Episode 2 Rhys Jones's Wildlife Patrol

'Welsh wildlife is under attack

'and I am on the front line trying to protect it.

'Our 5,000 native species of bird, mammals...'

Whoa!

'..and reptiles are threatened daily by illegal activity...

Ready? Go, go.

'..mistreatment...'

This is neglect on a level that I've never seen.

'..and alien invaders.'

That does not look like a happy spider.

'I'm Dr Rhys Jones

'and, from my laboratory at Cardiff University,

'I work with the police...'

-Hello, police!

-Bird in there.

'..wildlife groups...'

It's OK.

'..and concerned members of the public...'

-SCREAMING

-It's plastic, I promise you.

'..in the fight to save our animals from humans

'and human from animals.'

Everybody, stay still. Stay still.

'And tonight, the heat is on when wildfires force wildlife

'onto our streets...'

This is a venomous reptile.

If somebody gets bitten it could be serious.

'..I get drilled into some

'international wildlife crime fighting,

'and everyone's favourite worst nightmare - venomous spiders.

-'And this time...'

-Two egg sacs.

'..they're breeding.'

Stop, stop, stop, we've got a snake.

Stay. Yeah. Stay, stay, stay.

'I've been working with wildlife for over 20 years now,

'and, whilst the majority of that work is done within the UK,

'I am also fortunate enough to travel the world as a scientist

'and conservation geneticist,

'and to work with some of the world's most spectacular...'

There's a mutual respect going on here.

'..most dangerous...'

This is a puff adder. That bites you, you have no idea.

Your flesh just rots and falls off.

'..and most threatened animal species.'

It's all right, sweetheart. Gently, gently.

'However, it is rare for me to work on a case that has such

'repercussions both here in the UK and abroad.'

There are huge problems. Especially...

'But earlier this year, I was called in to work on

'a ground-breaking new project that could have a profound impact

'on the survival chances of one of the world's most

'critically endangered animals - the African rhino.

'And it all started in early January,

'when I received one of the strangest calls I've ever had.

'It was from wildlife crime officer PC Mark Goulding,

'asking if I could gather together a drill, some sterile drill bits,

'some latex gloves and several laboratory specimen tubes

'and then meet him at a secret South Wales location.

'I wasn't sure what to make of this

'but Mark is, after all, an officer of the law

'and so I assumed whatever he had planned was at least legal.

'Suitably intrigued, I did as I was asked,

'which is how I ended up in a drab little room

-'at an anonymous location...'

-Hi, Rhys.

-Hiya.

'..face to face with one of nature's greatest jewels.'

We've got some property here, Rhys,

that we've seized as part of a court case.

I think you're going to find this really interesting.

Let's just help the specimen out there.

'A rhino horn.'

Look at that. Oh, it's mounted as well.

How old is this, Mark?

We think it's pre-1947 and there's a bit of a story to this.

This went up for auction some two years ago

and a gentleman from Shanghai bought it via online auction.

How much do you think he paid for it two years ago?

£30-40,000? Something like that.

Yeah, it was £43,000.

Of course, since then, as you know,

its value now has practically tripled.

'In fact, on today's black market,

'the horn is worth at least £130,000

'and it has been seized by South Wales Police

'because the buyer, who bought it in Wales, then tried to export it

'out of the UK, which is illegal.

'And here's the reason why.

'In 2011, a rumour came out of Vietnam that rhino horn

'could cure cancer.

'This is, of course, medically and scientifically,

'complete and utter rubbish.

'Rhino horn is made entirely of keratin - the same

'stuff as human nail and hair - and no medical body is suggesting

'that we bite our nails as a cure for cancer.

'But this hasn't stopped the demand for rhino horn

'rocketing in the newly-rich Far East,

'where an illegal, underground trade

'uses it as a so-called cure in traditional Asian medicine.

'The currently demand for rhino horn as an alleged cure for cancer

'is so great that on the black market it sells for three times

'the price of gold, leading to an unscrupulous gold rush for rhino.

'Last year alone, over 1,000 rhino were murdered by armed gangs

'across Africa, solely for their horn.

'At current rates, rhino will be extinct in the wild

'within the next 20 years.

'But what's that got to do with little, old us

'in little, old Wales?'

Come on, sweetheart.

We want to get as close as we can to the base

because obviously that's where, presumably,

the most viable DNA would be.

'Well. believe it or not, Mark and I are part of

'the front line fight against this barbaric trade.'

That's it. Now, this is where I want to go in

and actually drill down into this section here.

