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US wildlife crime detectives here to train Lankan rangers
View(s):A group of handpicked personnel from the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) will get extensive training in handling wildlife crime scenes and evidence recovery by a team of crime scene investigators from the United States of America next week.
Kenya:Wildlife officers at the scene of a 'crime scene'
The training team is from Serendipity Wildlife Foundation’s special ‘CSIwildlife’ unit in Orange County, California, that comprises present and retired law enforcement instructors who specialise in crime scene investigations.
The programme will be held at the National Wildlife Training Centre in Giritale — and will include DNA, fingerprints, tyre tracks and footprints, ballistics, arrest and control, search and seizure, crime scene photography and electronic evidence analysis, according to a press release from the Foundation.
Unlike most training sessions, next week’s programme will comprise practical training outdoors during daytime, as well as night exercises. CSIwildlife considers this Phase 1 of the training, after which evaluations will be performed and progress of all those who attended the training will be monitored in the next few months. Phase 2 will be at the end of the year.
“I am excited to be teaching forensics in Sri Lanka, especially in an area that has such a high elephant population,” said a CSIwildlife expert, Magda Perez who has 30 years of experience in the field of crime scene investigation.
Magda who has been to Kenya, but for whom this is the first visit to Sri Lanka, says that she is happy to be making this contribution to Sri Lanka’s wildlife so that there will be a higher chance now of the perpetrators getting caught and prosecuted.
Serendipity Wildlife Foundation’s CEO and CSIwildlife Team Leader Ravi Perera said they are happy to train Sri Lankan personnel who are in the frontlines of the war on wildlife crime.
“Though poaching of ivory is not as bad as in Africa, very often we forget that ‘bush meat’ – where certain wild animals are killed for human consumption, is also illegal, and often, a blind eye is turned towards this type of crime,” says Mr. Perera, who has experience in training Anti-Poaching Units in Africa, where multiple elephants and rhinos are killed every day.
Serendipity Wildlife Foundation is a non-profit organisation based in the US and although requests from organisations in other countries have come in, it currently focuses on Kenya and Sri Lanka. While training and supporting wildlife officers to combat wildlife crimes and specialising in investigations and recovery of evidence, the organisation works with other conservation and wildlife organisations so that future generations can see in the wild, what we see today.