it's not within the spirit of the game integrity tames integrity leadership group's integrity has come into question and rightfully so. it's not on. it's certainly not on and it won't happen again i can promise you that under my leadership of thousands of far right supporters in croatia have rallied against the european treaty proposal they say gives rights to transgender people protesters in zagreb say it undermines tradition family family values in a catholic country those are the headlines techno is next. on the benefit of people. who witness documentaries that open your eyes. at this time on al-jazeera.

newsstand the differences. and the similarities of cultures across the. al-jazeera. this is techno a show about innovations that can change lives the science of fighting fire we're going to explore the intersection of hardware and humanity and we're doing it in the unique way. this is a show about science lolol are not scientists tonight's techno investigates the ivory trail they've tried to seize it. burn it but nothing has stopped the terrible trade in the legal ivory. now. new

tools straight from the lab that could fight a crime that's brought elephants to the brink of extinction getting a seizure is a great victory but the elements already dead. from rita davison is an environmental biologist i am holding a tray of elephant who should show us the high tech plan to stop the killing. then céline stranded along the california freeway yes freeway doctors should do some more is a mechanical engineer chill show us what's been done to find out why. this is happening at this stage of a feeling distressed and i'm still taurus i'm an entomologist events our team then people. know it's do some science. techno on phil toys joined by maria to davison and doctors should do some more

because there were outlaws out there who are working in the shadows committing horrible acts against defenseless majestic animals we're talking about the ivory poachers who have decimated the populations of elephants in africa and it's really because ivory guy is for about a thousand dollars a pound. than an illegal drugs and you know what that means is that the damage has been devastating over one hundred thousand elephants have been killed in just the last three years and the question is what can we do about it we found a team of scientists that are using some unexpected weapons d.n.a. and radiocarbon dating check it out. april eighteenth two thousand and fifteen. intercepts four tons of ivory smuggled in being sacks from the democratic republic of congo. it is the largest seizure in

this country's history the ivory on the way to allow those seized in bangkok after a tip the seizure makes headlines customs displayed over three tons of confiscated african ivory worth six million dollars a historic bridge from kenya and. nine hundred elephants but the perpetrators of this horrible crime against animals are never caught for law enforcement entities like interpol stopping the killing of elephants at the source is what's critical. the question ends where exactly is all this ivory coming from they almost always shipped the ivory out of a different country from where it was poached big. because that's where you start your search looking in the wrong place sam wasser is the director of the center for conservation biology at the university of washington. when it comes to solving the mysteries of the illegal trade wasser has created a coalition of scientists virtual detectives using techniques indian extract from

the ivory. genetic mapping through dung sampling and radiocarbon dating this multipronged approach attacks a criminal enterprise that's brought the majestic african elephant to the brink of extinction and there's probably only four hundred fifty thousand elephants left so the whole focus of our lab is to really try to use d.n.a. assignment of large overseas are. singapore two thousand to six and a half tons of ivory seized the largest in the country's history roughly six hundred fifty elephants were killed for this haul of ivory. but where in africa did the ivory originate from they assume this much ivory must come from multiple sources authorities send samples to washers lab for analysis right now from anywhere in africa we can assign a seizure of ivory closer than three hundred kilometers to where it came from wasser and his team get to work the first step is to prepare the samples of seized

ivory. we cut off a piece of the ivory and then when we do is we stick that piece inside a plastic tube with a magnet and stainless steel plugs on the end we drop that in liquid nitrogen which cools it to about minus two hundred forty degrees celsius so extremely cold within three minutes it comes out like baby powder. is the ivory and it preserves the d.n.a. at the same time that was one of the biggest breakthroughs of our. the. elephant d.n.a. from the ivory seized in singapore is extracted and analyzed in washer's lab the d.n.a. from the tusks is then matched against a genetic reference map of africa's elephant populations this map has been generated by d.n.a. taken from another source rich in elephant d.n.a. i am holding a tray of elephant coop not exactly something you'd associate as

