Blair Van Valkenburgh and Paula White discuss evidence of illegal poaching | Sustainable LA Grand Challenge

Karen Dutko
February 09, 2022
SLAGC News and Events

Publication: UCLA Newsroom

UCLA Expert: Paula White: Affiliate, UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability; Blair Valkenburgh: Professor, UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Synopsis: UCLA researchers revealed that unusual markings on lion and leopard teeth indicate that illegal poaching levels are much higher than previously estimated.

UCLA News:

White discusses evidence of big cats chewing through snares. “It was an odd mix of thrilling to figure out the cause of the notches and horrifying to realize that so many animals had been entangled in a snare at some point in their lives,”

Valkenburgh notes the importance of these discoveries. “Usually I’m looking at decades-old skulls in museums, but these are the animals we’re trying to conserve right now. This is real-time information, and that’s what you need for conservation decisions.”