Bobtail Skinks and anti trafficking science

kingofnobbys

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Scientists eye electronic nose as potential 'game changer' to combat wildlife trafficking
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The Rottnest Island bobtail is a highly-prized animal for intl wildlife traffickers.
Key points:
A team of Australian researchers is working on creating an "electronic nose"
The device will replicate the role of sniffer dogs in detecting crime
It's hoped the "nose" will help to combat native reptile trafficking

It doesn't sound like a great defence strategy, but a lizard's scent may be its best weapon against the growing threat of wildlife poaching.
A team of Australian researchers is working on the development of an electronic nose which scientists believe could be a "game changer" in preventing the smuggling of native wildlife out of the country.

The device will essentially replicate the behaviour of sniffer dogs and be used by customs and mail authorities to find wildlife hidden in parcels and luggage.

According to financial intelligence agency AUSTRAC, native reptiles are the most trafficked live Australian animal. A single lizard can sell on the intl black market for up to $20,000.

The lucrative price tag means the trading of wildlife has become a huge money-spinner for organised crime, generating a predicted global revenue of $23 billion every year.

University of Technology Sydney (UTS) forensic chemist Dr Maiken Ueland is part of a team leading the work to develop the device.

"An electronic nose will really be a game changer," Dr Ueland said.

"If you can just scan all the incoming mail, all the incoming luggage, it is going to be a massive time saver and it means that we can capture a lot more of the illegal wildlife trade that is currently going undetected."

Electronic nose to combat wildlife trafficking
The device is initially being designed to detect the odour of shinglebacks — or bobtails, as they're known in Western Australia — because the lizard is one of the most highly-trafficked Australian animals.

"Shinglebacks are popular because they are only found in Australia," said Dr Greta Frankham, a wildlife forensic scientist at the Australian Museum.

"Overseas collectors want things that are rare or that are hard to get."

The Australian Museum — a partner in the research — is the country's forensic wildlife hub and where agencies that enforce wildlife crime turn to for expert advice and help with prosecution.

"Detection of trafficked wildlife can be quite difficult," Dr Frankham said.

"They may wrap [the animals] in bandages or place them inside something … they might even put things in the luggage or package that will try and trick the dogs so they can't smell them."

The project to develop the electronic nose will not only improve detection but also provide vital new DNA information about the lizards.

"Knowing where they have come from in the wild will allow us to have better strategies to try and prevent poaching in the first place," Dr Frankham said.

Tiny compounds hard to disguise
While a human nose can't sniff out a reptile, a trained dog can because every animal is constantly producing an odour.

In scientific terms, this odour is the result of volatile organic compounds, or chemicals, being emitted into the air.

he type of odour produced mostly depends on what kind of food the animal eats, as well as its genetic make-up.

The advantage for this team of scientists is that these compounds are very hard to disguise.

"[These] volatile organic compounds, they also have the advantage that they are very small," Dr Ueland said.

"So they can escape from packages, which means that we can detect odour from outside the package."

Dr Ueland said the team was sampling more than 100 shinglebacks from across the country because the scientists expect lizards will emit different odours depending on where they live.

The research team is working on a method that will not only identify live animals in packages, but also animal powders or body parts, which continue to produce odours.

"Getting a method that is really going to be able to detect across a whole range — [both] live species that will smell a fair bit more and those powders and figurines that might be a lot trickier to detect," Dr Ueland said.

Humble bobtail hunted for 'exotic pet' trade
Fellow UTS researcher Amber Brown has spent the past year travelling the country collecting odour samples from the four different sub-species of shingleback.

WA is the only state that is home to all four sub-species, so it has been an important location for the team.

Once captured, each lizard is measured, blood-tested and then placed in a vented container for 20 minutes. After the sampling device has collected the odour, it's sealed up for analysis back at the laboratories at UTS and the Australian Museum.

"We spent our first trip in the Goldfields," Ms Brown said.

"That population of shinglebacks have a unique orange colour, which also gives them a high market value in the illegal wildlife trade."

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Bobtails found in the Goldfields region of WA have a distinctive colour which is highly prized by interstate & intl wildlife traffickers

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Six bobtail lizards from WA tightly packed inside a suitcase (top left) and detected in an x-ray by Australian Border Force officers at Perth International Airport

The bobtails of Rottnest Island are also highly prized for their speckled colouration.

In 2018, a 45-year-old Japanese man was caught at Perth International Airport trying to smuggle bobtails — collected from Rottnest Island, the Mid-West and Perth — to Hong Kong.

Six months later, another two Japanese nationals were caught with 13 bobtails collected from all over the state, wrapped in towels and placed inside plastic containers in a suitcase. Both were sentenced to five months in prison.

"A lot of people don't understand the demand for the shingleback … as an exotic pet," Ms Brown said.

"I think a lot of Australians don't know that there is a presence in illegal wildlife trade here in Australia. It's just a very valuable animal."

Disease, biosecurity risks a concern
Dr Frankham said the COVID-19 pandemic had helped to highlight the risks of wildlife crime.

"It is an issue for wildlife all over the world — not just in Australia — because it can lead to the extinction of species as well as biosecurity risks," Dr Frankham said.

"As we have learnt a lot about in the last year, they can move diseases into new environments, which can be a threat not only to the native animals in that area but also to human populations."

While the electronic nose will initially be used to help uncover shinglebacks, the research team hopes it will be the first of many native Australian species the device will be able to detect.

"For us, this really is the big groundwork," Dr Ueland said.

"Then it's going to be all about getting a big data set for us to be able to branch out, so it will just be adding more and more different types of species into our repertoire."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-13/scientists-to-build-electronic-nose-wildlife-trafficking-fight/13147692

Anything that helps protect our AU native fauna from trafficking is a very good thing IMO.
 

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