Assessment of forensic evidence utilized in wildlife cases in the Australian judicial system

Australia’s endemic animals are poached from the wild to supply the global illegal wildlife trade. Wildlife forensic science is applied in Australian criminal investigations and has been documented in the scientific literature but lacks an evaluation on how forensic evidence is used in court. The aim of our study was to identify taxa and forensic evidence involved in cases and highlight where additional forensic evidence could have been valuable. Case citations and legislation were queried in legal databases from April−June 2025, resulting in a dataset of 41 cases. Within these cases, over 1,700 Australian individual animals were listed, and the predominant type of forensic evidence was taxonomic identification via morphology. In the 14 cases that had additional forensic evidence, expert witness statements and forensic DNA analysis were submitted. Lower court judgments were not publicly available through legal databases and therefore our findings underestimate the true number of cases and animals involved; limiting our understanding in how forensic evidence has been applied. We provide recommendations for judiciary, enforcement, government, and conservation stakeholders to improve how forensic science is reported from court, highlight the range of methods applied, and raise awareness on the impact of the illegal wildlife trade on native fauna.