'How? Well, the black market demand for rhino horn is now

'so great that, world-wide, including here in the UK,

'museums, auction houses, private collections and even zoos are being

'targeted by criminal gangs, intent on stealing their rhino horn.

'In response, wildlife crime bodies

'have devised a new way to combat the thieves.'

What we're doing is, across the UK, every piece of rhino horn -

museum piece or live animal - we're getting a DNA profile

done on each piece of horn.

So that, for me, as a police officer,

if this was stolen and it was identified in Europe or perhaps Asia

we can actually trace it by a DNA sample all the way back to this day.

'Which is where my training as an evolutionary biologist

'who has carried out hundreds of DNA tests comes into play.

'Mind you, I've never sampled a rhino horn before.'

I'm actually a bit nervous cos I'm thinking,

"This is a lot of money, Rhys."

Oh, yeah, yeah. The DNA is very delicate

so we want the cells intact.

So we have to drill through very slowly,

very delicately to recover the information.

-Dr Jones knows best.

-Well, hopefully this'll work.

'Truthfully, I'm a tad nervous myself.'

-OK.

-Yeah.

'Keratin is a really tough material.

'If I don't apply enough force, I won't be able to extract

'a sample cleanly.

'But if I drill too fast, I could fry the DNA and

'our hopes for getting to the bottom of this case could go up in smoke.'

I can't believe we're doing this.

And the material coming out, it just looks so fresh.

-It looks the colour of cooked pasta.

-There we go. Perfect.

Have a smell of that now, Mark.

Oh. Actually, that smells exactly like burnt hair.

'Whilst this horn is heading back to its high-security lock-up,

'I'll be taking these samples to my lab at Cardiff University,

'where hopefully I'll not only profile the DNA

'but also determine the species of rhino it came from.

'Springtime in Wales guarantees three things -

'stunning landscapes,

'glorious nature

'and wild fires.

'Lots and lots of wildfires.'

Over the weekend,

fire crews were called to 69 grass fires across South Wales

which were started deliberately.

'In fact, so many of them that the South Wales valleys have eight times

'the amount of grass and forest fires each spring

'as the whole of the rest of the UK combined.

'And, sadly, the majority of these fires are started deliberately.

'And, whilst the danger to human life is readily apparent,

'there's also a devastating price for our wildlife.

'Reptiles are particularly vulnerable.

'Slow worms, adders, lizards, grass snakes -

'they're not as fast and agile as you might think.

'They can't fly away like birds,

'or run over rough terrain like foxes or badgers

'so they're often trapped with no hope of escape.

'Once a fire is out, I'll go in and see

'if anything has managed to survive.

'I'll relocate any lucky reptile to a safer nearby area.

'But quite often, I'm just too late.'

That was a slow worm. Absolutely cooked right through.

It's solid.

'Thankfully, there are some lucky wildfire wildlife escapes although

'perhaps the animal in my next case might not totally agree with me.

'A wild fire in the Sirhowy Valley

'led to a call from the village of Cwmfelinfach.

'Locals reported an adder slithering down their terraced street.

'By the time I arrived, there was a welcoming committee

'and the snake had apparently taken up residence

'in the brickwork of one of the end-of-terrace houses.

'The snake had a reluctant new next-door neighbour.'

Jackie, the snake is right next door to you. What happened exactly?

When were you first aware the snake was here?

Well, my son called me out and it was just by there.

I couldn't get over it.

-Literally on the pavement here?

-No. Well, just down by there.

OK. Right. Was it travelling in a direction or was it curled up or...?

-No, slithering around.

-OK, slithering down.

So if it was in this direction,

-it was coming from further up the street.

-Yeah.

-OK.

You can smell a lot of smoke around here. Is there a fire in the area?

Yeah, there has been, yeah.

Yeah? What's happened? In the local forestry here?

Not this mountain, the other mountain.

OK, so wildlife could have been pushed out from where it would

-be normally...

-Yes.

-..and it's now in this hole over here.

OK, guys, can I just say, seriously a minute, OK? This is a venomous

reptile so, please, nobody coming close if the animal comes out.

They're not aggressive.

The reality is, if somebody gets bitten, it could be serious

so let's just make sure

everybody stays out the way and we stay as quiet as we can, OK?

How on earth are we going to get in there?

I can only suggest we can knock out

that lump of concrete at the front by there.

-I'm quite happy to try.

-Yeah?

There's no clear view of any snake yet.

'Not that I'm surprised about that.

'Adders have this reputation for being big and aggressive

'and deadly - bite first, ask questions later.

'But nothing could be further from the truth.

'They're shy and retiring and a fully-grown adult will grow

'to no more than 90cm, and an adder will go out of its way to avoid

'any kind of contact with any humans, their dogs or their horses.

