on Campus SPE T U O AK
Issue 2 • March 2013 • For daily updates visit www.uwc.ac.za
Inside HySA’s hydrogenpowered golf cart page 4
STOP THE VIOLENCE
UWC Speak Out Campaign page 8
Parliament partners with UWC page 14
I TAKE RESPONSIBILITY!
UWC football ladies make the Banyana Banyana cut page 15
Your Source for University News
Where’s the game? Check the barcode before you buy the meat
H
ow do we really know what we are eating? Professor Sean Davison, Professor Maria Eugenia D’Amato and Kevin Cloete from UWC’s DNA Forensics Lab recently released findings that show how DNA barcodes can be used to identify even very closely related species. Results from the study show that the labelling of game meat in South Africa is very poor, with different species being substituted almost 80% of the time. Using mitochondrial COI DNA barcoding and cytb sequencing, researchers analysed samples of game meat – used as biltong – from supermarkets, wholesalers and other outlets, and compared them to known samples and library sequences. Of 146 samples, over 100 were mislabelled. All the samples labelled as beef samples were correct, but in the most badly labelled case, 92 % of kudu meat was actually from different species. Only 24% of meat identified as springbok and 30% of meat identified as ostrich biltong was correctly identified. The rest were horse, impala, hartebeest, wildebeest, waterbok, eland, gemsbok, duiker, giraffe, kangaroo, lamb, pork or beef. Worryingly, one sample labelled as zebra was in fact mountain zebra, a Red-Listed species threatened with extinction. The reasons for the mislabelling are as yet unclear. The biltong market is complex – with the involvement of hunters and ranchers, small-scale family businesses and wholesalers as well as manufacturers who buy meat, the points of entry for either error or intentional
Kevin Cloete, Professor Sean Davison and Professor Eugenia D’Amato of UWC’s DNA Forensics Laboratory, examining possibly mislabelled South African biltong. substitution are numerous. “The delivery of unidentifiable animal carcasses to market and the general lack of regulations increase the chances of species mislabelling and fraud,” says D’Amato. “This has implications for species safety, but
also has cultural and religious implications. This technique is also able to provide new information about the identity of animals and meant that we found several animals whose DNA had been misidentified in the scientific libraries.”