Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge

Photo Credit: USAID
The Challenge Blog

Spotlight: YIARI is helping protect slow lorises

YIARI is standing up for slow lorises

Welcome to an installment of our Spotlight series, each highlighting one of our 16 Prize Winners working to combat wildlife crime around the globe. Find out about all 16 Prize Winners here, and check back in on Mondays for a new Spotlight post.

The Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge sources innovative solutions to combat illegal wildlife trade that threatens communities, rule of law, and security, as well as iconic wildlife species around the world. These crimes include the sale of protected wild animals for the pet trade. Slow lorises, with their adorable faces and soft fur, are heavily trafficked in Indonesia. Like other wild animals, however, they do not make good pets. In fact, slow lorises are the world’s only venomous primate. Traffickers will stuff many animals in small cages and clip their teeth to keep them from biting, which can result in death due to blood loss and infections. The Javan slow loris (Nycticebus javanicus) is listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and is considered one of the most endangered primate species in the world due mainly to habitat loss and the illegal wildlife trade.

Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge Prize Winner Karmele Llano Sanchez, Program Director for Yayasan International Animal Rescue Indonesia (YIARI) and her team actively monitor the trade of slow lorises. YIARI provides care for slow lorises seized by authorities, and whenever possible, rehabilitates them for reintroduction into the wild. The YIARI team collects genetic samples while doing routine medical check-ups on the slow lorises in its care, then analyze the samples. YIARI’s goal is to create a genetic database of slow lorises, so that “in the future we can identify the origins of all confiscated lorises,” Karmele says. That would allow YIARI and its partners to more precisely focus their efforts on poaching hotspots.  

All of our Prize Winners, including YIARI, are looking for partners, organizations, individuals, and funding agencies that can help them scale their solutions. If you would like more information, please get in touch at info@wildlifecrimetech.org

Find out about each of Challenge’s 16 Prize Winners and their game-changing innovations to fight wildlife crime here.

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