Catherine Faville
Forensics
Current event
Kolata, Gina. “In Africa, Geneticists Are Hunting Poachers.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 Jan. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/science/dna-rhinos-ivory-poachers.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic%2BScience&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=collection.
After reading the article In Africa, Geneticists Are Hunting Poachers written by Gina Kolata showed me the infamous sadening reality of poaching, and how the problem is being fixed. A former school teacher in Zimbabwe Rogers Mukwena was wanted for poaching rhinos and selling their horns for a heavy price, he had jumped bail and headed north, making it hard to prosecute him. However with the help of scientist this criminal can face his crimes, by using the same genetic fingerprinting method used in the criminal justice system is being used to solve poaching crimes. The scientists gathered samples of DNA from African Rhinos, locating the remains and matching the trafficker or poacher to it. Poaching is series problem, in the past ten years 7,000 rhinos have been killed for their horns, along with 30,000 elephants each year for their tusks.
This article opened my eyes to the escalating problem of poaching animals, and how many people are taking steps forward to prevent this from advancing. By attempting to gather DNA evidence from Rhinos and locating the perpetrator would be able to spread the idea that this is not such a easy crime to commit anymore. By spreading this awareness hopefully it will decrease the high amounts of animal deaths.
The article did a great job in bringing unbelievable facts to the table, drawing in the reader and making them feel concerned for the issue. I also liked how they used a specific story with the rhinos and a escaped convict, it made the article a lot more endearing to read. However i wish that the author had gone into more detail with how exactly the rhino DNA was tied in with the poacher,l and the specifics on how they can find out who murdered the animal. Adding this would have made the article easier to understand and learn.
2 comments:
Kolata, Gina. “In Africa, Geneticists Are Hunting Poachers.” The New York Times, The New York Times,8Jan.2018. www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/science/dna-rhinos-ivory-poachers.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic%2BScience&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=collection.
Catherine’s review of “In Africa, Geneticists Are Hunting Poachers” was a very interesting review. First of all, it really helped that she stated the place where this took place, Zimbabwe, and who the people in charge were, especially Rogers Mukwena. In addition, the fact that she had a quote from the review that explained what exactly had happened in Zimbabwe with the poaching of the ivory from the elephant, aided me in understanding this topic better and gave me some additional information about it. Finally, Catherine did a really good job in making this review quite thorough by having statistics about the topic and how it affects society.
Although this review was very interesting, one way it could have been made better is that Catherine could have gone back through the review and read it over to make sure she didn’t have any typos, and so the review was more sophisticated. By reading it over and eliminating the few mistakes, she could have avoided this problem and made her review more thought out. Moreover, she could have added a few more sentences to her second paragraph where she talked about how this topic affects society. By adding a few more sentences she could have avoided this problem and had a better flow throughout it.
Overall, this review was captivating and thought-provoking. I had heard about this problem of poaching in Africa but had never delved deep into it, so I was intrigued when I read Catherine’s review. Thus, learning about this was very enlightening and taught me many new things. Reading this review made me realize that genetics can be used to combat world problems, not just in medicine.
Hayley Berry
Mr. Ippolito
Forensic
March 6, 2018
Kolata, Gina. “In Africa, Geneticists Are Hunting Poachers.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 Jan. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/science/dna-rhinos-ivory-poachers.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic%2BScience&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=collection
For this current event I read a review that was written by Catherine on the article, “In Africa, Geneticists Are Hunting Poachers.”. One thing that I thought she did a great job on was really having a detailed explanation of the current event. She added enough detail to have the reader engaged and keep learning new things. Another thing that I thought she did a good job on war including the statistical evidence that was also in the article. Lastly, she did a great job by inputting her own opinion in the review. She did not force her opinion on us but she did allow us to know what she was thinking while reading the article and writing the review.
Although Catherine did a great job reviewing the article I thought that she could have done something more to make the review better. Although she did incorporate statistical evidence I think that if she added some quotes from the article it could have been a lot better. Another thing that I thought she could have worked on was the connecting to the class and the real world.
Overall I thought that the review was very interesting. One thing that I learned from the review is that in the past 10 years 7,000 rhinos have died because of poachers. This is a serious problem because the Rhino are an endangered species and if they keep poaching for their horn there will be no more Rhinos left in the world.
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