Illegal poaching and wildlife trafficking is the fourth largest transcontinental crime, worth an estimated $20 billion each year. In an effort to curb ivory trafficking in California, a law was enacted in 2015 (AB 96, codified as Fish and Game Code section 2022) that prohibits the purchase, sale, offer for sale, possession with intent to sell, or importation with intent to sell of ivory from elephant, mammoth, and mastodon as well as other non-proboscidean species. The CDFW Forensics Lab has developed an assay that can distinguish between the 4 proboscidean taxa protected under California’s ivory law and are required to either be identified or excluded from casework consideration - African elephant (Loxodonta spp.), Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), mammoth (Mammuthus spp.), and mastodon (Mammut spp.). Kelly discusses this assay and its utility, as well as her efforts to geolocate African elephant ivory to its source country using a combination of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, thereby increasing the utility of this assay in law enforcement situations.
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