. Mutayoba, and their teams collected and genotyped dung and tissue samples from key elephant populations in savannahs across Kenya and Tanzania. Tissue samples were opportunistically obtained during veterinary clinical interventions, such as treatment for diseases and injuries. The researchers tested and optimized several mitochondrial markers developed in previous elephant studies. Through this work, they began constructing an elephant genetic database for mitochondrial DNA in selected elephant populations in Kenya and Tanzania. They also piloted non-invasive methods for enumerating forest elephants and molecular tools for forest elephant population surveys using DNA. Analyses and genotyping of the samples were done at the forensics and genetics laboratories at Kenya Wildlife Service and Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania. In the long term, these labs will be among the reference labs for the East African and Central African region.
The PEER team organized a training for rangers and wildlife officers actively involved in wildlife crime management in Tanzania, the first such high-level forensic training involving field-based personnel. The training equipped rangers, often the first responders to wildlife crime scenes, with tamper-proof evidence bags and crime scene investigation kits, which will ensure integrity and traceability of evidence collected in the field as well as supporting good chain-of-custody procedures. The PEER researchers developed the curriculum and related manual for this training, which will be used as a guidebook for trainees and is now part of the key reference documents in the Kenyan National Elephant Action Plan.
During the project period, the Kenya Wildlife Service procured a new 3500XL genetic sequencer and trained staff to use this unit for forensic analysis of elephant and other wildlife genomic material. This new equipment will help to generate court-admissible forensic reports to prosecute wildlife offenders. They also installed relevant equipment required for extraction of DNA from ivory, allowing the forensic and genetics laboratory to undertake analyses that in the past were done only at the University of Washington.
Six scientists from the PEER team visited the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service forensic laboratory in Oregon for training on morphological identification of ivory, crime scene management, and DNA laboratory operations. The researchers also visited the Uganda Wildlife Authority to present their work and conduct reconnaissance of key elephant areas in the country and to discuss plans for sampling of elephant fecal samples for genetic analysis. To enhance adoption and use of DNA evidence in wildlife crime litigation, team members held workshops with prosecutors and magistrates. During the PEER project period, team members received three additional grants for a total of $150,000 to continue their work.
Publication
Daniel O. Ouso, Moses Y. Otiende, Maamun M. Jeneby, Joseph W. Oundo, Joel L. Bargul, Scott E. Miller, Lillian Wambua, and Jandouwe Villinger. 2020. Three-gene PCR and high-resolution melting analysis for differentiating vertebrate species mitochondrial DNA for biodiversity research and complementing forensic surveillance. Scientific Reports 10: 4741. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61600-3
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