Pangolins Still on Dinner Tables

credit: BBC

Readers know of the plight of the pangolin or scaly anteater (Manis s.)  The rare and unusual armored mammal is on a quick trip to extinction as the most trafficked animal in the world. A recent event in Vietnam encapsulates its fate. Police in Bac Ninh province seized 42 live Manis javanica, fined the perpetrators and brought the animals to forest rangers for protection. All the good was undone when the forest rangers who are sworn to protect endangered species from the illegal animal trade auctioned the animals as meat. They collected $12,000 for their cupidity.

Pangolin blood and tongue are considered delicacies. Often the animal or its fetus is pickled whole. Its scales are used as jewelry or in folk medicines. The Chinese have consumed their pangolins to near extinction. A million or more pangolins are gone. Now they are demanding pangolins from other Southeast Asia nations and Africa. Flithy rich Asians pay up to $700 for just 2kgs of pangolin meat. Their consumption can be a deeply morbid ritual, perhaps exceed only by our chimpanzee relatives' craving for monkey meat.

The Vietnamese official in charge of the rangers dismissed the outrage saying the animals were too weak to survive, and cited an extinct law that allowed legal trade in pangolins. The law was changed a year ago. Pangolins, even those considered contriband, cannot be traded in any way. IUCN has listed the animal as critically endangered and therefore entitled to the highest level of legal protection. An IUCN co-chair of the Pangolin Specialist Group says the incident could well be official corruption. The pangolins' plight is not just an arrogant clash of cultures. A gentle, solitary animal which is a uniquely ancient species has moral right to continued existence on its home planet.