Geographical Assignment and Molecular Tracking in Wildlife Offences: A Case Study of Seized Elephant Tail Hair

Tracking geographic origin of parts traded in wildlife offences is a critical aspect of wildlife management which enables to strengthen ground level enforcement and in determining changes taking place in population demography for planning long-term conservation goals. Asia and Africa are habitats to very rich faunal diversity and many species in these continents are victims of wildlife trafficking. Of the different species, elephants are more prone to illicit trafficking in India as well as in Africa because of the high demand for products like ivory, meat, tail hairs, etc. Use of nuclear markers has been well documented in tracking African elephant parts like ivory but precluded its use in parts like tail hair that lack root part, hence the source of nuclear DNA is lost. In such cases, population-based mtDNA haplogroups has been an alternate approach in tracking the source of origin. This study presents an effort to implement DNA-based methods for the forensic identification of species as well as a source of origin of elephant tail hair confiscated from different locations in India and Nepal. A total of 15 hair samples seized in India and Nepal were undertaken for study and were subjected to species identification using Cyt b gene (ca.350 bp) and compared with published haplogroups in different populations for the source of origin. Out of these, eight samples showed success rate with good PCR amplification and seven samples were eventually dropped because PCR failed. This may have been due to either PCR inhibitor, or DNA template is of low molecular weight. Based on obtained sequences of Cyt b and after alignment with the reference sequences from Asian and African elephant taken from the previous study, it was observed that all the investigated samples belong to the African elephant. For the geographical origin of these samples, we used reported available haplotype homology of African elephant. It was inferred that seven samples seized from India showed geographical origin from different locations of the north, central and east African regions while the sample seized in Nepal indicate its origin from Central-West African region. Thus, the study emphasis on the use of mtDNA marker to identify species from confiscated samples and source of origin. We suggest a need of establishing genetic database of species across its range which are prone to poaching at the global level to track back the actual hot-spots of illegal hunting to effectively enforce the laws and improve conservation efforts of protecting such key wildlife species.