Threats to Pangolins & Pangolin Conservation

[Klipspringer]

[Lisbeth]

I hope that it was still alive.

There are a lot of opportunists around

[Richprins]

[Lisbeth]

The other Corona: Rescued pangolin is a rehabilitation success story

by Mongabay.com on 28 August 2020

- In February, a 2-year-old female pangolin named Cory was rescued in a sting operation led by the African Pangolin Working Group.

- Cory was in poor condition immediately after her rescue, but she responded well to rehabilitation, likely due to her young age.

- She was released on Manyoni Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa, where pangolins have been ecologically extinct for the past 30 to 40 years.

When the wild pangolin was rescued, she was in bad shape: dehydrated, emaciated, and weighing a mere 4.9 kilograms (10.8 pounds). She was also very young, but this was a good thing when it came to her chances of survival.

Each year, thousands of wild pangolins are caught and sold into the wildlife trade, most of them from Africa. Last year alone, authorities managed to confiscate more than 97 tons of scales from more than 150,000 African pangolins, according to the African Pangolin Working Group. Pangolins are especially valued for their scales, which are a prized ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine, but their meat is also considered to be a delicacy in many countries. The scale of this illicit trade is swiftly driving all eight species of pangolin toward extinction.

But sometimes, law enforcement is able to intervene and save a life, which is what happened for a young Temminck’s pangolin (Smutsia temminckii) named Corona, or Cory for short.


Corona the pangolin at Manyoni Reserve. Image by Casey Pratt / Love Africa Marketing.

On Feb. 4, 2020, members of the African Pangolin Working Group (APWG), working alongside intelligence and security units, managed to intervene in the sale of the pangolin. Ray Jansen, chairman of APWG, posed as a buyer, and when he met with the poachers to complete the sale, he called in the police.

Cory, who was estimated to be about 2 years old, was immediately taken to Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital for treatment. She was underweight, dehydrated, and exhausted, but she responded well to treatment.

“The young pangolins … adapt a little bit better to the recovery process,” Leno Sierra, field manager for APWG and Cory’s primary carer, told Mongabay. “They’re a little bit less stressed, I’ll say, and they adapt a little bit better to be surrounded by humans than adult pangolins. Of course, it was a struggle as with every other pangolin rescued and rehabilitated, but Cory was strong [from] the beginning, even though she was a low weight and dehydrated and very young.”

Once Cory had gained enough weight, she was inducted into APWG’s pangolin rehabilitation and “soft release” program. In 2019, APWG did something groundbreaking: it started reintroducing Temminck’s pangolins into KwaZulu-Natal, the easternmost province in South Africa, where the species has been “ecologically extinct” for the past 30 or 40 years. Several properties were chosen for this program, including Manyoni Reserve, which was Cory’s release site.


Sierra checking up on Cory. Image by Casey Pratt / Love Africa Marketing.

During the first stage of the program, Sierra took Cory for long, three-hour walks so she could forage for ants, then moved her back to a secure shelter to spend the night.

“The area she [initially] chose had crickets around, and it was a bit risky for us,” Sierra said.” So we found another area, full of termite mounds — ridiculously full of termite mounds — and we called it Las Vegas. And we took her to Las Vegas everyday to walk.”

Cory was relatively comfortable with people, which made her rehabilitation process easier, Sierra said. But when she was released in early August, she swiftly lost her interest in people.

“I used to open Cory’s box and she would climb on my shoulder on her own,” Sierra said. “And now she doesn’t want anything to do with me — in a fantastic way. It’s actually perfect. That natural behavior helps them so much to be released and … it’s incredible how quickly it happens.

“Pangolins rewild so quickly,” she added. “She’s totally fine on her own, and it’s beautiful to see her so strong and wild and normal.”


Sierra carrying Cory on her shoulder. Image by Casey Pratt / Love Africa Marketing.

Sierra and her colleagues have been keeping close tabs on Cory via her satellite tag, which provides her location at all times. Sierra has also been physically checking in on Cory; at first, she did so every day, but now it’s about once a week.

