Paleontologist forces smugglers to plead guilty
By kingsnake.com · April 13, 2015 5:26 am
A Canadian paleontologist identified the remains of several endangered species smuggled from Hong Kong.
From the Calgary Herald:
Don Brinkman, a paleontologist at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, has been studying turtles for three decades and had assisted with previous investigations by Environment Canada. But this case — which involved combing through a container with 945 turtle plastrons (bottom part of the shell), 2,454 turtle shells, and 52 bags of turtle fragments within 815 cartons, followed by a second container with 224 bags of fragments in 842 cartons — was the biggest Brinkman has ever worked on. After three days in a Vancouver warehouse sifting through piece after piece, the lone scientist in a room full of officers, Brinkman helped bring the probe to a conclusion by identifying five endangered turtle species and three endangered tortoise species.Read more here.
