Photo: Jane Goodall Institute
Alexis Kriel, the co-chair of the African Pangolin Working Group (APWG), has one word to describe pangolins: “magical”.
The elusive animals — the world’s only scaly mammal — have a way of “pulling you in”, she said.
“People go crazy; I’ve seen people drop on their knees when they see a pangolin. It’s just that magical. Its innocence, its sweetness and its vulnerability and the abuse is what drives people to protect this creature.”
Known as the “wise old man” of the bush, pangolins carry the secrets of 85 million years of evolution, which could now end in a single human lifespan. Globally, one pangolin is poached every three minutes.
The planet’s eight pangolin species — four in Africa and four in Asia — are all classified as vulnerable to critically endangered. Since 2014 the animals, which reproduce slowly and whose populations are unknown, have been the world’s most trafficked non-human mammal.
In Southeast Asia, pangolin scales are used in “medical elixirs” to treat ailments ranging from asthma to arthritis. They are also prized for their meat, which is considered a delicacy.
The vulnerable Temminck’s pangolin is South Africa’s only indigenous species of pangolin.
It continues to face a significant population decline, projected at 30% to 40% over the next three generations.
This is primarily because of exploitation for traditional medicine and bushmeat, the African Pangolin Working Group and Wild Africa said in a statement. From January to August 2023, authorities seized 30 pangolins, most of them from Limpopo, a known hotspot for their poaching.
Temminck’s pangolins are elusive, making it difficult to determine their population in South Africa, said Nicci Wright, the co-chair of the African Pangolin Working Group.
“As small, nocturnal, and burrow-dwelling animals, they are rarely seen and difficult to study in the wild. Unfortunately, this hasn’t stopped traffickers, and over the past decade, the illegal trade in these pangolins has steadily increased.”
In response, dedicated law enforcement teams have been conducting intelligence-led sting operations, rescuing hundreds of live pangolins and securing convictions under the Threatened or Protected Species Regulations, with some traffickers receiving the maximum 10-year sentence, Wright said.
South Africa can be seen as a key transit hub for the illegal pangolin trade in Southern Africa, with many pangolins being smuggled in from neighboring countries to be sold here.
“However, we still have no reliable data on how many pangolins are smuggled out of South Africa,” she said.
Seizures in Asia continue to uncover scales from all four African pangolin species, including Temminck’s pangolin, “highlighting the ongoing threat they face”, Wright said.
China’s pangolin proposal
Earlier this month, China submitted a proposal to Cites, the global wildlife trade convention, outlining its intention to reduce the use of pangolin scales in traditional medicine.
The submission projected a 90% decrease in pharmaceutical and hospital use of pangolin scales by 2026 and at least a 50% drop in overall medicinal use. It sets an annual
consumption quota of about one tonne, representing a reduction from the 25 tonnes allowed from 2008 to 2015.
Although this represents significant progress, conservationists worry that even a one-tonne quota could still fuel illegal trafficking, further imperilling the species.
Although the international commercial trade of pangolins was banned in 2016 under Cites and Chinese pangolins are protected by law, China still permits the use of pangolin scales in traditional Chinese medicine from a “stockpile”, according to the African Pangolin Working Group and Wild Africa.
“Authorities have refused to reveal the extent of this stockpile or its rate of use, causing concern that scales from poached pangolins continue to be traded ‘legally’,” the entities said.
In its proposal, China noted that it had not approved new medicines containing pangolin ingredients in recent years. It also called for respect for the “humanitarian spirit of treating and saving lives” for the legally obtained pangolin slices obtained before the convention, which are only used for the diagnosis and treatment of critical illnesses and difficult and complicated diseases.
“According to the requirements of the 2024 Pangolin Notice … [It] clearly stipulates that pangolin raw materials may only be used at designated hospitals, for clinical use and the production of prepared traditional Chinese medicine, and cannot be retailed outside designated hospitals. We are always committed to researching alternatives to pangolins and their products,” the proposal stated.
The number of pharmaceutical production enterprises and hospitals that use pangolin scales will be reduced. “Such [a] number is expected to decrease by 30% by the end of 2024, 60% by the end of 2025, and 90% by the end of 2026. The amount of pangolin scales for medicinal use is expected to decrease by at least 50% by the end of 2026,” it said.
Peter Knights, the chief executive of Wild Africa, said he hoped China would quickly phase out all use of pangolin scales because there were alternatives in traditional medicine and the source of the scales had never been transparent.
“We also need more awareness and better law enforcement in Africa to keep it off illegal bushmeat menus,” he added.
Kriel added that locally there’s knowledge of the prices that pangolins fetch on the international market. “Prices that are asked of pangolins in South Africa reflect that. The fact that there’s still a market for pangolins internationally, affects what we see here in the trade in South Africa.”
Making progress
Pangolins play a crucial role in natural pest control, with one adult consuming up to 70 million ants and termites a year. The animals are also deeply woven into cultural traditions. In Africa, the pangolin is viewed as a symbol of wisdom and good fortune.
“Pangolins remain underappreciated and underprotected and are in urgent need of global attention and support,” the African Pangolin Working Group and Wild Africa said.
They noted that Nigeria has taken significant steps to combat the illegal trade of pangolin scales through legislative measures and enforcement. In early 2024, it introduced the Endangered Species Conservation and Protection Bill, which, if enacted, would impose harsher penalties for trafficking in illegal wildlife products such as pangolin scales.
The illicit trade in South Africa was considered largely opportunistic, although it is increasingly organised, Kriel said.
“It is already transboundary, in the sense that there are illegal trade arrangements between South Africans and Zimbabweans and Mozambicans, for example to bring pangolins across our very porous borders … but we don’t see the kind of organised crime on the scale that it is north of us — yet”.
Pangolins retrieved from the trade are often dehydrated, starving and experiencing organ failure, Kriel noted.
“The brilliance of what people in pangolin conservation are doing in South Africa is that while we do look at the big picture and landscape level strategies, we also are concerned for every individual pangolin.”
That a pangolin that has been in the trade for under 10 days can be rehabilitated and released back into the wild is “phenomenal”, she said.
“Incrementally over time, these animals produce wild offspring. We just heard from our PhD student in Phinda [private game reserve] yesterday that out of the five adults that were originally reintroduced into Phinda, where they had been ecologically extinct for 40 years, that they’re responsible for 25 wild-born pups.”
On Saturday, the APWG launched its pangolarium — a purpose-built, specialist veterinary and rehabilitation facility — at Lapalala Wilderness in the Waterberg, Limpopo.
“Essentially we’re adding to the capacity of pangolin conservation in South Africa with a presence in that area,” Kriel said.
Limpopo has always been the province that has recorded the majority of pangolin retrievals. “And that has also increased over time so we’re well situated to treat pangolins that have been retrieved from the illegal wildlife trade in that area.”