Pangolins

[GeneChing]

Hopefully by now you've seen our WildAid Tiger Champion (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/info/tournament/WildAid.php) division, for our upcoming Tiger Claw's KungFuMagazine.com Championships II (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/info/tournament/index.php). I hope you can lend your support to our efforts.

Meanwhile, here's to the ongoing efforts of Operation Tram and CITES.

Smuggled wildlife: Traditional healers busted (http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=143&art_id=nw20100305162254325C476363)
March 05 2010 at 04:35PM
by Dave Clark

Police in 18 countries carried out a month-long coordinated mission against smuggled plant and animal parts used in various traditional forms of medicine, Interpol and national officers said Friday.

During the sweep, illegal products with a retail value of 10-million euros (about R102.2-million) were seized, the international law enforcement agency said.

"National wildlife enforcement authorities, police, customs and specialised units from 18 countries across all five continents worked together as part of Operation Tram which ran from 1 to 28 February," Interpol said.

British police targeted a business selling medicine from the Chinese tradition, but an Interpol spokeswoman told AFP the global operation was against all use of endangered species in cures from various cultures.

For centuries, traditional Chinese healers have used tiger bone to treat arthritis, rhinoceros horn for fevers and convulsions and bear bile to treat various infections, thus encouraging poachers to hunt rare animals.

In Rome, Italian forest rangers said they had seized 30 000 products containing wildlife worth about one million euros after checking more than 3 000 individuals, planes, baggage, and container ships.

Arrest warrants were issued against 40 individuals or companies.

"We noticed there is great deal of illegal traffic in Italy," the director of Interpol operations in Italy Colonel Giuseppe Verrocchi told AFP, adding that parts of tiger, bear and pangolin - an ant-eating mammal - and rare plants were seized.

"The products were imported directly from India, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Vietnam through the ports of Mestre, Trieste and Naples and Milan airport," an Italian statement said.

In London, the Metropolitan Police said officers had raided a Chinese traditional medicine business and found what seem to be plant species protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

"Most traditional Chinese medicines are perfectly legal. However, a small number of people continue to trade in illegal products containing endangered species," said Sergeant Ian Knox from the force's wildlife crime unit.

"This trade threatens some of the world's most iconic species, and it will continue as long as the demand exists," he added.

A director of the company that owns the raided properties will be questioned once the plants have been analysed, Scotland Yard said.

The British police have been working against the use of illegal animal and plant products in traditional Chinese medicine since 1995 under its Operation Charm, and joined Interpol's Operation Tram last month.

Police in Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Georgia, India, Italy, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, Turkey and Zimbabwe also took part in the Tram operation.

"The important cultural, historical and religious values of traditional medicines is recognised by the law enforcement community," said senior British officer Chief Constable Richard Crompton, according to the statement.

"However, the increased use of endangered species in medicines can no longer be tolerated as it places extreme pressure on their very survival," he warned.

According to Interpol, Operation Tram "revealed a large amount of medicines either containing or marketing the use of illegal ingredients such as tiger, bear and rhinoceros." - Sapa-AFP


WWF hails Interpol efforts to curb illegal wildlife trade (http://www.panda.org/wwf_news/?190205/WWF-hails-Interpol-efforts-to-curb-illegal-wildlife-trade)
Posted on 05 March 2010

Demand for tiger body parts used in traditional Chinese medicine and habitat fragmentation from unsustainable regional infrastructure development have driven the decline of the region’s Indochinese tiger population.
Related links

WWF hails the efforts of a recent worldwide Interpol operation to curb the illegal trade in traditional medicines containing endangered animal and plant species.

'Given that this crosses many borders, co-ordinating effective efforts to tackle the illegal trade in wildlife is not easy,' said WWF-UK's wildilfe trade advisor, Heather Sohl. "It's great to see 18 countries all working simultaneously to investigate and curtail the trade in traditional medicines containing threatened species. This can be a blueprint for future action on other areas of illicit wildlife trade too.'

The bust comes as WWF is preparing to call on countries which are members of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to improve law enforcement, using intelligence-led, coordinated and cross-border approaches, to stop the illegal wildlife trade, when they meet in Doha, Qatar from 13 to 25 March.

'Such measures will help protect some of our most valued and yet threatened species such as tigers, rhino and elephants,' Sohl said.

Interpol conducted a month-long investigation into the illegal trade in traditional medicines containing protected wildlife products across 18 countries, according to its website. The investigationresulted in a series of arrests worldwide and the seizure of thousands of illegal medicines worth more than EUR 10 million.