The pangolin program at Manyoni Reserve is well-publicized, but this doesn’t increase the risk of poaching, Sierra said.

“To come to an area where there’s a 23,000 hectare [56,800-acre] reserve with four pangolins … [it would be] unbelievable to try to poach one here,” she said. “The last place [poachers would] want to go is a reserve that has pangolins in the way that we have them — monitored, we know where they are, they have tags, and there aren’t many.”

A far bigger threat is the electrical fences that border the reserve, says Karen Odendaal, managing director of Manyoni Reserve.


Cory digging a burrow. Image by Casey Pratt / Love Africa Marketing.

“We’ve turned down the predator line, which is the bottom strand of our electric fences around the entire perimeter of the park, because that’s a very big risk,” she said. “Pangolins do fall victim to electrocutions, probably to a greater extent than being poached, especially in South Africa.”

Sierra says the program at Manyoni Reserve has been “incredibly successful” so far, but she and her colleagues say they hope the pangolins will eventually breed and repopulate the area. That would be the ultimate sign of success, she said, and something they hope to see in the near future.

[Richprins]

[Lisbeth]

FEEL GOOD | Ally the poached pangolin gives birth in the wild after SA team's rescue efforts

07.09.2020 | Riaan Grobler

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A mature female Temminck’s pangolin was retrieved out of the illegal trade by the South African Police Service’s Endangered Species Unit on 25 April 2020, in the Alldays region of Limpopo Province, South Africa. She was transported to a Polokwane veterinarian which is where the JHB Wildlife Vet Hospital’s Dr Karin Lourens drove to assist with the stabilizing and initial examination. During an abdominal ultrasound, it was discovered that Ally was pregnant! Pangolins which have been poached are always compromised, some worse than others, and they require a period of veterinary treatment. Once ensconced at a secure location in Johannesburg, Ally could begin to recover both psychologically and physically from her trauma. It was important for her to recover as quickly and gently as possible to prevent her miscarrying her pup because of the high stress levels she had endured. Ally also had pneumonia but regular blood tests, CT scans and ultrasounds along with careful nursing ensured that she received the best care and her pup continued to develop normally. A few weeks later, Ally was feeding well, her lungs had cleared and she had gained enough weight to be placed into her release phase. She was transported to a release site carefully selected by the African Pangolin Working Group in the Limpopo Valley. VHF and satellite telemetry tags were attached to her scales to enable the post release monitoring which is critical to ensure the animal’s well being and distribution. Ally eventually settled into an area with diverse ant species, found good burrows and relaxed into typical pangolin behavior.

Some weeks later, the APWG’s experienced release team noticed that Ally had kept the same burrow for a couple of weeks and placed camera traps to continue monitoring her. This is an ideal way of monitoring the animal without causing any distress which could affect her pregnancy or unsettle Ally. In one of these recordings, the team saw that Ally had given birth and her pup was in the burrow! This is the first ever record of one of our successfully retrieved and rehabilitated Temminck’s pangolins giving birth in the wild, after release. We are all thrilled to share this wonderful success story and wish our born free pangolin pup a safe, long and wild life!

More about the salvage of Ally if you click on the title

[Richprins]

[Lisbeth]

China still making pangolin-based treatments despite banning use of scales, report says

by Elizabeth Claire Alberts on 13 October 2020

- A new report has found that medicines containing pangolin scales are still being produced and sold throughout China, despite a recent ban on pangolin scales from the official list of approved ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine.

- According to the report, 56 companies are actively producing and selling 64 medicines containing pangolin scales, and that an additional 165 companies and 713 hospitals have the authority to produce such medicines.

- The only legal way for pharmaceutical companies and hospitals to obtain pangolin scales is through government-registered stockpiles, but conservationists say these stockpiles are poorly regulated and allow for the possibility of illegal trade.