'Unfortunately, they're so good at hiding out of the way

'and blending into their environment that the only time most of us

'will ever encounter one is if we accidently stand on one.

'Hence the bad reputation. Because, of course,

'they are our only venomous reptile and, whilst the last person to die

'of an adder bite in the UK was almost 50 years ago,

'any bite can be fatal for dogs and horses.

'And, for humans, it's a definite hospital job.

'So I need to be careful where I put my fingers.

'Time to get out my inspection camera

'also known as a see-snake cam.'

It's going back quite far now.

The hole is at least that deep

and it goes off in a little canal to the right.

Let's see what we've got to the left here.

'Here snaky, snaky, snaky.

'Actually, there are so many nooks and crannies here,

'it's like looking for your car keys down King Solomon's mine.

'Luckily, I've got an even better idea

'that I know homeowner Tony's going to love.

'Maybe not.'

Right, that's the outside wall.

Let me have a look from there first.

That's incredible how far that goes.

The unfortunate thing is that you've not only got the enormous area,

it's all filled with rubble.

You could hide a dog down here, never mind a snake.

'Come on. No excuses, Jones.'

'Having wrecked Tony's living room, as well as his rendering,

'I wasn't about to give up that easily.

'I figured we'd wait for it to get dark

'and for the street to quieten down and we'd give it another go.

'This time, we were joined by Tony's lovely

'but rather terrified wife Emma, who was so scared of snakes

'she was reluctant to stand anywhere near her own home,

'let alone step back inside it.

'Especially when I finally located the adder.'

He's on the shelf behind that brick.

-Is it OK?

-Yeah. There's a ledge there and that's where it's sat.

You're up on this shelf, aren't you, my dear?

Yes, you are.

Where is it?

There we go.

That's amazing. I don't know how she can feel.

She's really scared at the moment.

Me and her together!

-But you can see she's not a scary animal, look, is she?

-No.

'This adder is another young, frightened female,

'but, as long as she's left alone, of absolutely no danger to anyone.'

You know, when I first came down here,

you just thought that this snake was going to take you out,

-it was going to attack you.

-It was going to kill me.

I truly, truly, truly believed that it was going to bite me and kill me.

I was like, "I'm going to die.

"I'm going to have a coronary here and now in the street.

"I am going to die." That's all I could think to myself.

Now, here I am, thinking I'm going to stand guard tonight

in case someone's drunk coming past and they're going to step on it.

There's little more we can do today now.

Tomorrow morning, she can make her escape from here straightaway.

You've seen already that she's constantly checking the front to see

if the way is clear just to get out here.

I'm quite happy to leave her be for tonight and you look the same

so shall we call it a night?

-Yes.

-Yeah.

-Thank you very much.

-Not at all.

-Thank you.

'Mercifully, Emma didn't have to stay out all night diverting

'passing drunks and she called me the following morning to say

'she had watched the adder leave its bolt hole

'and safely make for the woods at the bottom of her street.

'Earlier in the programme, I was called to a secret location

'to sample a rhino horn seized by South Wales Police.

'And I'm now visiting another secret location

'to sample more rhino horn

'as this story has come to an unexpected head.'

OK, that's the biggest specimen I've had to date, that's for sure.

But it's the same as before - drill in to the side of the horn

and get a valid sample.

'In the short space of time between drilling the original horn,

'I've been visiting museums and collections up and down Wales.

'I've got out my drill, gloves and specimen tubes

'to sample over £2 million worth

'of horn, skulls and bones

'at a series of secret locations.

'And if you think the secrecy is all a bit cloak and dagger

'and James Bond silly, think again.

'In the same period I've been collecting these samples,

'there have been more rhino horn raids,

'including the home of dancer Michael Flatley,

'whose African Room was hit

'while he and his family were in another part of the house.

'I'm taking all of my samples to the ancient DNA laboratory

'at Cardiff University, where I hope to create profiles for each one.'

-OK?

-OK. You're done.

'DNA-profiling is nothing like the instant revelations

'of CSI programmes.

'It's actually a long and laborious process.'

OK, 540 microlitres of ATL per sample tube.

'It takes several steps, over several weeks,

'and often several attempts to achieve a clean analysis.

'But, for me, it will all be worth it.

'And that's because my work with rhino is not just limited to

'laboratory analysis.

'For the past 15 years, I've been working as a conservation biologist

'with rhino on numerous breeding programmes across Kenya.

'Whilst conservation biologist sounds very posh and important,

'the reality is quite different.'

Roll you over then. Roll you over. Right. There we go.

