Tiger fingerprints: Using AI to track tiger stripes in order to stop poaching

Images of tiger skins collected by the Environmental Investigation Agency. Building up a database of tigers’ unique stripe patterns will help the wildlife crime investigative agency track illegal trade routes and catch poachers. — EIA

The mystery of Tigress T13 – that’s how one local newspaper in India described the case of notorious wildlife smuggler, Nepalese Lodu Dime, who was arrested in 2018 after years on the run.

Wildlife authorities in Nepal had been on the tail of the 44-year-old smuggles after an Interpol operation seized five tiger pelts and seven sacks of animal parts, including bones, from a vehicle on its way from Kathmandu to Rasuma – a city on the country’s border with Tibet – five years earlier, in 2013.