CI-NEWS

World Pangolin Day preparations gather steam.

2020-02-11

No: 470

World Pangolin Day preparations gather steam.

The 9th annual World Pangolin Day shall be celebrated throughout the country on February 15, 2020. The celebrations are expected to include sensitization activities to draw public awareness to the plight of the pangolin that is said to be facing serious survival challenges.

Activities to mark the day shall include a press conference organized by the Cameroon Pangolin Working Group and distribution of flyers to enable the greater public understand the challenges pangolins and those working to protect them are facing. The situation, organisers of the conference say, is alarming and needs urgent action.

Poaching and trafficking in pangolins are considered to be the two greatest threats facing the species. According to reports from the law enforcement body LAGA (EAGLE Cameroon), in 2019, 4 traffickers were arrested in Douala with approximately 1.7 tons of pangolin scales. It was found after several preliminary investigations that they were long-standing traffickers working in collaboration with traffickers in Nigeria. They operated mainly in the regions of South and East Cameroon.

Two Chinese nationals were arrested in the same town in 2017 with over 5 tons of pangolin scales. The seizure was the biggest ever made in the Central African sub region and the illegal cargo was intercepted as it was about to be shipped to China, a country that is considered to be the main destination for scales leaving the region. The alarming and sudden spikes in the illegal trade in pangolin scales is unsettling many conservationists who fully understand the devastation this is causing pangolin populations while the world looks on. But things may soon be changing with reports from China indicating that the current coronavirus that has affected thousands of people mainly in China and other parts of the world may have jumped from the pangolins to humans.

The animal has too often been ignored and perceptions about it are not very flattering compared to iconic species such as the elephants, lions, leopards, hippos and more. This problem, alongside the two other major threats of poaching and trafficking, needs to be addressed to halt the current extinction trend. Conservation responses need to come thick and fast and the country is waking up to the grim reality. A brand new center has just been opened at the Mefou national park to rehabilitate seized live pangolins which would subsequently be released in the wild. The Tikki Hywood Foundation is running the Cameroon Pangolin Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre.

It is in the light of the above statistics and challenges that some conservation organisations including TRAFFIC, WWF, ZSL, CABAG, The Tikki Hywood Foundantion and LAGA are working together under the framework of the Cameroon Pangolin Working Group to raise awareness on the plight of the animal.

Among the four pangolins species that exist in Africa, three are based in the country and include the giant pangolin, which is the most threatened with extinction, the black-bellied pangolin and the white-bellied pangolin. All three pangolins are listed in the calls of totally protected species. They have the same defensive mechanisms which provide very little or basically no protection against poachers. When threatened the animal that is covered with horny and overlapping scales, curls up into a ball, relying on its scales for protection, making it easy pick for poachers. This explains why captured animals on display are live because you don’t need to kill it to take it home. This is working negatively against the species that needs huge human efforts to prevent its demise.

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World Pangolin Day preparations gather steam.