As China cracks down on the illegal trafficking, surviving pangolins are sent to rescue centres. However, despite decades of efforts, pangolins do not adapt well to life in captivity.

“Captive breeding of pangolins started as early as the 1980s in China, yet without significant success. I started my pangolin breeding research in 2010, and they only survive an average of two to three years in human care,” said a domestic pangolin expert who spoke on condition of anonymity. In the wild, a pangolin can live up to 20 years.

Many rescued pangolins often die within a few months or at most a few years due to a so-far-unidentified gastrointestinal disease or pneumonia. “So far there are no successful conservation breeding programs for pangolins, and so we need further scientific research for the purpose of pangolin species conservation,” the expert said.

Due to the high mortality rate, successful captive breeding remains elusive. At the Jinhua Wildlife Rescue Centre in Zhejiang province, former keeper Xiao Chen said she really missed two pangolins, Rou Rou (meaty) and Tuan Tuan (chubby) she had taken care of for several months. “When I first saw them in December 2017, they would eat a prepared diet by themselves,” Xiao said. “They were very timid and would stop and sniff when you came to them.” She adored the creatures, and when the weather was warm, she and the other staff would take them to forage around in the nearby clumps of bamboo.

But in April 2018, the two pangolins suddenly fell ill and died. Xiao Chen cried for two days and left the job with a broken heart. “Although we didn’t know why they died, I still felt so responsible for not being capable or professional enough, otherwise I might have saved their lives,” said Xiao.

Since 2017, forestry authorities have sent all 12 pangolins found in Zhejiang to Jinhua for rescue and breeding.

But in mid-March, when NewsChina visited the rescue centre inside Jinhua Zoo, there were only two pangolins still alive, one wounded Chinese pangolin rescued in July 2018 and a Sunda pangolin (a species from Southeast Asia) sent over in late January 2019.

Wang Pei, manager of the rescue centre, prepares a diet of dried ants, bee larvae and other protein and vitamins. “At first, I tried to feed them with their familiar diet of ants and termites so they could acclimatise to the new environment, and then I slowly added other ingredients,” Wang said.

“We are learning gradually how to take care of them. Each rescued pangolin has a unique temperament, so you need to know that well,” Wang said, admitting the survival rate of rescued wounded pangolins has been low during the two years he’s been trying to rear them.

Wang said that it was not possible for a single rescue centre to successfully breed endangered pangolin species, but if China were to put the same amount of effort in as it has with the giant panda, there will be progress.

“These pangolins are naturally friendly, and the key to making them approachable is loving them when you take care of them,” Wang said.

Xie Chungang from Jinhua Forestry Bureau Wildlife Protection Department said that Zhejiang provincial and local city government are to invest 4.8 million yuan (US$718,358) to set up an open artificial habitat covering 2,000 square metres at Jinhua Zoo to improve living conditions for rescued pangolins.

“After we achieve the successful rescue and breeding of pangolins, our ambition is to rewild healthy ones in the long term,” Xie said. “But right now, we are just taking baby steps to ensure their survival.”

Due to the low survival rates and high cost, pangolin breeding and farming, which used to be prevalent in southern provinces, has dwindled in recent years. A research paper on guiding and regulating practitioners’ breeding activities has been written by more than 20 international experts from the IUCN Pangolin Specialist Group according to Wu Shibao, a member of the group and a professor at South China Normal University. “Captive breeding should only be performed when it is good for preservation of the species, while commercial utilization and farming of pangolin should be restricted,” Wu said.

“But there is still hope to revive the Chinese pangolin before it is functionally extinct.”

Rewilding attempts

Both inside China and internationally some conservationists advocate a strategy of rewilding healthy pangolins into natural habitats. But pangolin experts like Wu Shibao argue scientists need to do more research first.

In late January 2019, the NFGA organised a meeting inviting forestry department representatives from nine southern provinces in China where pangolins used to range to discuss future preservation measures. During the meeting, Guangxi Forestry Bureau revealed a plan to rewild two healthy Chinese pangolins, said Zhang Siyuan from CBCGDF who participated in the meeting as an observer.

However, there has been little progress on the ground.

From a pangolin expert’s point of view, rewilding also requires preparation and should not be done hastily. Despite successful captive breeding of pangolins in the Taipei Zoo over the previous decade, Professor Ching-Min Sun from the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology in Taiwan said rescued surviving pangolins or their offspring from the Taipei Zoo have never been released.

Ban medicinal use before it’s too late

Both domestic researchers and conservationists are calling for urgent increased preservation efforts and a complete prohibition of the use of pangolin scales in traditional Chinese medicine, imitating the ban on tiger bones and rhino horn, adopted as early as 1993.

The NFGA did not respond to repeated inquiries on when pangolin scales would be removed from the Chinese Pharmacopoeia, an official compendium of drugs, and be banned from all medicinal use. A source from the NFGA only admitted that the pangolin’s protection status in China would be reclassified from a Class II to a Class I Key Protected Species within this year.

“I hope there will be a designated reserve or national park for pangolins in China someday in the future, and that I can see the wild pangolins in nature,” said Zhang Siyuan. “This is a dream of mine.”

This is an edited version of an article first published in NewsChina magazine, where Wang Yan is a journalist and editor.

Original news article:

https://chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/11275-The-plight-of-the-pangolin-in-China