HK shops defy pangolin ban
Traditional medicine vendors still selling scales for ‘health reasons’
HONG KONG: On a winding Hong Kong street where shops keep a dizzying array of dried produce, one highly valued ingredient is still being sold despite being subject to an international ban: deep-fried scales of endangered pangolins.
The reclusive pangolin, also known as the scaly anteater, has become the most trafficked mammal on earth due to soaring demand in China and Vietnam.
While its scales are prized for their supposed medicinal properties in treating everything from acne to liver disease and cancer, its flesh is considered a delicacy.
Trade in the animals was banned in 2016 to protect remaining populations, but AFP found traditional Chinese medicine shops in Hong Kong still selling bags of pangolin scales, stashed away out of sight.
“If you need it for health reasons, I will look to see if I have some,” one elderly shopkeeper said, before stepping on a ladder to reach a package hidden behind stacks of boxes.
He brought down a sack of deepfried scales and named his price: HK$500 (RM250) for a mere 40g.
Then he flipped through a ledger of traditional Chinese medicine recipes, showing a type of tea that calls for ground pangolin scales mixed with herbs and roots.
Hong Kong has an unenviable reputation for trading in several controversial, banned or endangered commodities, including ivory, shark fin, rhino horn and tiger parts, and critics routinely accuse the territory of failing to do enough to stamp out such practices.
The shopkeeper even refuted the need for conservation: “There are still many pangolins in Asia. They’re only saying they are endangered.”
An estimated one million of the animals have been plucked from Asian and African forests over the past decade, shunting them onto the list of species at the highest risk of extinction.
Another shop on the same street had an even bigger stash of deepfried scales, also concealed behind stacks of boxes and on sale for US$82 (RM321) per 40g.
“Pangolin can rid the body of toxins. This is really good quality and worth the price,” the saleswoman said.
Campaigners say there is no evidence to support any of the medicinal claims attributed to pangolin.
A third shopkeeper did not have scales on display but said they were available on “special order”.
About the size of a small dog, pangolins are almost defenceless in the wild, curling up into a ball when they are scared, allowing poachers to easily scoop them up.
Commercial breeding is not feasible because pangolins are picky eaters, prone to disease and easily stressed. Their average survival rate in captivity is less than five years compared to 20 years in the wild.
Hong Kong is a top destination for illegal pangolin shipments because there is demand from local residents, and the semi-autonomous city also functions as a first stop for onward smuggling to southern mainland China.
In September 2016, all 182 member nations of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) agreed to move pangolins into the highest protection category banning all trade.