a tool for fighting international crime but these samples provide critical pieces of data for creating a genetic map of elephants across africa yup collecting dung samples may not be glamorous work but it's a task wasser and his team take seriously we make the map from the dung we take genetic markers out of the dung samples so you see here this map of africa there's about fourteen hundred total samples here and each sample is from a separate family group wasser was able to determine the origin of the six and a half tons of ivory seized in singapore and shipped out of malawi it all came from a neighboring country zambia. wasserstein had made a discovery that would revolutionize law enforcement's approach to poaching basically the study debunked some of the assumptions that you and interpol had about how these activities were working what were those assumptions and so as assumptions that law enforcement general had and one was when you get

a big seizure they were cherry picked from all over africa and what we showed is that's not what's happening there in the same area over and over and over again. the plight of the african elephant has been well documented these heartbreaking images were shot in a sanctuary for elephant orphans in kenya from before the biggest enemy of elephants when the out in the woods on this two year old being bottle fed stood by his mother's body for three days after she was murdered for her tusks the first to kill the bowls and then you kill the matriarch so now you're destroying the leadership in your group as well as the long term knowledge that these elephants have and when elephants become vulnerable so does the rest of the ecosystem there are these keystone species where you take this one out and it has this huge ripple effect on all these other species elephants are true keystone species. sophisticated transnational syndicates oversee every step of the trade from the

illegal poaching to the smuggling of tusks to carving factories and shops around the world. this footage part of an undercover investigation captures a shipping agent explaining how ivory is smuggled out of africa very wrong that. we need an urgent method that stops the killing even getting a seizure is a great victory but the owners are already dead. last month singaporean customs seized another shipment of ivory coming out of kenya and headed for vietnam three point seven tons worth an estimated. eight million dollars singaporean authorities have already contacted wasser to oversee d.n.a. analysis washer's lab and now receive samples from over ninety percent of all marj i have receivers what we are trying to really do is to figure out where are the

major poaching hotspots across africa his latest study based on d.n.a. analysis of twenty eight seizures between one thousand nine hundred six and two thousand and fourteen reveals there may be only two major hotspots for poaching in africa southern tanzania and a place known as the tri them. when you're saying hot spots you mean hot spots of poaching activity hotspots of seizure activity what are you referring to a hot spot is a place where you are able to provide multiple tons of ivory repeatedly over multiple years then we have a place we can focus law enforcement on take those out and perhaps choke the source of the ivory from entering the network and unravel it so that's the big plan. a techno crew member is on vacation in thailand when he comes across this all too

common display he's told of their ivory pieces offered up for sale for a price the sale of ivory to foreigners is illegal in thailand yet as our camera reveals it goes on as this old newsreel footage shows ivory was once very popular. across into his own but all that changed in one nine hundred ninety when the international trade in ivory was made illegal. d.n.a. analysis is one tool that could ultimately help government's crackdown on where ivory is coming from but it can't tell investigators when the killing took place anything postin is illegal to. what it comes down to is this this radio carbon dating method can tell us if trade of ivory is legal or not kevin you know is a geo chemist who uses a method known as radiocarbon dating to determine the age of ivory this is the part

of the tusk that was actually growing when the animal was shot because we need to know when did this elephant die and so this part of the tusk tells us that and so we drove the powder on to this wave paper here. and we collect it into these vials next to ivory powder is combusted and turned into pure c o two so what is this we can bust it in this tube it there's other impurities in there other gases we need to get rid of those so that when we measure the radio carbon content we just are measuring the c o two gas radiocarbon dating literally relies on the fallout from the events that took place from one thousand nine hundred fifty two to one thousand nine hundred sixty three. one fire. above ground atomic testing between the united states in the soviet union we've basically doubled the radio carbon concentration in the atmosphere now what does that mean then for organisms when you have

