How we're protecting echidnas from the illegal wildlife trade

Short beaked echidnas are one of Australia’s most iconic animals, and being one of the few species of mammals that lay eggs, also known as a monotreme, are desirable as zoo animals around the world. Unfortunately, due to the very large numbers of animals available ‘for sale’ in South East Asia, it appears a black market for echidnas may have developed (and has been communicated to us through the non-government organisation TRAFFIC (Beastall and Shepherd 2013).

A PhD student at the Australian Museum has developed a wildlife forensic toolbox to help combat this trade.

• #education
• #echidna
• #wildlife
• #forensics
• #science
• #monotreme
• #black_market