![\"Wild](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.animals24-7.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Picsart_25-06-09_11-37-57-177-e1749494693440.jpg?ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n WASHINGTON D.C.\u2013\u2013<\/strong>Seven years after the still officially unsolved murder of ivory traffic investigator Esmond Martin in Nairobi,\u00a0 Kenya,\u00a0 Humane World for Animals continues to use the methods he pioneered to pursue the ghosts of elephants,\u00a0 whales,\u00a0 walruses,\u00a0 hippos,\u00a0 warthogs,\u00a0 and even mastodons and wooly mammoths.<\/p>\n (See The ghost of ivory traffic investigator Esmond Martin stalks Connecticut<\/a> and <\/em>Who killed ivory trade investigator Esmond Martin, why?<\/a>)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Blogged Humane World for Animals president Kitty Block on June 4,\u00a0 2025,\u00a0 disclosing recent findings,\u00a0 \u201cOur investigators visited 31 stores across Pennsylvania in March and searched more than 32 online auctions and marketplace sales occurring between January and April 2025.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThey found earrings, \u00a0bracelets, \u00a0necklaces and other pieces of jewelry; \u00a0figurines; \u00a0tusk and tooth carvings; \u00a0cutlery sets; \u00a0and an array of other household and personal items for sale in shops stretching from Swissdale to Allentown and points in between.<\/p>\n \u201cOf the 63 locations investigated,\u201d\u00a0 continued Block, \u00a0\u201c17 had ivory for sale that our investigators identified as originating from elephants.<\/p>\n \u201cIn total, 383 pieces of ivory were identified by our investigators in-person and online, \u00a0more than we\u2019ve seen in other recent investigations in\u00a0Connecticut\u00a0and\u00a0Florida.<\/p>\n \u201cThe total value of items found during the investigation was nearly $38,000, with items ranging in price from $5 to $1,150.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWhen asked by our investigators,\u201d\u00a0 Block said, \u00a0\u201cnone of the sellers had or could provide any information or documentation to verify the age or\u202forigin of the ivory items.<\/p>\n \u201cWithout such documentation, it is impossible to know whether those items were imported in violation of federal law.\u201d<\/p>\n Block shared the Humane World for Animals findings to plug Pennsylvania state bill HB 994, introduced by state representative Leanne Krueger.<\/p>\n The bill,\u00a0 Block hopes,\u00a0 along with laws based on similar bills enacted in thirteen other states and the District of Columbia,\u00a0 will close gaps in legislation that continue to imperil elephants,\u00a0 giraffes,\u00a0 and hippopotamuses,\u00a0 among other species.<\/p>\n \u201cThe U.S. imports more giraffe and hippo parts than any other country,\u201d\u00a0 Block mentioned.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Humane World for Animals research,\u00a0 opined anthropologist Daniel Stiles,\u00a0 who often worked with Esmond Martin,\u00a0 beginning in 1999,\u00a0 is \u201ccertainly similar to the type of work I used to do. \u00a0The studies that I carried out, \u00a0often with Esmond,\u00a0 were much more detailed though,\u201d\u00a0 Stiles told ANIMALS 24-7.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cBased on the scanty description,\u00a0 but no photos,\u00a0 and the video,\u201d posted by Block, \u00a0\u201cmost of the pieces looked to be second-hand, \u00a0not newly imported, \u00a0thus no threat to today\u2019s elephants,\u201d\u00a0 Stiles believes.<\/p>\n \u201cIf less than 100 years old, \u00a0it would still be illegal to sell.\u00a0 There is still a pretty active market in the U.S. for recycled ivory, \u00a0much less than pre-2014 for newly imported ivory,\u201d\u00a0 Stiles said.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Stiles remains actively involved in wildlife trafficking investigation in his role as project manager for more than a decade with the Project to End Great Ape Slavery,\u00a0 PEGAS for short.<\/p>\n From that perspective,\u00a0 plus his experience working with Esmond Martin,\u00a0 whom Stiles remembers as \u201cincredible\u2013\u2013he just kept going,\u201d\u00a0 Stiles was much more critical of \u201cEncoding and Decoding Illegal Wildlife Trade Networks Reveals Key Airport Characteristics and Undetected Hotspots,\u201d \u00a0a paper by Hannah Murray, \u00a0Meredith Gore, \u00a0and Bistra Dilkina,\u00a0 published by the online journal Communications Earth & Environment.<\/em><\/p>\n Murray is a Ph.D. candidate at the Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science,\u00a0 part of the University of Southern California.<\/p>\n Gore is a professor and research director in the Department of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland, \u00a0College Park.<\/p>\n Dilkina is co-director of the USC Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society.<\/p>\n What all three of them appear to be is academic theoreticians with little or no actual field experience investigating wildlife trafficking.<\/p>\n Raman the robotic elephant.<\/strong><\/em> Their paper,\u00a0 much praised in several other academic periodicals,\u00a0 is subtitled \u201cMachine learning methods enable the discovery of previously hidden illegal wildlife trade hotspots within global flight networks among high centrality airports.\u201d<\/p>\n Wrote Murray,\u00a0 \u201cWe were inspired by the challenge of so much of the international wildlife traffic being \u2018unseen.\u2019\u00a0 What we do know comes from documented seizures, \u00a0which are incidents of wildlife trafficking where authorities catch the traffickers in the act and report it to a global agency such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime or TRAFFIC.<\/p>\n \u201cBut what about the incidents that go undetected or are never reported?\u201d Murray asked.<\/p>\n \u201cOur team set out to uncover information about these undetected incidents, \u00a0particularly those that take place on the airline flight network.