Forensic Science International: Genetics
Volume 5, Issue 1 , Pages 74-75, January 2011

Establishing the identity of the massacred tigress in a case of wildlife crime

Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, India

Received 24 December 2009; received in revised form 21 May 2010; accepted 24 May 2010. published online 18 June 2010.

Abstract 

We report a case study, where we have established the identity from a challenging biological sample of a deceased tigress by parentage analysis. A wildlife crime was committed in one of the zoological parks in India in the year 2000, where one young tigress was killed for its claws. This was of media interest for several days and remained an unsolved case for four years. A framed claw and decomposed tiger hide were seized from the accused in 2005. Biological samples of the victim tigress was not available for further forensics examination, therefore; DNA samples of the biological parents and a male sibling were used to establish the identity of the claw using STRs and mitochondrial DNA markers. Our analysis indicates that the seized claw belongs to the victim tigress.

Keywords: Biological remnant, Wildlife crime, Sibling, Biological parent, STRs, Mitochondrial DNA markers

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PII: S1872-4973(10)00087-6

doi:10.1016/j.fsigen.2010.05.004

Forensic Science International: Genetics
Volume 5, Issue 1 , Pages 74-75, January 2011

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