'Foam fingerprinting' technique identifies animal traffickers

Forensic scientists at Liverpool John Moores University are using a unique technique to recover fingerprints from rare animals in a development which could impact the abhorrent poaching and trafficking trade.

The researchers have successfully recovered ‘comparable’ fingermarks from antler, primate skull, tiger claw, bovine horn, elephant and hippo ivory, snakeskin, and tortoise shell. They also recovered mixed DNA profiles on elephant skin, ungulate fur, elephant ivory, conch shell, antler and snakeskin using the technique which employs a type of foam swab.

The term fingermarks is used to describe evidential marks recovered at crime scenes which at the point of recovery, are still from an “unknown” individual. Fingerprints are normally the reference prints taken from a suspect and the “perfect” set that the crime scene fingermarks are compared against. It’s a subtle distinction and colloquially the terms are interchangeable but in a law enforcement setting they are used differently.

“This is the first-time fingermark recovery has been proven possible from all the below items using the tested techniques,” said PhD researcher Alex Thomas, of the Forensic Research Institute, the largest group of specialist researchers in UK higher education. 

“Our findings complement existing research on elephant ivory using reduced scale powders, but we’ve shown that the opportunities for their use go beyond just cases involving ivory.”

Each year, at least 20,000 African elephants are illegally killed for their tusks despite trade bans in the US, Europe, China and elsewhere.

Alex, who presented the research with London Zoo at the DEFRA funded Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime Conference in July, is working very closely with the Metropolitan Police to translate the work into practical application by law enforcement.

Alex and her supervisors Dr Nicholas Dawnay (LJMU) and Louise Gibson from London Zoo (ZSL)) used a type of foam swab for the collection of touch DNA evidence which outperformed all other tested recovery methods.

She said: “We found that a single type of reduced scale fluorescent powder produced the highest average grade fingermarks in 90% of our specimen types.

“This is the first-time fingermark recovery has been proven possible from this range of animal furs, skins and shells. It is also the first-time we’ve proved DNA recovery is possible from all the below items using foam swabs as a method.

She says there has been some work on touch DNA recovery from deer fur, corvids, and bird of prey using swabs and mini-tapes, but the new method outperforms both.

Dr Nick Dawnay said: “The beauty of this technique is it is low cost, low tech and can be carried out in the field given adequate training. Crucially, it gives us fingermarks of sufficient quality to identify an individual or a potential culprit.”

The LJMU team are already collaborating with the Metropolitan Police Wildlife Crime Unit to deliver a training module to more than 300 crime scene examiners.

Alex, Nick and collaborators recently published a review of the lack of human forensic evidence in wildlife trafficking in the journal Forensic Science international: Animals and Environments.