For more details about the operation, which were released today, see http://www.interpol.int/Public/ICPO/PressReleases/PR2010/PR014.asp

[GeneChing]

457 dead pangolins seized in Guangdong, 4 suspects arrested (http://shanghaiist.com/2014/09/12/457-dead-pangolins-seized-in-guangdong.php)

http://shanghaiist.com/upload/2014/09/pangolin-bodies-1.jpg

Not again! Guangdong police received a report this week about 457 dead pangolins, or scaly anteaters, that were found in Shijing Town. A total of four large fridges full of pangolin bodies were seized and four suspects were arrested, according to Tencent News.

http://shanghaiist.com/upload/2014/09/pangolin-bodies-3.jpg

All the dead bodies were placed in a morbid spread on the ground of a room, with the largest weighing more than 20 pounds. We hope one of these fellows wasn't among them.

http://shanghaiist.com/upload/2014/09/pangolin-bodies-2.jpg

A pangolin is a rare, scale-covered mammal whose armor is believed to cure cancer and asthma, as well as other ailments, in Traditional Chinese Medicine.

A sergeant involved in the operation revealed that they were tipped off by other citizens.

[Images via Tencent News]

By Christy Lau

There was a great article in NG on pangolins recently. See The Luckiest Pangolin Alive: THE STORY OF A LITTLE PANGOLIN WHO’S MAKING A BIG DIFFERENCE (http://magazine.africageographic.com/weekly/issue-10/luckiest-pangolin-alive/) by SIMON ESPLEY, 5 September, 2014

[GeneChing]

Thousands of smuggled pangolins confiscated in smuggling bust (http://www.cctv-america.com/2015/11/03/thousands-of-smuggled-pangolins-confiscated-in-smuggling-bust)

http://cdn.cctv-america.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/f9085982-0122-4783-b881-3bbcfd7695621-800x500.jpg
Guangdong authorities confiscate thousands of smuggled pangolins PHOTO/ Chinanews.com

November 3, 2015

Authorities in China’s Guangdong Province have busted a smuggling ring and confiscated 2,674 pangolins, Xinhua reported on Tuesday.

Photos taken on September 14, show dozens of pangolins without their scales, lying on the floor inside a fishing vessel. The police were on an anti-smuggling boat patrol on the Pearl River near Yamen, when suddenly they spotted the suspicious vessel.

414 boxes of frozen pangolins were discovered on it.

http://cdn.cctv-america.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/cbd41ecd-e726-49d9-8179-34b8eeef6d501.jpg

This is China’s biggest trafficking case involving the species in recent years.

The authorities arrested two suspects on the boat. According to Xinhua, the two received the shipment of smuggled pangolins in international waters, and were promised 10,000 yuan ($1,580) reward each, if they managed to deliver the pangolins to the predetermined destination.

Pangolins are listed as second-class state protected species in China. But despite being officially recognized as endangered, the species is subject to smuggling, as their meat is considered a delicacy and their scales are believed to have medicinal qualities.

http://cdn.cctv-america.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/0880d8f7-edd3-4689-b0e9-c99c895da36e1.jpg
PHOTO/ Chinanews.com

Story from Xinhua and CCTV.

Watch us live anywhere at http://www.cctvamericalive.com
Follow us: @cctv_america on Twitter | CCTVAmerica on Facebook

2,674 pangolins. That's a lot of pangolins. :(

[herb ox]

This species known as the Pangolin or Scaly Anteater is often overlooked in the discussions of endangered species which usually focuses on elephants, rhinos and tigers and sharks.... but this humble animal is easy prey for poachers, and their scales, known as Chuan Shan Jia, are prized for their blood-invigorating properties, treating diseases of the skin like boils and carbuncles, promoting lactation and regulating the menses. Chuan Shan Jia is salty in taste and cool in temperature, going to the Liver and Stomach. There are plenty of plant based herbs that can treat these conditions without endangering this species! However, the trade is surreptitious, and awhile back, I was contacted by someone on Faceb00k trying to sell me some. She stated emphatically that she had a "special permit" for "farmed pangolin scales" - BS!:eek:



http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/26549963

13 March 2014 Last updated at 07:20
'Shocking' scale of pangolin smuggling revealed
By Ella Davies Reporter, BBC Nature

Pangolin
9784

Official records show that pangolins are being illegally traded on a "shocking" scale, according to a report.

The globally threatened animals are sought for their scales which are used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Annual seizures have been estimated at roughly 10,000 animals but experts warn the illegal trade is far greater

Chinese enforcement officials worked with researchers from the UK to assess the extent of the problem.

9785
Pangolins


Zhao-Min Zhou, from the Public Security Bureau for Forests in China's Yunnan province, worked with researchers from the University of Oxford to analyse official records of pangolins seized from smugglers.

The findings are published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

"The numbers of pangolins traded are shocking, and all the more so considering the pharmaceutical pointlessness of the trade. This trade is intolerably wasteful," said Prof Macdonald, director of the University of Oxford's Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), and a co-author of the paper.

