Ecologists race against time to save the world's most poached animal

A male pangolin is being prepared to be released back into the wild at the Phinda reserve in South Africa. Photos: dpa

The world’s eyes are on the rhino, which is brutally hunted for its precious horn. But few people realise that it’s the pangolin, a small scaly mammal, that is the world’s most intensely poached and trafficked mammal.

The shy insectivores, which curl up into a ball when threatened, are critically endangered, with one African pangolin poached every five minutes, according to the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

A group of conservationists is now racing against time to

re-establish a new pangolin population at a game reserve in South Africa’s eastern KwaZulu-Natal province in an attempt to save the species from extinction.

The project is a world first.

“It’s the first time that pangolins have been reintroduced to an area where they went extinct – anywhere in South Africa, African and globally, ” says Simon Naylor, manager at the privately owned Phinda reserve, where the re-introduction is taking place.

Naylor, (left) from the Phinda reserve, and rehabilitation specialist Wright look at pangolins that have been released into the wild at the reserve in South Africa in this handout image.

Pangolins have been cursed with a near insatiable demand for their scales, which are used in traditional medicine in the Far East.

Yet, like rhino horn, pangolin scales are made of keratin, the same material as human fingernails.

Pangolin meat is also seen as a delicacy. A bowl of pangolin foetus soup sells for about US$2,500 (RM10,360) in some parts of Asia, according to Phinda ecological monitor Charli de Vos.

More than a million of the cute mammals have been poached over the past decade – more than rhinos, elephants and tigers combined, according to the ZSL.

No one knows how many of the solitary, nocturnal creatures are left in the wild, but ecologists say their numbers are decreasing fast.

All four of Asia’s pangolin species face extinction today, while Africa’s four species are increasingly targeted.

In addition to poaching, African pangolins are threatened by habitat loss, the local bush meat trade and use of their scales in traditional African dress and medicine.

A male pangolin which has been released in the Phinda reserve in South Africa.

The project at the Phinda game reserve, where a wild pangolin was last spotted in 1984, released its eighth Temminck’s pangolin, one of the four African pangolin species, recently.

The long-snouted animals have all been rescued from poachers or illegal wildlife traffickers across South Africa, who tend to mistreat the threatened animals.

Some are screwed into wooden boxes and wired into cages so tight that they’re unable to unfurl from their curled position for days. Others are tied up in sacks, left in their own urine and excrement.

“Not only are they dehydrated, starved and emaciated, they are also utterly traumatised, ” explains Nicci Wright, director of the Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital, who treats the rescued pangolins.

The solitary, nocturnal animals have to be slowly and carefully introduced to their new habitat. They initially sleep in specially designed crates indoors and are released for only a few hours while being closely followed and observed.

Once they adjust to their new environment and feed well, the pangolins are fitted with satellite tags and continue to be monitored around the clock by an anti-

poaching unit and conservation team to ensure their survival.

“If successful, the project could provide a breeding nucleus from which to create further populations of this threatened species, ” says Naylor.

But there have also been challenges. Two of the eight rescued animals have not survived. One was eaten by a crocodile, the other died of biliary.

“That’s a lot better than expected, though. The survival rate is usually one in five, so they are doing better than anyone thought possible, ” says de Vos.

Ultimately, the conservationists hope the pangolins will be comfortable enough to mate so that their population can slowly increase again.

The team is already in the process of identifying a neighbouring reserve as an additional release site, with Phinda having space for about 20 of the critters.

Ray Jansen, chairman of the African Pangolin Working Group (APWG), describes the project as “a pivotal study”.

He hopes the project will lead to a set of guidelines and best practices that can be applied by other rehabilitation projects worldwide.

“Every single pangolin matters. If you don’t save them one at a time, eventually they’ll be lost, ” says de Vos. – dpa