The Illegal trade in wildlife and bear bile

In this exercise we will investigate a DNA sequence obtained from a wildlife seizure. The seizure was suspected to be bear bile - the goal of this exercise is to use DNA data together with the analytical power of Geneious to determine if the substance pictured is in fact bear bile, and if it is, what is its species of origin?

The wildlife trade is the second-largest illegal trade in the world after drugs. The global trade's import value, both legal and illegal, is estimated at around US$159 billion per year. Wildlife is traded, both legally and illegally principally for food, traditional medicines, pets, trophies and collections.

Bear Bile has been a constituent in many traditional Chinese medicines (TCM) for nearly 3000 years. Traditional Chinese Medicine doctors prescribe bear bile to treat illnesses ranging from liver cancer (Mills and Servheen, 1991) to haemorrhoids and conjunctivitis (Bensky and Gamble, 1993). Bear bile contains ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA), a substance more abundant in bears than in any other mammal. When turned into powder, it can remedy kidney and liver ailments, fever and convulsions.


It is estimated that bear farms in China contain 7000 bears, in Vietnam contain 4000 bears and in Korea contain 1800 bears. Bears in China and Vietnam are "milked" regularly for the duration of their lives. These large bear numbers are supplemented by large numbers of legally and illegally killed black bears in the United Stares and Canada to remove the gall bladders for sale on the black market where they can fetch up to US$10,000 (Ratloff 2005).

Bear farming continues to jeopardize the survival of bears in the wild. In South East Asia, black bears (Selenarctos thibetanus) are captured and sold to bear farms. The sale of bear bile products across the world has put a bounty on the life of Asiatic black bears.

Some more information can be found on wikipedia.


Exercise 1: Using DNA as a wildlife forensic tool
Exercise 2: Editing a chromatograph
Exercise 3: BLASTing your unknown sequence
Exercise 4: Build a phylogenetic tree