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evolution. rhinos have been hunted to near extinction. it's illegal and deadly black market trade. >> a specimen like this could sell for close to $400,000. back. >> finance is squared back. >> hunting the hunters. >> rhinos are gone, i think. kosta grammatis is an engineer that designed everything from satellites through space to bionic eyes. tonight he goes one on one with a bot. forget about football, meet the science squad. kids from a las vegas turning heads around the world. 'm an entomologist. that's the team. let's do some science. hey, guys, welcome to "techknow", i'm phil torres,

joined by marita davison, and kosta grammatis. marita, you met a man who spent years as a crime scene investigators for human victims. now he and his lad is taking on the fourth largest industry in the world, it's a tragic. >> yes, we think of forensics dealing with human victims, we don't think of it as a bird. it's a wildlife services add, taking on the illegal trade in endangered species problem. >> some lines are extinct. how big is the industry. >> in terms of economic value, a $19 billion industry. techknow had an inside look at the c.s.i. forensic lab. >> reporter: the world's animal kingdom is under siege.

since 1970 animal populations declined on average by half, according to estimates by the world wildlife fund. a big driver is wildlife trafficking. illegal trade in wildlife is a big global business, worth at least $19 billion a year. that makes it the fourth largest criminal industry in the world. right behind drugs, counterfeiting and human trafficking. it's been connected to organised qaeda. >> the rhinoceros, one of the world's iconic creatures is devastated by the black market trade. less than 30,000 remain in the wild, down from ago. >> rhinos are on the cusp of extinction. >> joseph is from the u.s. attorney general's office.

>> the fact is with wildlife, if you get caught you see a slap on the wrist or a small crime. if you traffic cocaine and are caught, you do to prison for a long time. >> reporter: in 2012 he prosecuted jimmy and felix, a los angeles father and son team, suspected of smuggling millions of rhino horns. it was part of the operation crash, a nationwide crack down on rhino trade. it was destined for south africa, where rhino powder is thought to cure cancer. >> what was important was the wildlife trafficking between jim and felix carr, and the direct rise in murders, killings in the wilds of south africa. >> what crime lad do you turn to when the victim has four legs, and all you have is a severed

horn? this one. the wildlife lab in oregon. >> digits two and three on the white foot... >> reporter: it's the world's only crime lab invited to wildlife. it investigates cases for the u.s., and other countries, relating to the convention on international trade. a treaty known as cites. >> our job is to speak to the evidence. >> ken is the lab director. he built it from scratch after a crimes. >> how would you say your work now is different from the work investigator. >> police work is competitive. here, we are making a difference. we can save species. we are pushing the envelope. >> the science starts when a package arrives. with it questions from a u.s. fish and wildlife field agent.

often the first one is "what is it?" in the case of a horn smuggled by the carr, the first question was "are they rhino?", this horn is made of keratin, the same stuff your fingernail is made of. on the black market it's more valuable than gold or platinum. a specimen like this could sell for close to $400,000. determining the species could impact the penalty. some are more critically endangered, like black rhinos, wild. >> what are we looking at? >> the horns from the left are from a black rhinoceros, and on the right from a white. rhinoceros horns are unique. there's a big one. if you look at the base, there's not a hollow center. the skull itself has like a boney round portion and the horn

sits on top of that boney portion of the skull. >> how would you determine one species of rhino from another by looking at the hornings? >> the one on the left is round in the front. you can see that. flatter. >> this one is scared off here, difference. >> what if your evidence looks like this. >> then you get carved objects, it's difficult. you do not have any other landmarks characteristic of the rhino orn. >> this is the deputy director of the lab, and runs the chemistry unit. >> there's a lot of plastics that resemble rhino horn, so our job is to look at the signatures and find out if it's made of rhinoceros keratin or plastic. >> once you have a positive idea next?

>> we get it to d.n.a. >> mary runs the genetics unit. &tracting dn -- extracting d.n.a. from a victim is one of the jobs. >> it ranges from caviar, pieces of meat, or matching a gut pile in the woods to blood on a car freezer. >> it's huge. world. >> in this case the lab had to analyse the d.n.a. of 25 horns wildlife. >> we go in, and drill out close to the core of the horn. it's the closest material to what was going. >> we obtain tissue, crush it up and put it into a liquid that is a detergent that breaks down. >> how much harder is it to extract d.n.a. from something like a horn than it would be from a living animal. >> the d.n.a. is in the harder

matrix, you have to get the d.n.a. out of the cells, but you areas. >> the d.n.a. abstracted is compared with known samples at the lab. it's known as a noah's ark. >> the freezers behind us are tissues. there's tissue, egg, bone, it's the sauce material for getting the d.n.a. >> the lab identified 37 horns trafficked as rhinoceros. it's one victory in the battle to save them. in 2013 alone. poachers killed more than 1,000 rhinos, a record high, and whopping 50% increase over the previous year. >> people have to understand what danger the creatures are in. rhinos are gone. i don't think they stand a chance. they are worth too much. how do you deal with that?

>> reporter: coming up, the carrs plead guilty, but does the punishment amount to more than a slap on the wrist?