a spike in radio carbon in the atmosphere what it did do is give them all the unique geochemical fingerprint in their tissues all these photosynthetic organisms trees grasses that sort of thing are taking in c o two some of it having carbon fourteen in it and in the animals that eat that then also take on that radio carbon signature look there it is you can actually see it's freezing down on the right side so now we're going to do is torch it off and have the final final product. and bring this to them and you do this individually for each sample yeah this is it's time consuming it's so you want to wear these to to watch this process just so this is just a regular methane tour. not to be done at home and eat and warm a glass. all around that it's sort of like. holding stocks are. low and it's unique. and now you can

see. there's our c o two right there that's that's the frozen c o two from an elephant heading for radio carbon announces after you know receives the radio carbon content of a piece of ivory he can match it against the bomb curves a record of atmospheric levels of c fourteen before and after the atomic testing era the radio carbon dating a five re could be used to verify the age of ivory being sold on the legal market as antiques but here's the bottom curve and i call this left side before nine hundred sixty three the rising limb so the tusk is imprinted with the radiocarbon concentration from that year so we can and go and measure that radiocarbon concentration and say ok it's for example one point three and that allows us to draw horizontal line across the bottom curve here and you can see it actually intersects it into place two answers it can be nineteen sixty or it could

be one thousand and eighty so the way to do this is to sample part of the test that you know is older and in the part of the house you know it is younger and compare the relative radiocarbon concentrations and just fit them back onto this curve so if the older one has a higher concentration in the younger has a lower than your on this falling limb of the bomb curve november two thousand and thirteen canadian authorities learned that a pair of tusks are being offered by this toronto based auction house as antiques suspecting the tusks are not as old as the sellers claim authorities confiscate them and turn them over to. buy dated a pair of tusks clearly showing it is elephant was poached after the law went into effect and. the auction house went to court and pleaded guilty now you know and collaborator turi serling have teamed up with wasser to apply this technique to investigate trends in the international trade in illegal ivory since the international ban african countries have been stockpiling confiscated ivory

occasionally they destroy some of it but much of it remains sitting in government warehouses so they have huge stockpiles on the order of one hundred or one hundred twenty tons in some of these nations there so they're sitting on this ivory waiting for the day that the international market opens again if current poaching hotspots are shut down the next major source for ivory could be the stockpiles and radiocarbon dating would help confirm it to what extent do you wrestle with despair at the situation and to what extent do you embrace hope and there have been some seizures where i got to say you know when we pulled them out and started rinsing in often the blood was pouring out that we were just sitting there in tears i mean you know that that has happened but you know you get. used to it and and then you start getting these breakthroughs and so no i feel like you know we've got a plan i feel like we're making an investment and that's really what drives me. to

steps of d.n.a. techniques that you talk about that practice has been done for a long time to maybe track the origin of the disease what took him so long to get through tracking down poachers you know we've used d.n.a. techniques to understand populations of lots of wildlife we're using it within the context of conservation a lot more now it's still a fairly new field so there was a time when i really was used in canada and believe pools and now it's illegal but why is the market still so robots the main markets are in china and then actually the united states is the second largest player here part of what's driving that is that there's some. communities in the us that really value ivory iris you mostly find it as an ornamental carving it's very beautiful when it's polished and carved and it carries a sort of status because of its value so there's still a pretty high demand now there is

a crisis unfolding on the coast of california from san diego up to san francisco and beyond sea lions are leaving their natural ocean habitat and wandering up on shore even sometimes in people's yards and streets while i joined the rise of don murray were literally rescuing sea lion pops the story is crazy some of it's heartbreaking and it's coming up that. this punk named johnny cash is making a run towards the open ocean with a satellite transmitter tied to his back he may hold the on says to a sad epidemic among california's coastline. there are plenty of highways that hug california's ocean shores and he's ninety freeway isn't one of them the site of a baby seen a quarter of a mile inland is unsettling. but in two thousand and fifteen it's not that unusual

