{"title":"Poaching Forensics: Animal Victims in the Courtroom.","authors":"Cindy K Harper","doi":"10.1146/annurev-animal-070722-084803","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Poaching and the international trade in wildlife are escalating problems driven by poverty and greed and coordinated by increasingly sophisticated criminal networks. Biodiversity loss, caused by habitat change, is exacerbated by poaching, and species globally are facing extinction. Forensic evidence underpins human and animal criminal investigations and is critical in criminal prosecution and conviction. The application of forensic tools, particularly forensic genetics, to animal case work continues to advance, providing the systems to confront the challenges of wildlife investigations. This article discusses some of these tools, their development, and implementations, as well as recent advances. Examples of cases are provided in which forensic evidence played a key role in obtaining convictions, thus laying the foundation for the future application of techniques to disrupt the criminal networks and safeguard biodiversity through species protection.</p>","PeriodicalId":48953,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Animal Biosciences","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.7000,"publicationDate":"2023-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Annual Review of Animal Biosciences","FirstCategoryId":"97","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-animal-070722-084803","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"AGRICULTURE, DAIRY & ANIMAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Poaching and the international trade in wildlife are escalating problems driven by poverty and greed and coordinated by increasingly sophisticated criminal networks. Biodiversity loss, caused by habitat change, is exacerbated by poaching, and species globally are facing extinction. Forensic evidence underpins human and animal criminal investigations and is critical in criminal prosecution and conviction. The application of forensic tools, particularly forensic genetics, to animal case work continues to advance, providing the systems to confront the challenges of wildlife investigations. This article discusses some of these tools, their development, and implementations, as well as recent advances. Examples of cases are provided in which forensic evidence played a key role in obtaining convictions, thus laying the foundation for the future application of techniques to disrupt the criminal networks and safeguard biodiversity through species protection.
期刊介绍:
The Annual Review of Animal Biosciences is primarily dedicated to the fields of biotechnology, genetics, genomics, and breeding, with a special focus on veterinary medicine. This includes veterinary pathobiology, infectious diseases and vaccine development, and conservation and zoo biology. The publication aims to address the needs of scientists studying both wild and domesticated animal species, veterinarians, conservation biologists, and geneticists.