Today marks #WorldPangolinDay, a day to celebrate and raise awareness for the world’s most trafficked mammal. Pangolins are unique creatures with a distinctive scaly armor that protects them from predators. Unfortunately, this has made them an easy target for poachers.
Taiwan is a rare success story in the conservation of the pangolin. Set against the forested hills and tea plantations around Taiwan’s capital city, the Taipei Zoo is home to 13 of the scaly anteaters, a subspecies of the Chinese pangolin. Wild pangolins have also been spotted wandering around the zoo at night, a remarkable turn of events for Taiwan which just a few decades ago was exporting their distinct leathery scales for use in the global fashion industry and traditional Chinese medicine.
The recovery of the local pangolin population is largely due to the landmark 1989 Wildlife Conservation Act which carries fines and prison sentences for those found guilty of unapproved export or killing of endangered animals. Hunting is also banned across Taiwan, except for a small population of Indigenous Taiwanese. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s traditional Chinese medicine industry soldiers on without ingredients from endangered plants and animals.
The shift in Taiwanese relationship with nature has also been key to the animal’s recovery. Environmentalism was a key offshoot of the island’s democracy movement and the end of martial law in 1987 opened up access to the island’s mountains and coasts for the first time in decades, fuelling a passion for the outdoors.
Despite its status as a pangolin paradise, Taiwan remains an imperfect one. Pangolins live on a diet of termites and ants, and sniffing about felled trees and rotting logs often find themselves in smallholdings where they face threats from agricultural chemicals to dogs, vehicles and the gin traps used by farmers to catch vermin. Nursing pangolins back to full health can also be a challenge depending on their injury and the fact that the easily stressed animal can often develop ulcers.
Taiwan is also using their pangolins as a form of diplomacy. In 2022, Taiwan lent a pair of pangolins – Run Hou Tang “Cough Drop” and Guo Bao “Precious Fruit” – to the Prague Zoo in the Czech Republic, one of Taiwan’s emerging allies in Europe. This month, “Cough Drop” gave birth to a healthy pup, further cementing the revival of the Formosan pangolin and ties between the new “sister cities” – Prague and Taipei.
The pangolin is still under threat from poachers who are driven by an appetite for its meat and other features. In 2019, more than 128,000 tonnes of pangolin parts were intercepted, including two shipments from Nigeria to Singapore containing 28.2 tonnes of parts from 70,000 pangolins. In 2021, at least 23.5 tonnes of pangolins and their parts were trafficked to meet the demand for its scales and meat.
On this #WorldPangolinDay let’s come together to protect these amazing scaly mammals from poachers and traffickers. Let’s raise awareness and work towards saving these creatures before it’s too late. #SaveThePangolins