Our Evening Presentation from Dr. Pepper Trail will speak on...

This fascinating talk will take us behind the scenes of the nation’s only full-service wildlife forensics laboratory, which is located in Ashland, Oregon.  With specialists in pathology, genetics, chemistry, ballistics, herpetology, mammalogy, and ornithology, the Forensics Lab provides scientific support to federal wildlife crime investigations, both in the U.S. and internationally.  Dr. Trail’s talk will provide a review of the dimensions of wildlife crime, an introduction to the Lab’s capabilities, and a series of case studies illustrating how Lab scientists use both classical methods and cutting-edge technologies to solve challenging cases. 

Dr. Pepper Trail is an Ornithologist at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Forensics Laboratory.   Since 1998, he has identified over 40,000 pieces of evidence, ranging from the feathers belonging to birds of paradise to the decomposed remains of birds recovered from oil pits.  His work as a “feather detective” is featured in the current issue of Audubon magazine.