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe biggest hurdle was decoding the data,\u201d\u00a0 Murray said,\u00a0 but what data,\u00a0 if the traffickers and\/or items trafficked are not actually detected?<\/p>\n \u201cIf seizures were documented at all,\u201d \u00a0Murray continued,\u00a0 \u201cthe records were often incomplete and biased, \u00a0as some countries report incidents more than others and have different requirements regarding the extent of information they must report.<\/p>\n \u201cTo obtain the clearest picture possible,\u201d\u00a0 Murray said, \u00a0\u201cwe combined two of the largest open-access datasets on wildlife trade occurring within the airline flight network.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen examining the airports implicated in this combined dataset, \u00a0we found what many others have already confirmed: that airports in Africa and Asia are the most dominant source and destination regions, \u00a0respectively.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cHowever, \u00a0beneath the surface, \u00a0we discovered that the network is far more complex.<\/p>\n \u201cWe asked the following questions: \u00a0What makes an airport more vulnerable to wildlife trafficking? \u00a0And where might trafficking be occurring under the radar?\u201d<\/p>\n This is where Murray,\u00a0 Gore,\u00a0 and Dilkina appear to have strayed far off the trail,\u00a0 chasing imaginary ghosts in a manner that actual boots-on-the-ground wildlife trafficking investigators,\u00a0 relying on evidence instead of theory,\u00a0 would not have done.<\/p>\n Recounted Murray,\u00a0 \u201cWe first calculated each airport\u2019s centrality, \u00a0which measures how connected an airport is to other airports. \u00a0We hypothesized that an airport\u2019s centrality in the full flight network could give us clues into its role in the illegal wildlife trade network. Our results revealed that airports with high degree and betweenness centrality in the global flight network are more likely to be involved in IWT.\u201d<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Well no.\u00a0 Not without actual trafficked animals or body parts.\u00a0 One cannot accurately declare \u201cThey went thataway!\u201d without seeing tracks,\u00a0 droppings,\u00a0 and a cloud of dust.<\/p>\n Murray,\u00a0 Gore,\u00a0 and Dilkina did mention that \u201cFactors such as weak governance and elevated rates of other environmental crimes also increase risk. \u00a0Conversely, \u00a0strong civil society and effective crime prevention measures made airports less likely to be involved.\u201d<\/p>\n Murray,\u00a0 Gore,\u00a0 and Dilkina acknowledged that,\u00a0 \u201cOur model flagged several airports as likely international wildlife trafficking hotspots\u2013\u2013even though they had no recorded seizures.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of the airports in which the model was over 95% confident, \u00a0such as Shanghai Hongqiao in China and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in the United States, \u00a0have since been linked to trafficking in news reports,\u201d\u00a0 Murray wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cThis suggests that our approach can help spot hidden risks before they even appear in the global reporting databases.\u201d<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n All of which is a bit like suggesting that the bigger the woods,\u00a0 the more likely a bear is to shit in it somewhere,\u00a0 sometimes,\u00a0 even though most bears live in other woods elsewhere.<\/p>\n Fumed Stiles,\u00a0 \u201cThis is one of the most ill-informed articles I\u2019ve seen in a long time.\u00a0 The authors are lucky I was wasn\u2019t asked to review it.<\/p>\n \u201cChoice of trade chain supply routes are based on air\/sea ports where the traffickers have either established facilitators who will allow the product through, \u00a0or where port personnel are known to be incompetent.<\/p>\n \u201cSeizures are usually accidents, \u00a0when unexpectedly the bribed inside person was missing at the time needed,\u201d\u00a0 Stiles explained.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe choice of routes varies also according to which products are being trafficked,\u201d\u00a0 Stiles detailed, \u00a0\u201cbecause source and demand areas vary depending on what the species and product are. \u00a0Tiger bones don\u2019t go to Dallas-Fort Worth.<\/p>\n \u201cThe third most important factor, \u00a0related to the first,\u201d\u00a0 Stiles added, \u00a0\u201cis susceptibility to corruption, \u00a0where bribes work and where they don\u2019t. \u00a0Just picking centrality is useless. Dubai would have a high centrality score and has a high demand for exotic live animals, \u00a0but Emirates and the Dubai Customs Department. staff are strict in preventing trafficking.<\/p>\n \u201cSo traffickers in Dubai fly the animals first to Muscat or a Saudi airport and transport them in by road,\u201d\u00a0 Stiles said.<\/p>\n \u201cA Dubai police lieutenant colonel is the facilitator.\u00a0 He has his own private zoo, is connected to the Al Maktoum royal family, \u00a0and is buddies with many of the big traffickers.<\/p>\nOld ivory is not killing elephants,\u00a0 points out Daniel Stiles,\u00a0 & AI theories are not evidence sufficient to bring seizures & convictions\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nEarrings,\u00a0 bracelets,\u00a0 necklaces<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cNone of sellers could verify age or origin\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cNo threat to today\u2019s elephants\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nAI as trafficking watchdog<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
(PETA India photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\u201cMachine learning\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nDecoding what data?<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nWhat makes an airport more vulnerable?<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nTracks,\u00a0 droppings,\u00a0 dust?<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nBears in the woods<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cTiger bones don\u2019t go to Dallas\u201d<\/h2>\n