Diego Cardeñosa always knew he wanted to study sharks. But when he started his Ph.D., he had to make a choice: tagging sharks in the field — the “fun,” typically more-sought-after path — or studying their DNA in a lab. “I went for maybe not the most attractive in the sense of field trips, because it was getting stuck in a little tiny stinky lab in Hong Kong full of dried fins,” he told Mongabay. “But I knew what the science we were doing was going to produce.” His efforts paid off. After years of research, Cardeñosa pioneered a forensic tool that can quickly and cheaply detect if a dried shark fin comes from a protected species. Like a rapid COVID-19 test, the device has helped inspectors in Hong Kong, the world’s largest shark fin trade hub, crack down on an illegal trade that has helped pushed many shark species — there are more than 500 — to the brink of extinction. The tool empowers inspectors who previously had to wave through suspicious shipments because they didn’t have enough time to wait for a DNA lab test. “It solves that very key early-detection step that until now was difficult,” Cardeñosa said. Now he’s rolling it out in other countries, from Brazil, Peru and Ecuador, to the U.S., Sri Lanka and Tanzania, with, he hopes, more to come. Data produced by Cardeñosa’s shark fin identification kit has also informed measures to list dozens of shark species under the protection of CITES,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed