More than 35,000. That’s how many Sunda pangolins are known to have been lost to poaching and wildlife trafficking within a few short years in neighboring Indonesia. Shocking? You bet. According to a new study by the wildlife-monitoring watchdog TRAFFIC, as many as 35,632 pangolins were seized in 111 enforcement…
Time to celebrate: Pangolins in Sabah may soon be “totally protected.” At last. Currently, the placid animals, which are prime targets for poachers, can still be hunted with a license. Yet if the state’s Tourism, Culture and Environment minister Masidi Manjun finally has his way, no more such permits will…
The car chase that ensued on a major road in Vietnam led to an unexpected discovery: a load of 118 critically endangered pangolins weighing 556kg. Local police in the province of Ha Tinh knew something was amiss when the driver of a minivan refused to stop for a routine inspection at a…
In a move hailed by conservationists as a major milestone, CITES has imposed a total worldwide ban on the sale of pangolins. Does that mean pangolins, including Malaysia’s own Sunda pangolins, are saved? That depends. A ban will only work if it is enforced vigorously in countries like Malaysia. And…
Pangolins, those endearing scaly anteaters, are the world’s most trafficked animals. They are widely sought in China and Vietnam for their meat as an ingredient in exotic dishes and for their scales in traditional medicine. If the illegal trafficking is allowed to continue in them, these harmless creatures are bound…
When we think of illegal wildlife trafficking, we routinely picture organized gangs of poachers and traffickers who keep on relentlessly denuding forests of their protected species so as to sell them far and wide across national borders with some help from corrupt officials who are willing to turn a blind…
Long snout. Darting, sticky tongue. Black-button eyes. Scaly armor. Formidable claws. Tapering tail. Pangolins look like some alien species of mammalian warriors dreamed up by a cartoonist with an overactive imagination for a Japanese Manga Comics series. Yet for all their scales and claws, pangolins are gentle, inquisitive creatures that…