14-Carbon demonstrates that some illegal ivory is being taken from government stockpiles-Reference-Cited by-同舟云学术

14-Carbon demonstrates that some illegal ivory is being taken from government stockpiles

Published:2022-10-17 Issue:44 Volume:119 Page:
ISSN:0027-8424
Container-title:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
language:en
Short-container-title:Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Author:

Cerling Thure E.¹²^ORCID,Brown John E.³^ORCID,Hoareau Yves⁴,Kahumbu Paula⁵,Odhacha Tobias⁵^ORCID,Southon John R.⁶^ORCID,Wasser Samuel K.⁴^ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112

2. School of Biological Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112

3. Homeland Security Investigations, US Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC 20536

4. Center for Environmental Forensic Science, Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-1800

5. WildlifeDirect, Karen 00502, Nairobi, Kenya

6. Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-3100

Abstract

The 14-carbon in animal tissues records the time that the tissues are formed; since the 1960s, using the “bomb curve” for 14 C, the age of animal death can be determined accurately. Using animal tissue samples of known collection and formation dates for calibration, we determine the age of ivory samples from four ivory seizures made by law enforcement agencies between 2017 and 2019. The 14 C measurements from these seizures show that most ivory in the illegal wildlife trade is from animals from recent poaching activities. However, one seizure has a large fraction of ivory that is more than 30 y old, consistent with markings on the tusks indicating they were derived from a government stockpile.

Funder

National Science Foundation

Publisher

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Subject

Multidisciplinary

Link

https://pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.2211550119

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