SARANAC LAKE – In economics, supply isn’t sustainable if there’s no demand.

Heidi Kretser, the livelihoods and conservation coordinator with the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Saranac Lake office, wants to use that knowledge to stop the production of illegal wildlife products.

Kretser began that effort nearly a decade ago by training military personnel at Fort Drum how to recognize products made from endangered or threatened species.

More recently, that evolved into an application for mobile devices that walks users through an identification process. The app is easy to use – the user basically describes the product by answering a series of questions, and the app states whether there is concern that it came from a threatened or endangered animal.

Kretser explained that the idea is to stop vendors of illegal wildlife products, who often set up shop on military bases overseas, from making a profit.

“A rhino horn goes for something like $75,000 per pound,” Kretser said. “Once it’s sold and money changes hands, there’s an incentive to go out and get more.”

Kretser began developing a way to train military personnel in 2006 after a meeting with WCS staff. At the meeting, WCS’s Afghanistan director talked about some of the threats facing wildlife there, and he explained that the primary threat is the sale of illegal wildlife products in local markets, particularly on United States military bases in the Kabul area.

The Afghanistan director had initiated some training with military police there to shut down the on-base markets, and he also worked with the vendors to get rid of illegal items, but his efforts were frequently undone because the military police officers turn over every six to nine months.

“They would get the clearance to go on base to do the training, they would clean up the market, and then a new crop of military police would come in who weren’t trained,” Kretser said. “The vendors were very smart. They’d know there were new guys in, and they’d bring the stuff back out and try to sell it again. What we needed to do was figure out a way to get on the demand side, and get some education on the demand side.”

Kretser borrowed some confiscated products – grotesque items like an elephant-foot wastebasket, a handbag made from the hide of a Cuvier’s dwarf caiman and an ocelot fur coat – from the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s warehouse in Colorado. The items are issued to different institutions for educational purposes.

“Most people that see it feel like it’s kind of disgusting,” Kretser said. “I think there’s been enough environmental education of the generation that’s coming up through. Most of the military personnel average between 18 and 26 years old, so they see something like this and they think it’s gross.”

Next, Kretser contacted Fort Drum, which was mobilizing some 80,000 troops a year to Afghanistan at that time. Officials there told her about Safety Day, an event for soldiers that’s akin to a craft fair of safety tables on far-ranging topics like protecting yourself from the sun, picking out the right footwear, protecting yourself from sexually transmitted diseases and eating well.

Starting in 2008, Kretser helped run a booth on illegal wildlife products. The first year, they also did a short survey that asked simple, straightforward questions about where the soldiers have been, what animal products they’ve seen and what products they’ve bought.

“From that survey, we learned that about 40 percent of soldiers had either seen, purchased themselves or seen other soldiers purchase products made from wildlife,” Kretser said. “We didn’t ask if they were threatened or endangered, but that tidbit was enough to go to the Department of Defense and say, ‘Look, we have confirmation in this survey that people are interested in buying wildlife products, and we know for certain that (soldiers at) military installations in Kabul, Afghanistan, are doing it.'”

Among the items sold at the on-base markets are products made from the pelts of the nine wildcat species that live in Afghanistan.

“A pelt from a snow leopard will go for about $1,000,” Kretser said. “That’s a huge amount for someone in Afghanistan. That’s like three years of salary.”

Kretser explained that the issue was exacerbated by the fact that wildlife populations in Afghanistan were largely undocumented 10 years ago because comprehensive wildlife surveys hadn’t been done. That changed a few years ago, and now there are more than 100 species on Afghanistan’s protected species list.

To educate soldiers about these species, Kretser began sending videos, PowerPoint presentations and documents to overseas units stressing that many wildlife products are illegal under the Endangered Species Act and according to local laws in other countries.

The information didn’t just list what not to buy; it also suggested other local products that are safe, like carpets and handmade jewelry.

Kretser said there is evidence the effort has made an impact. The last time WCS representatives did a survey on a military base, they only found a few items. In previous years, they often found up to 150 items in one visit. But that doesn’t mean the problem is solved.

“While we have these different training programs, sometimes it’s difficult to get to the bases in Kabul because of security concerns,” Kretser said. “We’ll miss several rotations of military police coming through.”

That’s where the app comes in. It’s free, and it can be downloaded and used offline so soldiers can access it anywhere, at any time. It became available for Android operating system in December and for Apple shortly thereafter. Both can also be found at www.wcswildlifetrade.org.

Kretser said the focus is on places like Afghanistan and Iraq, where the sale of ivory trinkets and turtle shells is more common, but it can be used anywhere.

“It’s best used when coupled with training, but somebody can go through and use it and pick it up because it’s designed for people who really know nothing about wildlife at all,” Kretser said.

Kretser gathered images from the American Museum of Natural History and from the Charles Dickert Wildlife Collection in the Saranac Lake Free Library. There they found gazelles, feathers and fur specimens from a black bear and a red fox.

The innovative app is the first of its kind, but Kretser said she got the idea from a low-tech source – a series of Heritage Resource Preservation playing cards, released in 2006.

The creator of the cards is Laurie Rush, an Army archeologist stationed at Fort Drum. Rush said she and Kretser have met and shared ideas, but she wasn’t directly involved in making the app.

Rush has performed comprehensive environmental reviews at bazaars overseas that included checking for illegal wildlife products. Her team was also making sure the vendors weren’t selling looted artifacts to soldiers.

“I’m an archeologist, so I’m worried about issues of heritage preservation, and she’s (Kretser) a specialist in wildlife conservation,” Rush said. “Where our interests overlap is helping to educate soldiers about our respective areas of interest.”

Decades ago, playing cards were used to train military personnel to identify enemy aircraft. The new cards, which are given to military personnel for free, tackle a range of issues about being respectful of other people’s culture and heritage.

Unlike the app, the three decks don’t just touch upon specific products. Instead, they have facts about the culture of Iraq, Egypt and Afghanistan, and they also contain instructions about what to do if you find a historic site or see items you think might have been looted from a museum or an archeological site.

“A young soldier from, let’s say Kentucky, may not necessarily know that the gorgeous leopard coat in a bazaar in Afghanistan is against the law to buy or that it’s an endangered species product, just the same way that a young soldier might not know that beautiful looking piece of pottery has illegally been looted out of an important archeological site,” Rush said.

Rush said the cards have gained momentum, and the United Nations and Norway have printed their own decks. The app could inspire something in her field, too.

“I think Heidi’s work is wonderful,” Rush said. “I’ve been now sharing her app with colleagues and asking if we can do something like that for archeology. It’s wonderful to have a colleague like her. There’s no question, we’re all constantly trying to think about how we can get soldiers to use their cellphones to do a better job.”

The motivation behind the cards isn’t just to keep soldiers from getting into trouble. Rush said that, through education, soldiers are apt to gain an understanding and respect for the culture of the country they’re stationed in.

She also said preserving cultural places, like museums and churches, is essential to rebuilding a war-torn area.

“When people have these places and they can gather in that way, that contributes to a more stable community, then you find hope for peace in the long run,” Rush said. “When all the fabric of a community is physically destroyed, it’s that much harder to rebuild. You have all of those visible reminders of the violence and the hatred when you are in the presence of a destroyed piece of cultural property.”