Pangolin scales — armor-like, keratin-based plates that cover a pangolin’s body — are still being used in medicines sold and produced by Chinese companies, a new report has found. This is being done despite the Chinese government banning pangolin scales from the official list of approved ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), and even giving the highest level of national protection to three species — the Chinese (Manis pentadactyla), Sunda (M. javanica) and Indian (M. crassicaudata) pangolins — back in June.

In the days following the pangolin scale ban, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a London-based nonprofit, reported that pangolin scales were still present in eight patent medicines in China’s 2020 pharmacopoeia, a reference book for TCM practitioners, although scales had been removed from the list of raw ingredients. On Oct. 13, EIA released a new report that expands upon these earlier findings.


Ground pangolin. Image by Adam Tusk / Flickr.

It reveals that 56 Chinese companies are actively producing and advertising 64 medicines containing pangolin scales, and that a further 165 companies and 713 hospitals are currently licensed to manufacture and sell these products.

One company selling pangolin-based medicine is China Beijing Tong Ren Tang Group Co. Ltd., the country’s largest TCM pharmaceutical company, which has subsidiaries in many parts of the world, as well as shareholders from major European and U.S. investment funds, the report says.

Many of these pangolin-based products are available for sale on the various companies’ websites, as well as e-commerce platforms such as eBay, according to the report.

“This is further evidence that China is maintaining its legal market, and that pharmaceutical companies are able to sell these products,” Chris Hamley, senior pangolin campaigner at EIA, told Mongabay. “The trade has not been banned.”


A closeup of pangolin scales. Image by gmacfadyen / Flickr.

The EIA report also suggests that China’s national insurance scheme continues to cover pangolin scale medicines, despite the Chinese government’s 2019 announcement that insurance would cease this coverage.

“While the yinpian — the semi-processed scale — had been removed from coverage, actually five [medicines containing pangolin scales] are remaining on there,” Hamley said. “Four of those remained on the list that had been published … in 2017, and a new one was actually added in 2019. It’s almost the opposite of what was widely believed to have been the case … it shows that the Chinese government is endorsing use of pangolin scales and stimulating demand by actually paying for TCM consumers in China to use pangolin scale medications.”

However, the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF), an environmental nonprofit that has helped facilitate protective measures for pangolins in China, says the removal of yinpian from national insurance coverage was still a positive move.

“This is a big progress as it gives a heavy blow to the pangolin scale market which now is severely limited and even stopped by this newly announced decision on shrinking the medicine insurance coverage,” Cyan Wang, international coordinator of CBCGDF, told Mongabay in an emailed statement. “In addition, the market TCM with the ingredients of pangolin and its parts is further influenced. A … [lot of] progress [has been made] in the reduction and even eradication of the usage of pangolin in medicine is foreseeable.”


A pangolin curled up in a defensive position. Image by Wildlife Alliance / Flickr.

She added that the national insurance scheme has rolled out new interim measures that will place further restrictions on pangolin scale medications, forbidding any medicines containing parts of endangered or rare wildlife.

Pharmaceutical companies and hospitals wishing to produce pangolin-based medication are only able to source scales from government-registered stockpiles, Hamley said. While there are some regulations on how these stockpiles are managed, the legal origin does not need to be verified, according to the EIA report.

“The Chinese Government claims its wildlife product traceability scheme ensures pangolin scales used in approved medicines originate only from old verified stockpiles, but there is a mismatch between availability and demand,” the report says. “Lacking traceability and transparency, the regulatory system has pervasive opportunities for laundering pangolin scales illegally sourced from throughout Asia and Africa.”

Wang says the current stockpile management system does have its pitfalls, but that illegally sourced pangolin scales could be stamped out with stricter recording efforts, DNA testing, and harsher penalties for those involved in the illegal trade.


Confiscated pangolin scales in Cagayan de Oro City in 2017, reportedly heading to Guangdong, China. Image by TRAFFIC.

