Evidence and Investigation

1. Evidence and Investigation Wildlife Crime By, Mrs. DeForge

2. Wildlife Crime What will You do Today? If you take a walk through your yard or down the street, you may not see any wildlife, but the clues to their existence are all around us. We just need to know how to interpret signs of wildlife and human activity.

3. Solving Wildlife Crime Killing wildlife illegally, or poaching is a serious crime that wildlife official everywhere are trying to stop. Now thanks to new technology skills, clues left by the animals at the crime scene are helping to solve crimes and convict offender.

4. Physical Evidence Physical evidence is evidence that you can see and touch. Examples may include: -Scat, Scent, and Castings -Tracks -Homes -Fur and Feathers

5. Fur and Feathers • Animals often shed fur or feathers as they grow. Skilled biologists can usually identify the animal from this kids of evidence. Sometimes animals get fur caught on branches, and scientists can analyze it in the laboratories to learn this such as whether the animal was a male or female.

6. Tracks • Animals leave footprints everywhere. In mud, sand, and solf soil, tracks are quite easy to see. In grasses, biologists might not be ablt to see the track, but they can usually tell the direction the animal was travelling by the way the grass went bent. Leaving tracks does not always mean leaving footprints, though. Slugs and snail leave a slimy trail behind them.

7. Homes • Spider webs, beaver dams, and beehives are all animal homes that give us clues of the presence of animals. Sometimes animals mov each evening, but wildlife biologists know what clues to look for. Elk, for instance, will rest in the grass at night, and you can see where they laid because of the depressions in the soil and grass.

8. Scent, Scat, and Castings • All animals leave waste behind. Believe it or not, this is one of the most important clues a wildlife biologist can collect. Scat tells us what the animal was easting and can tell us about their health.