Wildlife forensics in voiding false offences: A case study to deal with unidentified cooked meat

Abstract

Consumption of bush meat is one of the major threats to the loss of biodiversity in developing countries. The present study has been conducted in view of ascertaining the species of origin from fully cooked meat that was confiscated from a restaurant at Murshidabad district of West Bengal in India and suspected to be originated from a Greater Short-toed Lark (Calandrella brachydactyla). However, there was no intact morphological identity, and the owner of the restaurant was booked under the charges of Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 towards killing and selling the meat of a protected species. On sequencing of the partial fragments of mt genes – Cytochrome b and 12S rRNA, the confiscated material showed 99% homology with Common quail (Coturnix coturnix), and the phylogenetic analysis also clustered the confiscated material with Common quail with high bootstrap support. This study exhibits a reliable assessment of species identification using the public database and provides evidence to nullify charges on the accused for his involvement in wildlife killing. This case study exhibits the value of molecular diagnostic techniques using genetic markers to decipher the morphologically altered materials in wildlife forensic cases. Keywords: Wildlife poaching, Species identification, Mitochondrial markers, Cytochrome b, 12S rRNA, Common quail