Did you know that illegal bushmeat is being smuggled into many countries on a daily basis?

Tengwood Organization is trying to help stop the illegal trade in wildlife via a study of illegal bushmeat smuggling into Swiss Airports...

Tengwood Organization, in cooperation with CITES, BVET, Vet Suisse at the University of Bern, and Swiss Customs Agents, has been participating in CITES control days at Zurich and Genf’s International Airports.  The exercise aims to document the illegal trade in wildlife – specifically, to quantify the amount of illegal bushmeat smuggled into Switzerland’s airports.  In partnership with the above organizations, we are also analyzing a database of airport confiscations that includes 3 years of illegal meat confiscations, including bushmeat.

But this is not enough information….

Much of the bushmeat smuggled into Switzerland is cut into pieces and not recognizable to species.  Therefore, more information must be collected.  Currently, with the help of BVET and Customs agents, Tengwood Organization is collecting samples for DNA analysis.  Together with the University of Zurich’s Institut for Rechts Medizin, we will analyze samples from meat coming into these airports. This analysis will tell us what species the smuggled meat is coming from.  In the end, the information will help us to quantify how much of the illegal meat comes from threatened and/or endangered animals.  This study is ongoing and will document the threat from illegal bushmeat smuggling to the survival of endangered wildlife.  

We anticipate our findings to be out later in 2012.

CAN YOU HELP US FUND THIS STUDY?