Just making him go to the loo and then we can get the sample.

Excellent. That's as fresh as it gets.

Look at that. That's great.

Right in the middle there, we want. Brilliant.

'My specialist field is parasitology

'so my not too glamorous work

'consists of gathering and checking rhino poo to make sure each

'individual on a breeding programme is fit and healthy

'and not suffering from any parasitic diseases.

'And it was in my capacity as a rhino Doctor Poo that,

'five years ago, I met Max,

'an orphaned southern white rhino who was found as a calf

'beside the body of his mother after she was killed by poachers.

'At the time, Max was being hand-reared within a large

'enclosure at Ol Pejeta in northern Kenya.'

Right at the next roundabout.

'Two years later, in 2011, I met Max again.

'And this time, I'm delighted to say,

'he was roaming free and ready to start breeding.'

You'll probably notice that Max has been de-horned since I saw him last.

We've taken them enormous horns off him

and that's to stop poachers coming.

It's a major, major problem in the area.

Last year, when I came to see Max, I saw another rhino,

Jobe, and unfortunately he's no longer with us. Poachers got to him.

So it's a real, real issue here

and this is one way you can protect the rhinos.

'Sadly, I was wrong.

'Last year, Max was also killed for his pitiful amount of horn.

'As a true lover of these magnificent animals,

'Max's death really hit me hard.

'And I wasn't the only one.

'Prince William had also met Max

'and his outrage at his death led to the royals supporting this year's

'International Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference in London.'

There is not a moment to lose if we are to save the species.

Poachers think they can act with impunity.

We will show them they are wrong.

'Ironically, as world leaders met

'and pledged to fight the crime syndicates behind poaching,

'I was on my third day in the DNA lab...'

That's...that's a great sample.

'..where the work I was doing was also about to

'take on an international dimension

'involving a programme that might well prove the last chance

'to keep rhinos alive in the wild.

'Meanwhile, there's time for a quick eight-legged call-out.

'As I'm constantly being reminded,

'size isn't everything, especially in the world of venom.

'For example, as a rule, the larger the scorpion and its pincers,

'the weaker the venom. It's the little ones that often kill.

'And it's the same rule for snakes.

'The larger ones can squeeze the life out of you

'but it's the little ones which can inject a lethal dose.

'And here's a handy fact to note.

'A baby snake can pack just as much venom as a fully-grown adult.

'And, as for spiders, of the 40,000 species scuttling this planet,

'there are approximately 60 whose venom is

'medically significant to humans - that is, dangerous.

'The good news is that none of them are native to the UK.

'The bad - all 60 are weeny enough to make good stowaways.'

Well very interesting call-out this morning.

I'm here on the outskirts of Cardiff at an exotic pet shop.

They've just been brought a small spider that's been

recovered from a crate from a gentleman

who's emigrated from South Africa to here in Wales.

They have no idea what the spider is.

It's small, it's widow-like. They'd like a second opinion.

-Hiya, Simon.

-Rhys.

-So, tell me your story.

-Come check this out.

-OK.

So we have a member of the public. He's opened all of his suitcases

and everything he's brought with him and a spider has crawled out.

Lucky enough, he's managed to capture it and bring it in to us.

-He thinks it's a black widow.

-He thinks it's a black widow, is it?

OK. Straightaway if you think widow-looking spiders

from South Africa is something like maybe one of the button spiders.

-Yeah.

-So either brown or black button spiders.

-Yeah.

And you can see the little indentations,

-little dots on the back there.

-On the abdomen.

-Yeah, straightaway.

Normally, you've got red markings on these but if it's an older female -

this is female - those markings disappear quite rapidly anyway.

Do you know the worrying thing? Since we've had it, it's laid two egg sacs.

'Oh, a black button spider with young.

'Talk about the mother lode.

'The South African black button spiders,

'of which there are six species,

'belong to the notorious black widow family.

'And all six of them pack a neurotoxic bite

'of medical significance.

'For most adult humans, a bite means an unpleasant sweaty fever.

'But for young children and the elderly, it can be quite dangerous.

'Thankfully, that's very rare.

'As, it has to be stressed, is the appearance of

'a button spider on these shores.

'Currently, the issue in the UK is with the wannabes -

'the false black widows,

'whose appearance, but not their venom, imitates the real thing.'

This is very similar to, like, last year we had the false widow thing.

The media really went to town on the false widow.

Any small spider they see that even slightly resembles a widow,

immediately they're phoning the police or phoning us

panicking they'll be bitten, their children will be killed,

their dogs will be killed

when, in actuality, they don't want anything to do with human beings and

you've really got to put yourself in an awkward position to get bitten.

