A wild goose chase on the high seas off Sabah, Malaysia and a high speed car chase in Vietnam over the past week have yielded over 1,000 pangolins destined to be consumed as a delicacy or crushed into ‘medicine’.
The endangered Sunda pangolin is the only species of scaly anteater found in Cambodia, but alarming declines in their numbers have conservationists, scientists, and wildlife managers questioning just how much longer this nation will have any to call her own.
Media reports claim Thai authorities have thwarted an attempt to smuggle 50 pangolins into China via Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), a major transit route used by wildlife traffickers.
Recent pangolin seizures suggest that Africa’s pangolins are increasingly being sourced for the traditional Chinese medicine trade.
Just after Customs officials confirmed that the China-Nepal border is serving as a significant smuggling route for the illegal wildlife trade, new media reports indicate a massive upswing in pangolin poaching in areas of Nepal near the porous Chinese border.
Last week, the Assam Rifles—an Indian paramilitary force—apprehended two young men and seized from them fourteen kilograms of pangolin scales, two mobile phones, and a bank card, according to online news source, E-Pao. Read more
Malaysia’s Department of Wildlife and National Parks — more commonly known as Perhilitan — has reportedly arrested two men after they were found with a dozen defenseless pangolins in the rear of their vehicle.
In two separate incidents within a 30-day span, authorities in Thailand and Indonesia have rescued more than 200 pangolins from wildlife traffickers.
With at least one pangolin being killed every hour of every day throughout their Asiatic range, this elusive creature has become the most commonly smuggled mammal in Southeast Asia. The extent of illegal pangolin trade is shocking and experts say the two most endangered species could go extinct within ten years, if current trends continue.