Indiana Jones Star Harrison Ford Speaks About the Evils of Illegal Animal Trafficking and How You Can Help to Stop It

As I’ve said before, it’s always positive when famous people dedicate themselves to causes greater than themselves. In this case, it’s hard to find a bigger movies star than Harrison Ford.

Harrison does an excellent job of stating what should be simple – that purchasing products that look like they contain rare animal products (such as skin and fur) likely come from an endangered species. In addition, when you buy these products, then the cycle continues. More will be killed.

As he states in the article below: "Many of the world's most magnificent animals are being pushed toward extinction by the illegal trade and products made from their body parts….When you travel abroad you may be offered some of these products. It might look nothing like the animal itself but don't be fooled. An animal has been killed to make one of these."

Article:

Harrison Ford Warns Against Illegal Animal Trafficking

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=5001932&page=1

'When the Buying Stops, the Killing Can Too,' Actor Says in PSAs

By KIRIT RADIA

June 5, 2008

When moviegoers settle in to watch the new Indiana Jones movie in theaters, they may first see an unexpected message from its star, Harrison Ford.

Before Indiana Jones tries to save the artifacts in the movie, Ford will tell the audience to save the animals.

"Our endangered animals are being destroyed by illegal wildlife trade. It's up to us to stop it. Never buy illegal wildlife products. When the buying stops, the killing can too," the actor says in one of three public service announcements taped for an international campaign to curb illegal animal trafficking.

Ford has teamed with the U.S. State Department and the nonprofit organization WildAid to promote the message around the world.

"Many of the world's most magnificent animals are being pushed toward extinction by the illegal trade and products made from their body parts," Ford says in another ad, standing among alligator coats and holding snakeskin boots. "When you travel abroad you may be offered some of these products. It might look nothing like the animal itself but don't be fooled. An animal has been killed to make one of these."

Ford is an avid environmentalist and is the vice chairman of the group Conservation International's board of directors.

"People pay attention when someone like Harrison Ford delivers the message so we're lucky to have him do the ads," Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans Environment and Science Claudia McMurray told ABC News.

The State Department said it will distribute the ads through more than 30 of its embassies around the world. Already, they have been shown on television and in movie theaters in India and Brazil, some of the most populous countries that also happen to be the origin for many of the poached animals.

"Given the global nature of this campaign, I think we have the capacity to reach millions of people," McMurray said in a phone interview from New York, where she will unveil the ads at the United Nations alongside actress and animal rights activist Bo Derek, who has also served as the secretary of state's special envoy for wildlife trafficking issues.

CNN Story Exposes Truth That Human Activity - Agriculture, Deforestation, Hunting, Trapping, Selling Of Endangered Animals - Contributes To Extinction

CNN Story Exposes Truth That Human Activity - Agriculture, Deforestation, Hunting, Trapping, Selling Of Endangered Animals - Continues To Contribute To Massive Species Extinction

Normally I’m not a huge CNN fan. This story was decent in that it fully exposes the reality of Human activity, however, especially in the form of agriculture, deforestation, hunting and pollution, has reduced the numbers of species contributing to extinction. It is a significant issue as you’d imagine. Even more telling is that selfish acts such as hunting, trapping and the illegal selling of endangered animals is having a very large effect. Very sad and very unnecessary

As stated below: “According to a recent study by the Switzerland-based World Conservation Union (IUCN) human activity is threatening almost one-sixth of Europe's total land mammal population.

Among marine mammals the situation is even more grave, with some 22 percent of total numbers being pushed towards annihilation.

The IUCN's recently published European Mammal Assessment identified 17 European mammal species that are "vulnerable," seven that are "endangered," and six that are "critically endangered."


Article:

Some creatures great and small -- and disappearing

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/07/11/speciesloss/

By Paul Sussman
Special to CNN

(CNN) -- Ever caught a glimpse of the secretive Iberian lynx? Or heard the croaking bark of a Mediterranean monk seal?

Arctic foxes are trapped and skinned for the pelts.

If not, and you want to do so, you had better hurry because pollution and habitat degradation have pushed both species to the brink of extinction.

According to a recent study by the Switzerland-based World Conservation Union (IUCN) human activity is threatening almost one-sixth of Europe's total land mammal population.

Among marine mammals the situation is even more grave, with some 22 percent of total numbers being pushed towards annihilation.

The IUCN's recently published European Mammal Assessment identified 17 European mammal species that are "vulnerable," seven that are "endangered," and six that are "critically endangered."

The Mediterranean monk seal population, for example, has now dwindled to just 350-450 individuals.

The outlook for the Iberian lynx is even worse, with only an estimated 150 still surviving, making it the most endangered cat species on earth.

Other species on the critically endangered list include the Arctic fox, Bavarian pine vole, European mink and North Atlantic Right whale.

"This new assessment proves that many European mammals are declining at an alarming rate," said IUCN Director-General Julia Marton-Lefèvre, a position echoed by the EU's Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas.

"The results of the report highlight the challenge we currently face to halt the loss of Europe's biodiversity," said Dimas.

