Pangolins are still the world’s most traded mammals, outperforming elephants and rhinos, according to reports from World Animal Protection, an international nonprofit animal welfare organization.
When people celebrated World Animal Day yesterday, February 19, World Animal Welfare revealed that these endangered mammals are being poached for their scales and meat for use in traditional medicines, although there is no scientific evidence that their body parts have any medicinal value to have.
According to a report by World Animal Protection, “Suffering on a Large Scale – Pangolin Poaching for Traditional Medicine Trade,” it is believed that more than a million pangolins have been killed in the last decade alone, mainly trafficked for traditional medicine.
Between 2010 and 2015, there were 1,270 pangolin attacks in 67 countries and territories around the world. This included 120 tons of body parts, whole animals and another 46,000 individual carcasses.
The report documents the cruel and gruesome manner in which pangolins are poached and slaughtered.
“Pangolins suffer unimaginable suffering when they are smoked and pulled out of their trees and caves, beaten with clubs and arrows, and then cooked, sometimes alive for their scales. Excavation can take hours and hours of stress and terror, ”said Edith Kabesiime, campaign manager at World Animal Protection.
To combat the global trade in their bodies and dandruff and protect psoriasis from the unimaginable suffering they suffer, World Animal Protection is calling for measures, among other things. strict enforcement of national and international laws to protect, invest in, and promote herbal and synthetic medicine.
Other proposed actions include: combined and coordinated efforts by governments, NGOs, and practitioners of traditional Asian medicine, particularly in China and Vietnam, support for alternative livelihoods and education in communities where pangolins exist, and removal of pangolins from the final manual for traditional medicine for everyone who works in the industry.
Facts about pangolins
Pangolins are nocturnal animals in Africa and Asia. They are shy, burrowing mammals covered in hard, overlapping scales.
They are very important for the control of the ecosystem. It is estimated that an adult pangolin can consume more than 70 million insects annually.
Their constant habit of digging also aids the decomposition cycle, vegetation growth, and their burrows are occupied by many other species as well.
Because of their very poor reproductive performance, they are particularly prone to overuse. They give birth to one and rarely two offspring annually and, depending on the species, have a generation duration between seven and nine years.
“This, of course, means that their ability to recover from such high poaching rates is nearly impossible. Their ability to quickly roll into a tight ball when threatened also makes them more vulnerable to poachers, ”a report from WAP said.