'Awkward or not, this girl's coming back to my secure pad

'to live out her days under lock and key.

'I just hope those eggs don't hatch!'

'Back at Cardiff University, word of my rhino DNA work had got out

'and my colleague, Dr Isa-Rita Russo,

'took me to one side to let me in on a little secret.

'Funded by the International Rhino Foundation,

'she is part of a small team

'that have also been working on a hush-hush rhino project.'

-Wow.

-And then also if you look at actually sample number...

'But, unlike my little Welsh effort,

'they have been studying black rhino across the whole African continent

'and gathered over 400 samples from both existing populations

'and those that have already been driven to extinction.'

This is the first time that we've actually used a geographic-wide

approach and also the first time that we've actually used extinct

samples that only exist today in museums

and then also the extant samples that we still have in the wild.

We've actually combined the two with each other to see what we've

had in the past, what we have today and what we have lost in

the meantime in order to try and save black rhino.

'What this means in layman's terms is that, for the first time ever,

'the team have drawn up a comprehensive DNA map

'of all of the different haplotypes, or genetic breeds,

'of black rhino that have ever been known to exist.

'Shockingly, what it also reveals is that, through hunting and poaching

'in the last 200 years, of the 64 distinct breeds of black rhino

'that once lived on the African continent,

'man has already driven 44 to extinction.

'That's one every five years.

'Isa-Rita and the team might not be able to personally prevent

'the poaching but they hope that their database will now

'provide the foundation of all future black rhino breeding

'programmes, helping to protect the unique genetic

'identity of the remaining 20 breeds and also avoiding in-breeding,

'which would be as fatal to the rhino as the poachers' guns.

'I return to lab for one final bit of sequencing on my own samples,

'blown away by what Isa-Rita has told me

'but also humbled to say that she and her colleagues have asked me

'if I would like to add my nine little black rhino samples

'to their 400-plus sample database.

'I'm honoured beyond words.

'And so I'd better make sure I don't mess up this last, crucial bit!

'I've been in and out of the lab for the last five weeks

'and all that work comes down to this moment.

'Will I have a positive reading

'or a blank result?'

Oh, fantastic! Fantastic. It's worked.

-HE SIGHS

-Sigh of relief, let me tell you.

These are amazing results.

It's better than I possibly could have wished for.

This is our DNA. It's really bright, which means there's a lot of it

and I'm going to be able to read it quite easily.

'Actually, considering how hard

'extracting rhino horn DNA is supposed to be,

'I think I should get a second opinion from a fellow scientist.'

-This is perfect.

-The negatives are clean.

-The DNA is vibrant...

-It's really good.

-..there's a lot of it.

It's really good.

-It's really, really excellent. I am absolutely thrilled.

-Wow.

That's phenomenal.

'With such clear DNA, Isa-Rita and I were able to compare my samples

'with the 400-sample dataset

'and, for the first time, to our knowledge,

'determine the origin of all nine of my rhino horns.

'Four of them, including the complete head,

'were from Kenyan black rhinos.

'Two of them were not from black rhinos at all.

'One of them, an Indian rhino

'and the other, a southern white rhino.

'The last sample, sadly but perhaps not surprisingly,

'was from a Namibian rhino

'of a haplotype or breed now believed extinct in the wild.

'There's only one set of data left

'and, as the starting point for this incredible journey had been

'a phone call from PC Mark Goulding, I thought I'd give him the results

'from his seized rhino horn in person.'

One thing we talked about - are both horns from the same animal?

I can tell you that I sequenced both of the horns, I aligned them

and they are definitely, with 100% certainty, from the same animal.

Species? Did you get any kind of result?

It's black rhino.

Is it really? Well, where's it from?

With 100% certainty, it's Kenyan.

And, in all probability, it's a small region of southern Kenya,

where two national parks appear. It's called Tsavo.

There's Tsavo East, Tsavo West.

And that looks to be the area where that black rhino was shot.

Pleased with the result. It's fantastic, the DNA,

that we do have a DNA profile.

But everything else, I know how hard it is on humans.

How you'll have managed to achieve that from a historical piece,

you really pulled out the scientific big guns on that one, didn't you?

That's remarkable. Well done.

Do you know, despite the very hard work

that we undertook on that project, there is a real possibility,

within my lifetime, that the black rhino can go extinct in the wild?

And the fact is I don't know what we can do about it

because these criminal gangs are inventing new miracle cures

from various animal parts now, which are not only from the black rhino

but from elephant and tiger, even lion,

and I think the question we have to ask ourselves is

where do we want this to stop?