| Research and Development |
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Research and development, along with careful validation experiments, are essential to our mission of providing the conservation community with cost and time effective monitoring tools.
Our combined field and laboratory techniques enable us to non-invasively acquire essential biological information from many individuals over large geographic areas. However, the persistence of scat in a variable environment also creates the need for meticulous validation. We must confirm the biological significance of the products being measured in scat, how these products change with time on the ground, and how these processes vary across species and environmental conditions. Once collected, we need to know how best to preserve samples in the field for subsequent analyses as well as how to optimize extractions of the necessary products from the sample. All of these experiments are necessary to assure that results can withstand the many scientific and legal challenges that stem from the political and economic implications of conservation work.
Validation studies such as those above are time and cost intensive due to the need for numerous controls, multiple groups, and large sample sizes. Our Center has devoted considerable resources to such studies. We intend to continue these development and validation efforts, as we strive to expand and improve upon available monitoring tools.
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Our Center has two major research areas, wildlife forensics and wildlife monitoring, both of which are totally non-invasive. Our forensics program is largely focused on tracking the illegal ivory trade. We developed genetic methods to track poached elephant ivory across
Africa
. We collaborate with Interpol and others to track the origin of large ivory seizures, and especially ivory being smuggled from Africa to the
Far East
(ele tusks).
Our monitoring programs focus on a wide variety of species and frequently takes advantage of our detection dog program. Dogs are able to find feces of multiple endangered species, at considerable distances away, over large remote areas (canine program). In some cases, our dogs are able to provide us the same kinds of information about animal identities from samples that can be acquired by more time and cost intensive DNA analyses (see matching program).
We extract a variety DNA and hormone measures from feces of a wide variety of species to assess abundance, distribution and physiological health of wildlife over large remote areas. We tie this information to habitat and disturbance measures present at sample collection locations. Our current monitoring programs use a combination of DNA and hormone measures to examine:
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- Long term impacts of poaching of African elephant group and social structure
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- The major histocompatilibility gene complex as a tool to assess historical disease pressures on elephants across the African continent
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- Impacts of roads and off-highway vehicle disturbance on NSO
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- Impacts of land-use patterns on the maned wolves, puma, jaguar, giant anteater and giant armadillo in the Brazilian cerrado
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- Impacts of multiuse areas on the distribution and health of Grizzly bears in the Yellowhead Ecosystem,
Alberta
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- Changes in population densities, and impacts of fuel reduction programs on the Pacific fisher
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- Impacts of SAG-D oil extraction of the tar sands in
NE Alberta
on caribou, moose and wolf
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- Impacts of reduced food availability, PCB loads and their interaction on physiological health of killer whales in the PNW
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- Sources of population decline in North Atlantic Right Whales
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- Causes of population decline in Steller sea lions throughout the PNW
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