[Editor’s note:] China is a major destination for traded wildlife, and between 2010 and 2015, at least 120 tons of whole Pangolins, parts and scales were confiscated by law enforcement. From 2004-2014 over 1 million Pangolins were traded. It is estimated that a Pangolin is killed every 5 minutes.
Pangolins, known as scaly anteater, found in Africa and Asia, but are also known as the most trafficked mammal whose populations have plummeted in recent years in the world claimed by wildlife experts. However, mainly in China and Vietnam, Pangolins is more famous as their meat and scales widely being used in traditional medicine and considered a delicacy, causing a million pangolins been illegally plucked from the wild during the last decade to satisfy the demand.
CBCGDF has embarked on the journey of combating illegal wildlife trade. CBCGDF has been collected the data of seized pangolin scales in China and has been requesting for the disclosure of confiscated living pangolins from the Forestry Department of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Recently, CBCGDF’s pangolin advocates including Pangolin Girl Zhang Si Yuan and Dr. Zhou Jinfeng were interviewed by News China magazine.
By / Cathelina
NewsChina, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region
Due to illegal trafficking for use in medicine and for its meat the pangolin is on the brink of extinction. While conservationists and wildlife authorities in China are leading efforts to rescue and breed the shy creature, the trade persists.
Ranger Lu Hanrong had a captivated audience as he pointed at a nearby evergreen tree.
“I was on patrol when something round fell off the slope to the dirt road in front of me. Before I recognized it was a pangolin, it started to move slowly to the other side of the road and climbed up that tree looking for termites,” he told the group of visitors to Shiwan Dashan (A Hundred Thousand Mountains) Reserve, a remote forested region in southwestern China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region near the border with Vietnam.
The pangolin is often described by wildlife NGOs as the most trafficked animal in the world. / Credit: Courtesy of Jinhua Wildlife Rescue Center.
He held up his phone showing a blurry photo of the reclusive and highly endangered creature taken in April 2018. The visitors – forestry bureau staff, an animal scientist and a member of a domestic NGO dedicated to pangolin preservation – were excited to hear Lu’s tale, since their mission during this visit in late February, was to find a proper natural habitat to potentially re-wild pangolins.
“This is the first time a wild pangolin was found in Guangxi in recent years as far as I know, especially as the pangolin is an endangered species. It’s almost never seen in the wild in China now. We tried to explore the area to find any burrows of that living pangolin, but we ran out of time,” said Zhang Siyuan from the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF), a domestic non-profit public foundation.
“But we can tell this is an ideal habitat for pangolins – thick soil, proper forest coverage and most importantly, plenty of ants and termites to meet the species’ unique dietary needs, but not much human activity to disturb them,” he told NewsChina in early March.
Over Exploitation
According to the most recent International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, all eight species of pangolins found in Asia and Africa are listed as Endangered or above. The Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla), once prevalent in most parts of southern China, was classified as Critically Endangered in 2014 due to overconsumption of the species for medicinal purposes.
Official statistics indicate the average annual consumption of pangolin scales was around 26.6 tons during 2008-2015. In reality, the species is on the verge of extinction in the wild in China. It is often described by wildlife NGOs as the most trafficked animal in the world.
According to the IUCN, in the decade up to 2014, more than one million pangolins across the globe were poached and illegally traded to satisfy demand from consumers in Asia, particularly in China. The critical issue led to an upgrading of all pangolin species from Appendix II to Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) treaty in 2016, which indicates the species is threatened with extinction and is prohibited from any form of international commercial trade. China has ratified this treaty.
Pangolins are reclusive mammals with protective keratin scales covering their skin and long, sticky tongues that enable them to eat their diet of predominantly ants and termites. Throughout history, pangolin scales have been used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).
“Roast pangolin scales are combined with other TCM material to promote blood circulation and dispel clotting or swelling and are prescribed to women who want to stimulate lactation after giving birth or people who suffer from cancer,” Sun Xiuqing, a senior TCM doctor at Jingshun Hospital in Beijing told NewsChina.