"It is clear that the full implementation of the Habitats Directive (adopted by the EU in 1992 to safeguard Europe's endangered wildlife) is of the utmost importance to protect Europe's native mammals."

Europe is home to a rich diversity of native mammal species ranging from the small such as shrews and voles, to the large such as wolves and brown bears. to the enormous -- in the case of the 70-ton North Atlantic Right Whale.

Human activity, however, especially in the form of agriculture, deforestation, hunting and pollution, has reduced the numbers of these species, leaving many of them in danger of vanishing.

The aforementioned Habitats Directive -- a corollary of the 1979 Bern Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats -- introduced a range of measures aimed at protecting endangered species (including plants, birds and fish as well as mammals).

That directive has certainly had an effect, with a number of mammals that previously seemed destined to disappear from Europe now enjoying something of a revival.

The Alpine Ibex, for example, was almost hunted out in the 19th century, its population reduced to just a small group of survivors in Italy's Gran Paradiso National Park.

Thanks to extensive conservation and protection efforts, however, the species is once again flourishing and has been downgraded to the "least concern" category on the IUCN's "Red List."

It is the same story for the European bison, which was limited to just a few zoos before re-introduction programs across eastern Europe helped re-build the population to current levels of around 1,800.

"The fate of the European bison provides an example of the way in which a species may be brought to the brink of extinction in a very short time, and then saved only through great efforts," said Dr. Zbigniew Krasinski of Poland's Bialowieza National Park.

"The saving of the bison has been an undoubted success, although further action will continue to be essential."

Dr. Jean-Christophe Vie, Deputy Head of the IUCN's Species Program, agrees that significant progress has been made.

"In Europe we now have a network of protected areas, as well as strong conservation laws," he told CNN. "It is possible for species to recover even when their numbers drop to extinction level.

"Both the Alpine Ibex and European bison are recovering well because of appropriate conservation measures.

"The European beaver is another example. It was persecuted almost to extinction but has now been re-introduced and is colonizing all over the continent."

While there are positive stories, however, the overall picture remains a disheartening one, as the European Mammal Assessment demonstrates.

Commissioned by the European Commission and a year in the drafting, it is the first such overview of its kind and draws on the work of a Europe-wide group of scientists, zoologists and conservationists.

Its findings provide an unequivocal picture of biodiversity loss and species decline.

Habitat destruction, usually due to agricultural practices, is the key driver of that decline, although many other factors are involved, including pollution, disease and the introduction of invasive foreign species.

The case of the European mink, one of the IUCN's six critically endangered European mammals, is an example of how different elements can combine to drive a particular species to the brink of destruction.

Once found in great numbers across Europe from Spain to the Urals, the mink population has plummeted in recent years.

While hunting has certainly contributed to this decline, the main causes have been habitat loss and competition from invasive foreign species, according to Vie.

"The mink is freshwater dependent," explains Vie. "The more you damage its habitat by polluting rivers, or channeling them, or building dams, the more the population declines."

The introduction of the American mink into Europe for fur-rearing also proved disastrous, with some of those mink escaping from captivity, establishing their own colonies in the wild and setting up direct competition for food and resources with the native population.

The result: an 80 percent decline in that population in the last decade alone (in 1993 the IUCN only classified it as "vulnerable").

But experts say that species loss can be reversed.

"There is more and more perception across Europe that biodiversity conservation is crucially important," says Vie. "And we are seeing good recoveries in some species.

"The picture in the mammal world is not nearly as bad as, say, among freshwater fish, where the number of threatened species is far, far higher."

At the same time, the latest figures remain a source of considerable concern. At a time when so many conservation initiatives and laws are already in operation, the population of many European mammal species is in apparent free fall.

It is not simply the possibility of losing a particular species that worries experts, but also how the loss will affect the species' wider ecosystem

"The food web is extremely complex," says Vie. "If you lose one element that has a very specific role in that web, it has a knock-on effect and the whole system is threatened.

"It is very worrying. Some people think it is a disaster if a famous painting is lost in a fire, but that is just the work of a few weeks or months. These species and systems are the product of millions of years of evolution.

"I am biased, of course, but I think it would be an absolute tragedy if we lost these native species."

Finding and Convicting Poachers Being Made Easier with High –Tech Techniques

Very good news. Looks like at least one person is serious about this.

Article:

Poaching probes go high-tech

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2007/
08/08/news/regional/40633927f89f60548725732f006f3029.txtBy

REBECCA BOONEAssociated Press writer

CALDWELL, Idaho -- A knife with traces of blood found in a suspect's truck. A few hairs picked up at the crime scene hundreds of miles away. Authorities feared the victim was dead, perhaps already dismembered and eaten.

Dr. Karen Rudolph didn't have much time: She had to see if DNA on the bloody knife matched the scattered hair found on a rock outcropping in the Idaho wilderness. Two days later, working quickly but carefully on delicate equipment in a state laboratory, she had an answer for investigators. The DNA was a match.

The suspect was arrested and charged -- with poaching.

