36,000 endangered Pangolins thought to have been killed after Singapore makes record seizure of the animals' scales
Singapore has carried the largest ever seizure of trafficked pangolin scales after a shipment carrying 12.7 tonnes of the illegal animal parts was intercepted while travelling between Nigeria and Vietnam.
The haul which set the grim record was worth an estimated £29.5 million and labelled as “frozen beef.” Packed in 230 bags, it was found next to almost 180kg of cut up and carved elephant ivory.
Roughly 36,000 pangolins are believed to have been killed for the single shipment in the 40-foot container, said Paul Thomson, an official with the Pangolin Specialist Group, an organisation that belongs to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
“The news of this record-shattering seizure is deeply alarming and underscores the fact that pangolins are facing a crisis,” he told the New York Times.
“If we don’t stop the illegal wildlife trade, pangolins face the risk of going extinct. Pangolins, or scaly anteaters, which are native to Africa and Asia, are the most illegally traded wild mammals in the world.
In the wild, they are known to scoop up ants and termites with their long, sticky tongues, and to curl up into a protective ball when threatened – behaviour which aids human hunters eager to profit from the multi-million dollar trade in the creatures.
They are poached for their meat, which is eaten as a delicacy in Vietnam and China, and for their scales, which are used in traditional Asian medicine, including for treatments to aid breast-feeding, and to relieve skin disease, rheumatism and asthma – none of which are supported by science.
In China, medicinal sales of products containing pangolin scales are still allowed through designated hospitals, and consumers often drink it in wine or in powder form.
It has been estimated that more than a million pangolins have been snatched from their habitats over the past decade and the extreme demand has put the species in the position of being “critically endangered.”
The authorities in Hong Kong held the previous record for seizing an illegal shipment of pangolin parts when they stopped 7.5 tonnes of scales, with a street value of £4.1 million, which had docked in the city in February.
After the Hong Kong haul, WildAid, an organisation which fights animal trafficking, urged China to take the same hardline stance as it did on ivory, which was slapped with a trade ban from January 2018.
“President Xi’s ivory ban turned the tide in the ivory wars,” said Peter Knights, CEO of WildAid. “Were China to end pangolin scale sales in the same way, China could help save African and Asian pangolins.”
