Another two pups were born to reintroduced pangolin. In the camera trap images below, you’ll see one of these pups at about 3 – 4 months old and his beautiful, golden-scaled mother.
Did you know?
- Pangolins hold the secrets of 85 million years of evolution
- They are the world’s only scaled mammal
- They are most closely related to the dog family, so their offspring are called pups
- In 2019 alone, 68 tons of African pangolin scales were intercepted – the equivalent of about 300 000 African pangolins
- There is 1 African pangolin taken from the wild every 5 minutes
- Pangolins are unfamiliar to the majority of the world’s population
The plight of the pangolin
Little-known and elusive – what is it about these nocturnal and secretive animals that has resulted in their precarious position as the planet’s most trafficked mammals?
If we look to Asia, in particular China and Vietnam, there is an insatiable calling for their scales that are used in over 60 different traditional medicines, as well as pangolin meat being a rare delicacy. With the near obliteration of all four of Asia’s pangolin species to meet this demand, it is now our four African species that are being targeted.
In Africa, over and above the hundreds and thousands of pangolins that are poached by highly sophisticated Asian syndicates, there are the additional pressures of habitat loss, the bushmeat trade, cultural beliefs and traditional uses in African tribal dress and medicine.
About the Pangolin Reintroduction Project
June 2019 saw the launch of this groundbreaking, collaborative project to reintroduce the Temminck’s ground pangolin to a region where it has been locally extinct (i.e. no longer a viable breeding population) for decades – in essence, bringing this species back home.
The project’s aim is to gather a body of research data on this least studied group of mammals, and through the long-term monitoring of each animal following their release, to table the learnings and best-practice protocols for reintroduction projects to follow.
A second chance
Every pangolin in this programme has been retrieved from illegal wildlife poachers and traders in undercover operations involving various law enforcement agencies.
The extreme stresses of this experience necessitate a period of stabilisation and rehabilitation before their translocation to &Beyond Phinda Private Game Reserve for the release process under the African Pangolin Working Group’s expertise and guidance.
Every pangolin rescued, rehabilitated and released through this project, has provided critical learnings. Filmmaker Will clothier tells Ramfy’s story.
Research and monitoring
A core element of this project is the long-term, intensive monitoring by the eight-man &Beyond Phinda Conservation Team during the initial pre-release period (anything from 3 – 18 days), and for a year or more post release.
The animals are fitted with VHF and UHF/GPS Satellite tracking devices which provide a wealth of fine scale data on little-known aspects of their behaviour, movements and the size of their territory and home range.
One of the biggest threats to the pangolins in the first six months following their release is suppressed diseases resulting from the stress and exposure of their time with poachers or traders.
A key indicator of a major health issue is a significant drop in their weight, so they are weighed regularly. Initially, this would be every second day, extending to every week, every fortnight and then only with their tag chances which would be every 2 – 3 months.
Ceva Wildlife Research Fund, in collaboration with the African Pangolin Working Group (APWG) is currently supporting Jessie Berndt’s PhD on pangolin conservation in which Jessie is using the project’s monitoring and research data that she has collected on site.
And the monitoring continues
Wildlife filmmaker, storyteller and conservationist, Will Clothier, first visited &Beyond Phinda Private Game Reserve in 2009. In addition to his rhino research on the reserve, he assisted in the early days of the Pangolin Reintroduction Project.
This short trailer of his full length film ‘Phinda’ highlights the continued monitoring efforts of our conservation team.
@willclothierphoto