>> added link which has happened in the past year or two which is linked to groups fighting on behalf of isil in iraq and syria. now this has been extremely concern concerning, particularly those fighters who have been coming back from tunisia. the tunisia authorities say they foiled planned attacks against potential military and police targets. but i can reiterate that it is the first time we have had any kind of attack in tunisia on what is one of the most popular museums in the country. >> we're continuing to watch this story out of tunisia.

eight people have been killed seven foreigners, one is tunisian. there is no word yet on the number of people who are still trapped inside the museum. one of our journalists was telling us that there's a heavy presence has you can imagine outside of the museum as security forces try to -- one killed from inside the museum -- oh so -- yeah, thisthis is -- this is the first picture coming into us from inside the museum. as you can see a number of people there, sitting down. are they hostages? looks that way, but we can't confirm any of this as of yet. what we know is that the gunmen at least two of them have killed eight people. this museum is right next to the parliament building which we understand has been evacuated,

but the situation is ongoing, and we can still see people running out of the museum there, escorted by the security forces. we saw one man come out just a few seconds ago, more people coming out from inside the museum and still no word yet on how many are inside. we're joined by our correspondent who has covered tunisia extensively. and this is unprecedented for tunisia. >> yes, it is. and just in the last four months they held very important presidential and parliamentary elections. for the first time in its history, people came out and elected a president. really, people saw this as a turning point politically for

tunisia, a bit of stability, and economic stability, because tourism in particular is extremely vital for the economy in tunisia, a lot of people looking at these pictures would be extremely worried not only about the fate of those people who have died and those being held hostage, but also what this means for the stability in tunisia. stability that was supposed to brought about by the elections which went about fairly peacefully. >> all right. we're bringing in a human rights activist who was involved in tunisia's revolution early on. obviously still a lot of unknowns in this situation. we don't know who is behind this attack at the museum. what is your initial reaction? what do you think is happening here? >> i mean -- everybody here deduced that it is done by some

terrorists who would like revenge that in the parliament they were discussing [ inaudible ] on terrorism, so one thing, the second thing, this is an event [ inaudible ] a place of [ inaudible ] in tunisia, so this is going to be maybe -- this is very [ inaudible ] i mean the attack. otherwise -- i mean that could be -- i mean everybody comes to the conclusion that it is an terrorist attack. >> we -- we obviously don't know this at this point, whether any group is involved in is attack or whether this could be individuals, so we can't really speculate at this stage. >> absolutely. >> was this an issue for this

new government in tunisia, of course the president won the elections in december, a new government in place, there is a lot of hope still in this new government, was security and the issue of terrorism been a concern for this government? >> it is a concern for everybody, but how to challenge it, i mean how to face it this is another thing. it seems now that there are still some dark spots about what is happening around the world, how people could get in a place that is such a symbolic place. and what worries people most about this government or the other one is there are many dark spots around what is happening. i mean how efficient is the fact

that the government is facing all of these terrorism, et cetera, this is something -- i mean worrying to people and every time they know i mean those who attack we always [ inaudible ] we know very well that this is a challenge to the new government and that it shows the precarety of the situation, and the security situation in the country. >> coming back to you in the studio, our guest mentioned there was a law on terrorism being discussed in parliament, which is not far from this museum which has been evacuated now -- the parliament building anyway. is that a major concern? what has been happening around tunisia, libya, egypt, also has that been a threat as well?

>> at the moment in tunisia, there is an anti terrorism law which was introduced by the former president in 2003. that is a very unpopular law, because it was seen at the time as being partial george w. bush's so-called war on terror. under that law, thousands of people [ inaudible ] for example, or people who are just religious in general were imprisoned under ben ali. when they came to power, a lot of the people were released. and many felt these people should never have been released into the system. we have to be very careful right now. we don't know who is responsible

for the attack. and al-sharia has never issued any warnings -- [ technical difficulties ] on either politicians or the military. but the anti-terrorism law being discussed in parliament is very very crucial for tunisia now. because there is concern about these people who are returning from fighting in iraq and syria, and there is concern about what to do with these people. >> it is quite significant that this museum was the target of this attack. because obviously there will be tourists here. >> absolutely. it has roman mosaics, it is extremely popular with tourists one of the most important sites in tunisia. so clearly, they would have been

wanting to target a place where there will be a lot of tourists or foreigners at least visiting and the museum was ideal for them, and also because they caused panic at parliament just five minutes away. >> we're watching an official speaking now. >> it appears to be the spokesman for the ministry of interior. >> a spokesman for the ministry of interior. let's listen to what he has to say. >> both of the terrorists are being besieged. we have some information that there are still a number of hostages being held as captives. this is all what we have for now.

>> okay. the interior ministry spokesman speaking to reporters there outside of the museum the museum which is under attack. he says forcing are being deployed in the museum that there are two attackers as we knew about. and a number of people are still being held hostage. unclear about what that number is at this stage, but a very obviously concerning situation for authorities there. an unprecedented attack on the tunisian capitol, the first in many many years where eight people have been killed seven foreigners one tunisian, after two gunman attacked the museum. naz nazneen is here with us on set. this is an ooefr -- overwhelming

situation for them. >> it is but the authorities have been preparing with the various attacks and gun fights that have happened against their own police stations against military targets, so they are extremely well trained, the tunisian national guard in particular. and there is the presidential guard, that's a unique crack unit. i'm sure they will be very much across this. there have been reports of military helicopters flying above. they'll want to get as much information as possible from inside that museum to see -- from people coming out, to actually work out whether it is indeed two attackers, and whether these attackers have anything strapped to them. they are going to have to tread very carefully on this. and tunisian authorities have been criticized in the past for

going in rather heavy handedly at times, but they are going to have to treat this very carefully. >> okay. thank you very much indeed. you are watching al jazeera. it is coming up to 1300 hours gmt. and the bardo national museum is under attack in the capitol tunis. eight people have been killed seven foreigners, one tunisian. we hear from the interior ministry spokesman who said that there were two gunmen who were still holding a number of people hostage inside of the museum. the museum is located just five minutes away from tunisia's parliament, which has been evacuated, and we understand from guests who we were speaking to earlier, that they had been debati