A packet of pangolin scales weighing 10 grams sells for 180 yuan (US$26.8) at a Tong Ren Tang outlet in Beijing, March 1, 2019 / Credit: Wang Yan
According to China’s Wild Animal Protection Law, the sale and purchase of pangolins as a national second-class protected species is prohibited, except if it is used for “scientific research, captive breeding, exhibition or other special purposes such as use in TCM.”
In 2007, the then State Forestry Administration (SFA, now National Forest and Grasslands Administration) established a special marking system to regulate medicinal use. According to an SFA document, the system limits the legal use of pangolin scales to verified stockpiles from the SFA or other legal sources and is only to be used in licensed hospitals and authorized pharmaceutical companies. Sun admitted that with the tightening control and regulation, as well as the increasing price of pangolin scales, doctors use them less.
“There are some alternative substitutes for pangolin scales, but the medicinal effects are not comparable,” said Shi Yu, another doctor from Jingshun Hospital. “But the doctors in our hospital are aware of the protected status of the animal, so we rarely prescribe them.”
“According to chemical analysis, the main component of pangolin scales is keratin, similar to human fingernails. As each capsule contains such a small amount of pangolin scales, it is difficult to say that it has any medicinal effect,” stated a CBCGDF report on the over-exploitation of pangolins published in July 2016.
At a conservation event organized by WildAid in Hong Kong in September 2018, some TCM experts urged the use of alternatives to pangolin products.
“Many herbal medicines have very similar functions to pangolin scales,” Professor Lao Lixing, director of Hong Kong University’s School of Chinese Medicine, said in a report by the South China Morning Post.
Lao listed six substitutes including cowherb seeds and earthworms that can be used to treat certain conditions instead of pangolin scales.
Zhang Mingxia, an assistant researcher from Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, said that legal pangolin-scale products should be packaged with an official logo of a deer head. “If pangolin scales are not packaged when they’re sold, then it’s illegal for sure,” Zhang said.
However, during research carried out by NewsChina on the availability of pangolin scales, both at TCM pharmacies and on e-commerce websites, packs of scales without the official logo were readily available.
At an outlet of Tong Ren Tang, a major TCM pharmaceutical producer, a pack of scales with the official logo was retailing for 180 yuan (US$27) for 10 grams. More expensive were powdered scales, at 420 yuan (US$63) for 21 grams. But three retailers on e-commerce site Taobao, operated by Alibaba Group, offered unpackaged pangolin scales for around five yuan (US$0.5) per gram, a price suggesting they are illegal.
According to Liu Junzi from the International Fund for Animal Welfare, it continues to work with Alibaba to monitor and prevent the online trade of illegal wildlife products, despite the difficulty of spotting such transactions. Taobao did not respond to questions about the illegal sale of pangolin scales on its site sent by NewsChina in mid-April.
A pharmacist surnamed Zhu from Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, disclosed to this reporter during a recent interview that hospitals purchase pangolin scales from authorized medicine wholesalers, but due to a lack of regulation, wholesalers often mix illegally sourced pangolin parts with legal ones.
“It is apparent that a huge quantity of the sold pangolin scales are illegal, since wholesalers can easily mix legal scales with trafficked pangolin parts to escape supervision,” Zhou Jinfeng, secretary-general of CBCGDF told NewsChina last month.
Wang Pei, manager of Jinhua Wildlife Rescue Center, Zhejiang Province / Credit: Wang Yan
Captive Breeding
An updated version of China’s Wildlife Protection Law in 2017 clearly prohibits the consumption of pangolin meat and the sale of illegally sourced scales. There is a constant battle by wildlife authorities to crack down on the trade in pangolins.
In late 2018, a year-long investigation resulted in police from Central China’s Hunan Province identifying a large pangolin trafficking ring involving over 200 suspects. According to the Hunan Provincial Forestry Bureau, “The pangolins were trafficked into Guangxi from overseas, and then sold to suspects in Guangdong Province, from where they were distributed to other parts of China.”
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