Disturbing look at the trade in pangolins
PANGOLINS: SCALES OF INJUSTICE Richard Peirce Struik Nature Review: Orielle Berry
IN ONE of the final chapters of his disturbingly frank and revealing book on pangolins, Richard Peirce writes that when he was interviewing a Bushman elder, Izak, he told the author that whoever killed a pangolin would have bad luck. Written before the start of the sweeping coronavirus pandemic, it was a somewhat prophetic and credible comment, as Peirce says, of the pangolin’s way of striking back against the human abuse of their species.
The enigmatic and somewhat endearing pangolin is the most trafficked mammal in the world. In 2018, a scientific paper, according to Peirce, estimated that at least 400 000 were being harvested annually in Central Africa for their meat and scales; in 2019 over 97 tons of illegally shipped scales from Africa were intercepted being exported into Asia. This equates to 160 000 pangolin victims, and many more probably evaded detection.
Pangolins have long been sustainably harvested by local communities for their meat and scales, but today the massive trade in these mammals has reached crisis point.
While eight pangolin species occur worldwide, four in Asia and four in Africa, all face extinction if the current rates of hunting and trading continue unabated. Peirce offers many other shocking statistics to back his appeal for awareness of the threat to pangolins. For example, between 2019 and 2020, several large shipments that had originated in Nigeria were intercepted in Singapore. Experts believe these shipments could have accounted for 100 000 African pangolins, representing all four species.
Peirce puts a human spin on the dire situation of the mammal – opening the book with the way trafficking starts. Using a real life situation, he describes how one such animal is poached in Zimbabwe, to its terrifying journey across borders, without food, to a meeting point in Joburg. After many negotiations and changes of plan, it is sold to a waiting dealer. A tip-off allows a sting operation where an agent from the African Pangolin Working Group, working with local police, manages to capture the traffickers, rescues the animal from near death and returns it after much rehabilitation into the wild.
But most pangolins are not so lucky and end up in the wet markets of Asia. Peirce writes vividly of how he visits many wildlife markets and even a restaurant where, for a price, you can eat any animal you want.
There are horrifying pictures of pangolins and other wildlife in cages stuck one on top of each other in the wet markets; where their bodily fluids mingle unchecked. It’s both sickening and deeply disturbing.
As we all know by now, the pangolin has been fingered as a possible vector for the transmission of the coronavirus from its bat hosts to humans.
Peirce also unpacks fascinating facts about the little-known pangolin and its elusive character, and details how those that are rescued are being mostly well rehabilitated and integrated into welcoming game reserves.
Huge amounts of money, writes Peirce, have been spent over many decades and there has been a serious commitment by governments to fight international dealers. Yet they have continued to ply their trade.
It took this devastating pandemic for Asian countries to start putting in place restrictions to curb the trafficking – a stop press section at the end of the book provides some positive news: detailing how both China and Vietnam have taken measures to increase protection for pangolins and stop the trade of wildlife in markets.