"Idaho poachers, until recently, were kind of your average Joe Bad Guy out in the woods doing small-fry things," said Rudolph, a wildlife laboratory biologist for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. "But now many of them literally hunt every day and night -- looking for antlers to sell so some rich guy in Jackson Hole can have an antler chandelier, or ingredients to make some strange alternative medicine or to get a trophy for bragging rights. It's become commercial."
That means more high-stakes court cases, she said, with defendants hiring top-dollar attorneys and juries expecting high-tech evidence.

And that's where Rudolph comes in.

As the state's only wildlife DNA expert, the 44-year-old Horseshoe Bend resident handles evidence for many of Idaho's poaching cases. At its simplest, Rudolph's job requires her to forensically determine the species, gender and identity of any given hunk of tissue, wayward tuft of hair, bone chip or dried splatter of blood.

In many cases, her work has helped prosecutors win convictions and encouraged defendants to plead guilty without going to trial, officials said.

In one recent case, Gary Lehnherr of McFarland, Wis., and Ronnie Gardner of Jerome, Idaho both pleaded guilty in federal court to illegally killing a trophy mule deer in Lincoln County with a high-caliber center fire rifle. Rudolph matched DNA in blood and hair found at the kill site -- in an area where only muzzleloader hunting was allowed -- with DNA from the deer's antlers, found in Lehnherr's home.

When the two are sentenced Oct. 15, they face up to one year in prison and $100,000 fines for the federal misdemeanor. Assistant U.S. Attorney George Breitsameter, who prosecuted the case, said Rudolph's work was "an important investigative tool" in the case.

DNA also helped crack the case of a man who was suspected of trying to poison wolves in Wyoming and Idaho with pesticide-laced meatballs. No wolves were found dead, but the tainted meat was suspected in the death of more than 20 pet dogs.

First, DNA from some meatballs found at a crime scene near Salmon was matched to DNA found in blood in Tim Sundles' freezer. The former Salmon resident, who now lives in Montana, was headed for trial but pleaded guilty after more DNA evidence turned up.

Investigators had taken samples of yellow snow found at the crime scene that day, suspecting that the person who left the meatballs had relieved himself at the site. They were right, Breitsameter said -- DNA from human cells found in the urine was a perfect match for Sundles.
In February, Sundles was sentenced to six days in jail, banned from federal or public land for two years and ordered to pay more than $1,500 in fines for violating the Endangered Species Act.

The use of DNA evidence in wildlife investigations is fairly new, but it's being used more and more, Breitsameter said.

"I'm not sure if that's because of people's expectations, but DNA is the modern fingerprint that people can use to attach an individual to a crime," he said. "It's only come up in the last couple of years or so here, and as it's available, it's required because it can either exculpate somebody or has the potential to inculpate them."

At the tiny cinderblock Fish and Game lab where Rudolph works in Caldwell, the mail may bring a cardboard tube filled with bear bait or a wrapped hunk of meat taken from someone's freezer. Game wardens often stumble on suspected crime scenes while they're hiking in the wilderness, Rudolph said, so they have to collect the evidence with whatever makeshift container they can find in their backpacks.

Sometimes Rudolph finds herself living something like a countrified scene from the TV crime thriller CSI.

"I've been given a bone saw that had tissue from different animals stuck between the tiny teeth of the blade. Once, I had to pick through a shop vacuum for tissue. We mostly found hair," she said. "I spent hours examining a pontoon boat for moose blood, because the officer had a tip that the poacher had been fishing the same day he killed a moose, and both the boat and the moose were transported in the same truck."

Some suspects, apparently unaware that investigators use advanced forensic techniques, get a little cocky and unwittingly help investigators, Rudolph said.

"One guy had a folding knife that a warden thought had been used in a poaching case, and when the officer asked for it, the guy laughed and said, 'Go ahead and take it. I've already cleaned it and boiled it and you won't find anything."'

Back in the lab, Rudolph was undeterred. She put a layer of aluminum foil down on the lab counter and slowly opened the folding knife. As she ran a tiny brush over the hinge, the bristles dislodged a speck of dried blood.

The sample was minuscule. But it was enough to run a DNA test and connect the knife to the poached animal, she said.

Few states have their own wildlife DNA lab, said Ken Goddard, director of the National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Lab. So Goddard's Ashland, Ore. lab handles wildlife evidence from across the nation, as well as for some international cases.

"Maybe 8 or 9 states have one person, but have never been able to get the funding for a real lab," Goddard said. "The idea is to take what works in a human crime scene and transfer it to wildlife crime management. All labs -- human or wildlife -- try to link the suspect, the crime scene and the evidence together. But in wildlife, you have to figure out first if a crime was committed. That can depend on time of day, what side of the road someone was on and even the type of weapon used."

Ultimately, the use of DNA evidence helps keep game wardens safe by minimizing their initial contact with suspects, Goddard said.

"Before, you had to catch them with the deer or poached bear and they're generally armed at the time. That can be terribly dangerous," he said. "Now they don't have to catch people in the act -- they can just gather the evidence later."