Project Will Find the Origin of Ivory

A group of investigators at the Gutenberg University Mainz, in Germany, is getting ready to conduct one of the most comprehensive researches ever on the evolution of elephant ivory. The work is being carried out in collaboration with national and international partners.

What the team is trying to accomplish is find out where ivory originates, and which elephant population had it first. This will be done by analyzing the isotope signatures of ivory samples collected from groups around the world.

A practical application of this research will be that scientists will become capable of telling anyone interested where a certain pieces of ivory came from. This could put a serious dent in the illegal trade smuggling this material across borders.

The endangered species could therefore get a little more protection, the investigators believe. This is precisely what drew this many collaborators to the endeavour.

The International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation (CIC) is supporting the work, which is led by GUM researchers, Experts from the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) are also participating.

Isotopic analysis has been used for determining in a reliable manner the origin of artifacts such as bone fragments, and scientists see no reason why the technique couldn't be applied to ivory as well.

Isotopes are special atoms of a chemical substance, as their mass is slightly modified from the usual one the chemical has. Certain isotopes are specific to certain areas of the world, as are their concentrations, Science Daily reports.

Researchers give the example of carbon, which exists in three main isotopes – 12C, 13C and 14C. While low levels of 13C can be associated with wooded habitats such as forests, elevated amounts of the isotope can be linked to savanna landscapes.

The team behind this investigation has a precious ally in its favor, the yearly International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) survey on how elephant populations are doing in Africa.

These documents, which span back to 1995, also contain data on how the animals occupy the land alloted to them, their distribution, numbers and the type of land and climate at those locations.

Experts say that this will make it easier for them to create a thoroughly-researched reference database, that would centralize the origins of all ivory found on the black market.

Tracking the material to its origins will then become easier than is now, which will give authorities more chances to actually catch the poachers, and punish them accordingly.