according to local news agencies the creatures are stranding starving and apparently dying in record numbers this year along the coast the images tell us a haunting story well we have seen spikes in rethink years two thousand and fifteen is already off to an unusually start the headlines paint a picture of an epidemic of sick pops in desperate search of food but what's really going on is more complex techno went to the san diego headquarters for a federal agency that studies the oceans says ports happened in the last two years is the waters in the northeast pacific have warmed up way beyond anything more used to according to noah a warm up ocean off southern california has made it hard to finance things. the lions to forage and as a result the pups are not getting enough nourishment el nino is an event scientists have seen several times but this year's temperature is a quite different what's really different is that the waters in the north east

pacific warmed up over a year ago and usually that warming occurs after the only in your developed in this case that preceded it ocean warming impacts the food chain from the bottom up as upwelling wins a causing deep water currents typically rife with cold water nutrients to secularize up mostly nutrient depleted warm water so when you talk about nutrients what is that that biologic material in the deep ocean gets remember allies tend to forget and organic nutrients and so the upwelling them keeps that cycle going so how does it affect the top of the food chain the whole food chain gets depressed a lot of the those fish species that could move have moved northward and the food source has a lot less than we had last year and the evidence can be seen daily all along the california coast from san diego to san francisco in san diego sea world the company which face public heat for. has taken a public role in sea lion rescue efforts. it's really

a new thing i was lucky i think that is how long do you feed them full typically it will be cheering for about twelve days and about five days they have gained enough strength to actually start showing some interest again in the show and they will start taking water to fish sea lions a facet method to an almost tree are like setting the pups the fed a special protein which formula up to two hundred feedings a day take place behind the scenes we have to gradually read about it because their bodies haven't seen fresh and they can't process it properly they have to show it to us that they can are fully process three to five pounds of fish per day which is what they would require to maintain their weight before we stop to feeding brands to it observe sea lion health at sea world's nonprofit research on. so in studying their habitats you able to get a better idea of what's happening in terms of global climate change food seem to vanish for some reason the question is whether that's a sign i think of long term climate change the bigger issue is are these little

intensive answered we're seeing recently going to become more common as climate generally changes according to the national marine fisheries service is the west. as rescued pups are returning starved again it is the most historically busy year ever of this argument twenty five hundred sea lions stranded in california this year alone in the first twelve weeks that we're into the year marine biologists and executive director of the pacific marine mammal center a key from a tosser has seen it all. there are actually six months old coming into us under birthweight that's all star there the other difference in this year that we didn't see in twenty thirteen and twenty forty is that we're now seeing a lot of adults coming in that are very me seated very star you can see every bone in their body and that's a difference from the last two years metacity and his team aesop's might tighten

technology to understand why this is happening tagging sea lions is so new to these pups the research pioneers and we want to make sure that the animals that we're putting back out into the wild during this unusually bad rush and make tagging happens fast as i learned watching johnny cash get his device he spent two months gaining twenty five pounds and is a worthy candidate here full of that and by your good. side in trying to seal the edges where we're going further somewhere in the back that you know the feel good think you're going to tighten up the back but will be good this year several sea lions returned to metastases rehab starving once again but rescue centers along the coast compiling satellite tagging days. this hype that johnny cash and his need to release friends who beat the odds a move the line toward survival rather than the stranding. me that no return needs

and then live and long happy life that's the plan and that's what's going to help and we're going to see them out on the rocks in nine or ten years we're going to begin to help them you. know i work a lot of behavior in my research and what i found really fascinating about this is what is causing this behavior of the pubs aren't as going in a little bit from shore they're going miles are going on this long journey in there so something involved in them that the changing climate is just messing with their their innate response to temperature it's sort of or could it be just utter desperation right i mean if you reach a certain level of lack of nutrition does that suddenly kick in some sort of instinct to just go where ever necessary to find something i mean because of sea temperature is it a the food that they normally feed on has moved somewhere and started the seed i'm pops of starving and they are cold and you're right they are absolutely desperate that's just that's really heartbreaking each of tonight's

stories showed problems with the environment but more importantly we got to meet some very smart folks trying to solve them that's it for today's episode be sure to check us out next time here on techno dive deep into these stories and go behind the scenes at al-jazeera don't comb slash techno follow our expert contributors on twitter facebook instagram google plus and more. partners.

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