In July 2018, officials of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) seized six pieces of ivory weighing nine kg at Siliguri in West Bengal’s Darjeeling district. Two persons were arrested for smuggling the ivory, which was suspected to have been sourced from an elephant killed in the Budhbare area of Nepal’s Jhapa district a few weeks earlier.
To ascertain the facts, the DRI officials sent the ivory to scientists at the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) in Kolkata in August last.
After intelligence from India about the smuggling was shared with the law enforcement agencies in Nepal and following the Ministry of External Affairs’ intervention, samples from the carcass — a small piece of ivory (about 12 gm) and its flesh — were obtained and handed over to the ZSI.
After studying the samples using DNA forensics, Mukesh Thakur and his team at the ZSI deduced that the samples did not match.
“We concluded that samples collected from India and Nepal were from different elephants,” the researchers wrote in a study titled ‘Resolving the trans-boundary dispute of elephant poaching between India and Nepal’. The study, published in the Forensic Science International: Synergy journal in July has been co-authored by a representative each from the DRI, India, and the Ministry of Forests and Environment, Nepal.
The research resolved the question: Were the ivory smugglers held in Siliguri the ones who had killed the elephant? However, the more pressing issue of illegal trade remains unsolved.
Over the past few years, several kg of ivory valued worth crores of rupees have been seized by different agencies including the DRI and the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau in north Bengal. The region falls under what is termed the ‘Kanchenjunga Landscape’, an area shared by India, Nepal and Bhutan.
Demographic history and gene flow
Emphasising on trans-boundary research by India, Nepal and Bhutan for elephant conservation, Mr. Thakur, a wildlife forensic expert, said it was important to “estimate the population size, demographic history and gene flow between elephant populations in the Kanchenjunga Landscape for better management of the species and combating wildlife trade”.
Kailash Chandra, director ZSI and co-author of the paper, observed that the DNA forensics had, of late, helped in resolving several cases of wildlife crime in the country.
Gopal Prakash Bhattarai, Deputy Director General, Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, Nepal, told The Hindu that the country had seen only retaliatory killing of elephants by locals. However, of late there had been at least two killings where poaching for ivory could be suspected.
“In Nepal we don’t have many elephants,” said Mr. Bhattarai. “It is the elephants from India that migrate to southern and eastern region. We must coordinate with India for conservation of wildlife,” he said.
The paper’s authors have also stressed on compiling a genetic database in the Landscape. “The present study proposes an initiative to have a combined effort by India, Nepal and Bhutan to establish the genetic data to assign the source of the confiscated material and understand the biology of an elephant,” they wrote.
