Wildlife Laboratory Analysis

Laboratory resources

Activities to support wildlife laboratory analysis are currently broken down into five sections.  The outputs from these activities will be available on request.

1 | Ongoing gap analysis of resources and services:

To maintain an up-to-date picture of WLA capacity and capabilities, TRACE conducts a country-by-country gap analysis in the SADC region on behalf of the AWFN, enabling rapid assessment of capacity and training needs.  The intention is to expand this work geographically and use as the basis for planning future capacity building activities.

3 | Infrastructure requirements

To help labs in the early stages of setting up a wildlife DNA forensic laboratory, the SANBI wildlife forensics lab (RSA) has produced this diagram, highlighting the main features and stages of forensic DNA lab design.

4 | Training curriculum

• Awareness training: An activity to produce separate training curricula in WLA awareness for legal and investigative end-users.

• General DNA lab training: An activity to produce a general training curriculum to support ongoing capacity building within African wildlife DNA forensic labs.

2 | Quality Assurance (QA)

To support labs in achieving good practice a number of QA resources are being developed by the WLA group:

• Quality Manual update: To update the SWFS Quality Manual to account for new ISO17025 and SWFS S&Gs

• Validation plan template: A genetic validation template to guide validation planning.

• Standardised reporting template: A document describing options and examples for forensic DNA reports.

• Proficiency test development: A proficiency test for DNA species ID in Africa.

• Guidance on routes to quality compliance: A document describing the process required for labs to achieve compliance with wildlife forensic standards.

• CITES procedures for sample transfer: Summary document explaining the  expedited movement of casework and reference samples suspected to originate from CITES-listed species.