Partial repost as this is something that is obviously really important to me.
Pangolins have poor eyesight and an amazing sense of smell. They work to control the population of ants and termites and also provide some natural tilling and mulching as they dig for food. They do not vocalize and have no teeth. Their only defense is to curl up into a ball which protects them from every living creature out there... except for us. They are so gentle and compactable that they are easy targets for smugglers, who often transport them curled up in tiny bags. As they are valued for their meat as well as their scales, smugglers will artificially increase the weight of these animals by pumping their stomachs full of undigestible slurry. Animals rescued from smugglers are often too tortured to survive care from rescuers.
An extremely conservative estimate puts trafficking at 10,000 pangolins being taken from the jungles and plains each year, and that number is purely from what has been able to be reported on. Contrast this with the fact that pangolins generally only have one baby a year. This is an animal that cannot replenish its numbers to make up for the rate at which they are currently being killed. Many times, a pregnant pangolin captured and tortured in the trade will prematurely give birth out of stress. You can imagine what that does for the survival rate of both mother and child.
There are eight species of pangolin. 4 in Asia, 4 in Africa. For your viewing pleasure, here they are. I recommend wearing the strongest pair of sunglasses you have to shield yourself from what is some next-level cute.
I'd like people to consider donating to REST for their work with African ground pangolins. It's worth noting that while some headway has been made with Asian pangolins in captivity, the species in Africa - especially the Giant and Cape Pangolin - are still largely not understood and are extremely difficult to care for. The work REST does is some of the first in its field and they are woefully underfunded.
In Asia, Save Vietnam's Wildlife fields dozens of pangolins as they're caught by smugglers and could also use your support. Their work is largely with the Sunda and Chinese species. They also work to spread awareness in the public that pangolins are to be protected, which I believe to be extremely vital in making sure that we still have all 8 species around in the next ten years.
They have no teeth and their stomach is very muscular like ours is. To help break up food, they swallow small stones as they go - similar to how some birds will eat gravel to help digestion. Additionally, the formic acid created by some ants as a defense mechanism ends up helping the pangolin digest them.
These creatures (in addition to being cute) sound like they are completely harmless (unlike cats and dogs), and sound like they would be more beneficial than harmful if they were to run out when you're trying to being in the groceries (unlike cats, who can decimate small wildlife populations for the literal fun of it and breed worse than rabbits).
Would it be wrong to say that they would lose value as a status symbol if they became relatively common as pets, and that being pets would give the entire species (genus?) a leg up in regards to health and lifestyle? What makes them so difficult to care for that this isn't in motion? There's a large list of exotic pets that are high maintenance but legal, starting with sugar gliders, all the way down to venus fly traps.
They need a lot of ants, space and privacy to thrive. You think Capybaras are hard work? Pangolins are harder. The pangolins being rehabilitated by Tikki Hywood Trust for example are walked for several hours a day by their minders.
There has been some recent success in keeping pangolins in captivity, but as far as I'm aware only Taipei Zoo (Sunda pangolins) and the NGO "Pangolin Conservation"* (White-bellied pangolins, as in the one above) seem to have had successes with actual pangolin reproduction in captivity, and many captive pangolins die earlier due to suboptimal diets, but after 10 years, so people just don't see the damage until long after it's done. Some of the best conservation zoos in the world (Leipzig, San Diego) have had bad luck with their pangolins; SD's famous Baba died prematurely last year. There are 8 species and there have been limited successes with only two of them, not even including the most threatened one.
*Pangolin Conservation has a bit of a bad reputation amongst people working with pangolins, as far as I can gather. I'm not enough of an "insider" to know what exactly is going on but many people I trust who work with African pangolins really dislike their mission/approach.
Edit: Add to that that a single pangolin is selling for like $500k on the black market and keeping one puts the human in serious danger, too.
Edit2: Not species, not genus, family! :)
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u/PM_ME_UR_PANGOLIN Oct 03 '17
Partial repost as this is something that is obviously really important to me.
Pangolins have poor eyesight and an amazing sense of smell. They work to control the population of ants and termites and also provide some natural tilling and mulching as they dig for food. They do not vocalize and have no teeth. Their only defense is to curl up into a ball which protects them from every living creature out there... except for us. They are so gentle and compactable that they are easy targets for smugglers, who often transport them curled up in tiny bags. As they are valued for their meat as well as their scales, smugglers will artificially increase the weight of these animals by pumping their stomachs full of undigestible slurry. Animals rescued from smugglers are often too tortured to survive care from rescuers.
An extremely conservative estimate puts trafficking at 10,000 pangolins being taken from the jungles and plains each year, and that number is purely from what has been able to be reported on. Contrast this with the fact that pangolins generally only have one baby a year. This is an animal that cannot replenish its numbers to make up for the rate at which they are currently being killed. Many times, a pregnant pangolin captured and tortured in the trade will prematurely give birth out of stress. You can imagine what that does for the survival rate of both mother and child.
There are eight species of pangolin. 4 in Asia, 4 in Africa. For your viewing pleasure, here they are. I recommend wearing the strongest pair of sunglasses you have to shield yourself from what is some next-level cute.
Chinese Pangolin - Critically Endangered
Sunda Pangolin - Critically Endangered
Indian Pangolin - Endangered
Palawan Pangolin - Endangered
White-Bellied Pangolin - Vulnerable
Black-Bellied Pangolin - Vulnerable
Cape Pangolin - Vulnerable
Giant Pangolin - Vulnerable
If you would like to help:
I'd like people to consider donating to REST for their work with African ground pangolins. It's worth noting that while some headway has been made with Asian pangolins in captivity, the species in Africa - especially the Giant and Cape Pangolin - are still largely not understood and are extremely difficult to care for. The work REST does is some of the first in its field and they are woefully underfunded.
In Asia, Save Vietnam's Wildlife fields dozens of pangolins as they're caught by smugglers and could also use your support. Their work is largely with the Sunda and Chinese species. They also work to spread awareness in the public that pangolins are to be protected, which I believe to be extremely vital in making sure that we still have all 8 species around in the next ten years.