DNA profiling may be a contentious issue among humans, but for Kerala’s captive elephants, it’s a done deal. In a first for India, every one of Kerala’s captive elephants now has a unique DNA-based genetic ID. Captive elephants are those that have been captured from the wild and used by humans. The Forest Department provided blood samples of captive elephants from across the State to the RGCB for DNA fingerprinting. To conduct DNA fingerprinting, the RGCB’s teams at the Regional Facility for DNA Fingerprinting (RFDF) in Thiruvananthapuram first removed duplicate samples after cross-verification and then isolated DNA from the samples.

Source: The Hindu December 18, 2018 18:24 UTC