Scientists at the University of Lancaster and Bristol waging war on the illegal ivory trade

Scientists at a Lancashire university have helped to develop new technology that can could prove critical to fighting the illegal ivory trade.

A new laser developed between scientists at the Universities of Bristol and Lancaster, could be used by customs worldwide to aid in the enforcement of illegal ivory from being traded under the guise of legal ivory.

It allows a new way of quickly distinguishing between illegal elephant ivory and legal mammoth tusk ivory. Results from the study are published in PLOS ONE.

Why is this important?

Despite the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) ban on ivory, poaching associated with its illegal trade has not prevented the suffering of elephants and is estimated to cause an eight per cent loss in the world's elephant population every year.

The 2016 African Elephant Database survey estimated a total of 410,000 elephants remaining in Africa, a decrease of approximately 90,000 elephants from the previous 2013 report.

While trading/procuring elephant ivory is illegal, it is not illegal to sell ivory from extinct species, such as preserved mammoth tusk ivory.

This legal source of ivory is now part of an increasing and lucrative ‘mammoth hunter’ industry. It also poses a time-consuming and enforcement problem for customs teams, as ivory from these two different types of tusk are broadly similar making it difficult to distinguish from one another, especially once specimens have become worked or carved.

Here’s the science bit...

In this new study, scientists from the University of Bristol’s School of Anatomy with Dr Jemma Kerns and Professor Adam Taylor from Lancaster Medical School sought to establish whether Raman spectroscopy, which is already used in the study of bone and mineral chemistry, could be modified to accurately detect differences in the chemistry of mammoth and elephant ivory.

The non-destructive technology, which involves shining a high-energy light at an ivory specimen, can detect small biochemical differences in the tusks from elephants and mammoths.

Researchers scanned samples of mammoth and elephant tusks from London’s Natural History Museum using the laser based method, Raman spectroscopy. Results from the experiment found the technology provided accurate, quick and non-destructive species identification.

Dr Rebecca Shepherd, formerly of Lancaster Medical School and now at the University of Bristol said: “The gold standard method of identification recommended by The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for assessing the legality of ivory predominantly are expensive, destructive and time-consuming techniques.

“Raman spectroscopy can provide results quickly (a single scan takes only a few minutes), and is easier to use than current methods, making it easier to determine between illegal elephant ivory and legal mammoth tusk ivory. Increased surveillance and monitoring of samples passing through customs worldwide using Raman spectroscopy could act as a deterrent to those poaching endangered and critically endangered species of elephant.”

Dr Jemma Kerns of Lancaster Medical School, said: “The combined approach of a non-destructive laser-based method of Raman spectroscopy with advanced data analysis holds a lot of promise for the identification of unknown samples of ivory, which is especially important, given the increase in available mammoth tusks and the need for timely identification.”

Who funded the research?

The study was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and involved researchers from Lancaster University, the University of Birmingham and the Natural History Museum.

The Lancaster research team have been awarded an EPSRC Impact Acceleration Award to work with the Worldwide Wildlife Fund Hong Kong to expand the Lancaster University database of ivory samples and create software that can use Raman spectroscopy data from ivory of unknown origin and suggest from which species it has been taken.