All eight species of pangolins are protected under CITES Appendix I, which prohibits trade except in exceptional circumstances, but this regulation does not forbid domestic trade within China itself.

A recent report by the Washington, D.C.-based Center For Advanced Defense (C4ADS) found that the international pangolin trade is growing at a rapid rate. Between 2015 and 2019, the report says, 253 metric tons of pangolin scales were confiscated, and the annual amount of pangolin scales seized had increased by almost 400%.

While the EIA report suggests that the pangolin trade is persisting in China, and that any regulatory measures have so far been ineffective, the team at CBCGDF says there has still been major progress in pangolin conservation in China.

“We hold the positive attitude that the global pangolin smuggling trade will encounter a major turning point and greatly decrease,” Wang said. “Facts will prove that our estimation is reasonable.”

[Richprins]

[Lisbeth]

To defend itself against predators, a pangolin rolls itself into a ball, making it easy for a poacher to pop in a bag. Photo credit: Wildlife Alliance on Visual hunt / CC BY-SA

Public support in China for Government action on wildlife trade is an opportunity for pangolins

BY EIA WILDLIFE CAMPAIGNER - 15TH DECEMBER 2020 - EIA INTERNATIONAL

Pangolins are considered the most trafficked mammal in the world and one of the major threats facing them is the demand for their scales, primarily in China.

The legal market in pangolin ‘medicines’ is a key driver of the persistent demand and it is vital that the Chinese Government bans the use of pangolin scales as well as the products of other threatened species – complemented with a comprehensive demand-reduction strategy to effectively change the mindset of consumers.




Research published recently in the academic journal Biodiversity Science shows more than 90 per cent of Chinese citizens support more stringent policy and legislation on wildlife consumption, trade, and commercial exhibitions.

The survey, conducted in February this year, reflects a shifting public attitude after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and indicates support for Government action with regard to demand-reduction.

While the majority of the Chinese people do not consume endangered wildlife species and it is illegal to eat wildlife in China; the Government has created a legal exemption in its Wildlife Protection Law which enables the use of threatened species such as pangolins and leopards in traditional treatments.

This year, the Chinese Government has made two announcements to enhance protection for pangolins – but the devil remains hidden in the detail and both measures continue to legally exempt the use of pangolins in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).

Firstly, the legal status of native pangolin species in China has been raised from second-class to first-class special state protection, the highest form of protection under national legislation. Yet Article 27 of the Wildlife Protection Law permits the use of state-protected species in special circumstances, such as ‘heritage conservation’ – this article is being repeatedly referenced to authorise the transaction and production of pangolin ‘medicines’ in China, as shown in permits issued by the Chinese provincial governments.



Secondly, pangolin scales were allegedly removed from the Pharmacopoeia, the official compendium of approved medicines and treatments, in China; in June, Chinese State media reported that pangolin as an ingredient was to be removed from the official TCM pharmacopoeia and the move was widely interpreted by international media as a ban on pangolin scales.

To verify the change, EIA obtained a copy of the 2020 pharmacopoeia and confirmed that while pangolin scales had been removed from a section listing key TCM ingredients, they were still included as an ingredient in patent medicines – meaning the Government continues to legitimise and promote their use in this manner

EIA’s Smokes and Mirrors report, published in October, revealed that at least 56 TCM companies are still actively advertising online products purporting to contain pangolin while a total of 64 products on manufacturers‘ websites list pangolin as an ingredient.



Clearly, the trade in pangolin scales in China is still legal and active.

It is encouraging that an overwhelming majority of Chinese people are in favour of stopping wildlife consumption in the country. With such a strong public momentum, the Government must not miss this opportunity to completely ban the use of globally threatened species, including in TCM and commercial breeding.

As China’s Wildlife Protection Laws are under revision, EIA has submitted a detailed analysis of the revision draft with specific recommendations.

The Government of China still has a narrow window left to take heed of such concerns and uphold its commitments on biodiversity conservation.

Original article: https://eia-international.org/blog/publ ... pangolins/