DNA of wild sungazers dries up export trade

The rules of the game are shifting with a legislative change, which will stop reptile traders from exporting sungazers caught in the wild.

A sungazer working group, set up in 2011 by the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s Ian Little, is briefed regularly on permit applications, farming activity, mining applications and the like, and its recommendations are shaping policy.

The working group comprises researchers, officials from the department of environmental affairs, the South African National Biodiversity Institute, the Green Scorpions and the National Zoological Gardens.

An important byproduct of Shivan Parusnath’s PhD research, which is studying the effect of people on the genetic health of sungazer populations, was the creation of DNA markers for the lizards in the wild.

He collected more than 500 genetic samples from 80 locations in the Free State and Mpumalanga and the markers are already being used by officials from the National Zoological Gardens to vet permit applications.

Permits to export captive reptiles are now granted only if DNA tests (at a cost of R500 a creature, paid for by a reptile park or facility) can prove a second-generation genetic link between captive specimens.

Legislation to formalise this protocol is expected to be gazetted soon but instructions to enforce it have been circulated to environmental affairs officers in the provinces, and the issuing of export permits has dried up.

“In the interim, there is no legal trade in wild-caught sungazers,’’ according to Little.

Sentences for wildlife crimes usually carry a maximum jail term of 10 years or a R10-million fine.

Little says there have been prosecutions for the smuggling of the lizards for muti but few, if any, for illegally trading them for export: “Personally I haven’t heard of a single prosecution in five years of working with sungazers and other reptiles,’’ says Little.