Lions, tigers and bears, oh my: National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Lab celebrates 25 years of solving wilderness crimes – Ashland News

Behind the scenes of the nondescript building on Ashland's East Main Street that is a center for investigating crimes against wildlife

By Emma Coke, Ashland.news

Celebrating its 25th anniversary, the Clark R. Bavin National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory on East Main Street in Ashland remains the world's only full-service wildlife crime laboratory, solving not only high-profile cases, but also changing the game in many ways when it comes to wildlife crime.

Founded in 1988 and inaugurated in 1989 as the Clark R. Bavin National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory, the lab investigates about 800 to 1,000 wildlife crimes for the United States and other countries, said lab director Ken Goddard. Goddard has been with the lab since its inception.

According to CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), wildlife crime, which includes poaching, illegal trade and breeding of endangered species, poses a huge threat to biodiversity locally and globally.

Cases reach the whole world

In the United States alone, the illegal wildlife trade is estimated to be worth $20 billion a year, according to Interpol.

“We are helping to save wildlife around the world,” Goddard said.

The illegal wildlife trade has experienced various fads in the laboratory's 25 years of existence, says Ed Espinoza, head of the criminology department.

“We see these trends over time where people suddenly start making tons of money and then a lot of people get arrested,” Espinoza said. “Whatever happens, it stops and then we move on to the next thing.”

For years, ivory was traded, then bear gallbladders for their bile, and finally caviar from Russia.

“Five or six DNA experts did nothing for, I think, four years, they were just overwhelmed” with caviar, Goddard said. “And that finally stopped, and, you know, it's just that we never know what's coming.”

Branching into wood

Currently, Espinoza says, it's the wood that's on their minds. Wildlife investigators have been dealing with the plant kingdom since they caught loggers after raids by the Fish and Wildlife Administration on Gibson Guitars.

In 2009 and 2011, two Gibson warehouses in Tennessee were raided by federal agents who seized Brazilian rosewood and Indian ebony. Both woods are considered endangered and are illegal to import into the country.

“Our agents raided the site, seized the illegal materials or what they believed to be illegal, called me and asked, 'So you guys can identify rosewood, right?' I said, 'No, we're rabbits and guppies. We don't do lumber,'” Goddard said.

However, it still needs to be confirmed whether the confiscated wood is endangered rosewood and ebony.

“Ed discovered that every type of wood, even if it's just one-by-four-inch boards, has its own collection of oils, different oils that evaporate,” Goddard said.

Now they have what Goddard calls their “wood workshop,” a room dedicated solely to wood samples.

In 2012, Gibson was fined $300,000 for violating the Lacey Act, which prevents the trade in illegal plants and animals.

Tigers and butterflies

Other cases the lab has been involved in include the infamous Netflix docuseries “Tiger King” and a case that required undercover investigations in search of endangered butterflies.

In 2021, the United States seized 68 big cats, including lions, tigers, tiger lions, and a jaguar, from Tiger King Park in Oklahoma for violating the Endangered Species Act. Several stars of the show were later charged with violating the ESA and the Lacey Act following investigations by the lab.

Hisayoshi Kojima, a notorious butterfly smuggler, was indicted on 17 counts for smuggling and selling several endangered butterfly species, including the giant swallowtail butterfly and a pair of Queen Alexandra's birdwings. The charges were brought in 2007 after Ed Newcover, a USFWS special agent, spent three years undercover in an attempt to lure Kojima from Japan to the United States, where he was eventually arrested.

Queen Alexandra's birdwings are now kept in the laboratory's morphological collection.

Like a regular police crime lab, the wildlife forensics lab works to link evidence to crimes, suspects and victims. Most often, this involves determining the cause of the animal's death.

Identification of the victim

Unlike the police, however, the laboratory often has to first find out who exactly the victim of the crime is – the animal (or plant).

“If we have a whole elephant, it's pretty obvious,” Goddard said. “If we have strips of skin, pieces of meat, hair or feathers, it's not clear who our victim is.”

The laboratory has two main methods at its disposal to determine the species: DNA analysis or morphology, i.e. comparing the victim with the samples collected in the laboratory.

In situations where investigators only have blood, tissue, bone or ivory from the victim, DNA analysis is the best solution. There are three laboratories dedicated exclusively to DNA analysis.

The standard is DNA sequencing – finding the identifiable pairs of A, T, G and C that make up a species' DNA. But a new technology is emerging.

“These are $200,000 instruments, and they will soon be obsolete,” Goddard said.

The lab recently acquired a $150,000 machine that maps the entire genome, the complete set of genetic material that makes up a species.

“We put a wolf blood sample into the genome machine and it produced a terabyte of data,” Goddard said. “Our computers crashed. We weren't used to that.”

Since the technology is still in its infancy, the laboratory currently mainly uses gene sequencing.

A huge collection

If more than just blood or tissue is donated, the laboratory draws on its extensive sample collection.

The storage facility, run by Johnnie French, head of morphology collections, is a recent addition to the lab. Before it opened five years ago, everything was stored in boxes, making the work tedious.

“Our morphology department is what makes us really unique,” Goddard said. “Everything else, genetics, evidence processing, pathology, is done by other labs. But nobody has Johnnie.”

Due to its morphological collection, the laboratory is the official laboratory for CITES and thus serves all 183 countries that have signed the treaty.

In the laboratory's early days, staff relied almost exclusively on a modest library of reference books to determine the species of a victim.

“This is also a library, only it is a library of dead things,” French said. “We have no doubt that we must resort to literature.”

Rows of busts of sheep, goats and deer hang on the walls. Tiny, ornate statues made of white ivory lie on the tables. In the middle rows, carts are filled with bags made of alligator skin (with the alligator's head still intact), boots and pumps.

This building houses about 100,000 specimens and the collection is constantly growing.

“Normal museums like the Smithsonian or the American (Museum of Natural History in New York) go out and actually kill specimens,” French said. “We don't do that. We rely on donations.”

Many of their donations come from zoos or museums that are closing. Sometimes taxidermied animals have been donated by museums because they had minor defects and the museums were unable to display them, French said.

3D printed replicas

The lab is working to produce 3D printed versions of samples requested by other forensic labs.

“People want to borrow from our collection,” Goddard said. “We don't really want to lend things.”

After the species is identified and the cause of death is determined through an autopsy (postmortem examination of a non-human animal), laboratory experts are questioned in court. Typically, only 3 to 5 percent of cases go to trial. Most defendants plead guilty, Goddard said.

“If we put someone in jail, seize their property or whatever, we have to be in the right based on the evidence we present to the court,” Goddard said.

Goddard said they have not lost a case yet, which he attributes to the immense effort they have put into their reports.

“I can't go a day,” Goddard said, “where I haven't come home and something different or strange hasn't happened.”

Email Ashland.news reporter intern Emma Coke at [email protected].

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