He praised the leadership of Mr Zhou in the study, which gives conservationists the first glimpse of official records of seizures.

The research team uncovered records that 2.59 tonnes of scales, representing approximately 4,870 pangolins, along with 259 intact pangolins (220 living; 39 dead) have been seized since 2010, resulting in 43 enforcement cases.

There are eight species of pangolin, four of which are found in Asia and four of which live in Africa.

Chinese and Sunda pangolins are listed as Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Indian and Philippine pangolins are considered Near Threatened, as are Africa's giant and white-bellied species.

The animals roll into a ball for protection but this only makes it easier for poachers to collect and transport them unnoticed.
Surveying the bodies of trafficked pangolins Mr Zhou examines the bodies of seized pangolins

In traditional Chinese medicine, roasted pangolin scales are thought to detoxify and drain pus, relieve palsy, and stimulate lactation.

Rapid economic growth in Asia has resulted in soaring demand in recent years.

Pangolins by post

In addition to smuggling whole animals, traffickers use the postal system to transport their contraband.

In the report, Prof Macdonald and colleagues highlight that last November, Beijing customs officials intercepted five parcels of pangolin scales weighing 70kg each.

They subsequently discovered a further tonne of scales had been shipped in this way since April, the equivalent of 1,660 individual animals.

Prolific smugglers have received prison sentences from 11 years to life but with demand out-stripping supply, the trade is only becoming more lucrative.

According to the report, pangolin scales are currently worth £360 ($600) per kilo, twice the amount they traded for in 2008.

9786
Mr Zhou examines the bodies of seized pangolins

Pangolins only give birth to one offspring per year and conservationists warn that current declines are unsustainable.

Richard Thomas, from the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC, described the animals as "overlooked" in comparison with the more "charismatic" targets of smugglers.

"Poor old pangolins are a bit of a forgotten species. There's been a lot of attention to the big iconic animals: elephants, rhinos, tigers but not much attention to pangolins."

He explained that Asian species of pangolin are protected under CITES legislation and have a "zero quota", meaning their removal from the wild for international trade is illegal.

TRAFFIC staff in Asia are helping to train customs and postal workers to help them detect smuggling attempts and raise awareness of the animals' plight.

"We've uncovered a disastrous situation and currently all the omens for the pangolin are bad but hopefully by drawing attention to this useless trade, international opinion may contribute to changing the situation of the pangolin," said Prof Macdonald.

[GeneChing]

A ranger, poacher and investigator explain pangolin trade (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/a-ranger-poacher-and-investigator-explain-pangolin-trade/2016/10/05/11a805a6-8b0e-11e6-8cdc-4fbb1973b506_story.html)

https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/Wires/Online/2016-10-05/AP/Images/UgandaSavingSpeciesPangolins-10893.jpg?uuid=2djvyIqzEeaM3E-7GXO1Bg
In this Friday, Sept. 23, 2016 photo, park ranger Denis Odong stands in an open area in Kidepo Valley National Park in northern Uganda. Although a global wildlife summit banned all trade of pangolins, doubts remain whether that will stop their illegal traffic in Africa fueled by growing demand from Asian consumers, particularly in China. (Helene Franchineau/Associated Press)

By Helene Franchineau | AP October 5 at 11:12 AM
KAMPALA, Uganda — Commercial trade in the pangolin, a scaly anteater with a distinctive coat of hard shells, is now forbidden following decisions made last week at a conservation meeting in Johannesburg.

The pangolin is the world’s most heavily trafficked mammal, with rampant poaching driven by demand for its meat, considered a delicacy in Vietnam and some parts of China, and its scales, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine.

The Associated Press spoke to a former pangolin poacher, a park ranger trying to curb poaching, and an undercover investigator about the trade.

___

THE FORMER POACHER

Michael Ojara, a 20-year-old farmer, said police arrested him in April after he caught a pangolin near his village in northwestern Uganda and tried to sell it. Ojara, whose village of Lagaji is located near Murchison Falls National Park, said he was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment.

“I don’t want to engage in poaching anymore, because I feel that if I do again, I will get arrested,” Ojara said in an interview late last month. Ojara said he had also killed an elephant a few years ago that wandered into his village from Murchison Falls because it was ruining his crops.

___

THE RANGER

Denis Odong, 30, is a Ugandan ranger who said he has only spotted a pangolin once in his eight years on the job. Odong, who works at the Kidepo Valley National Park, bordering South Sudan, said local villagers need to be provided with incentives to preserve wildlife.

But buyers of pangolin scales, which are widely used in traditional Chinese medicine, play a greater role, he added. “Even the Chinese themselves, they know that poaching the pangolins will endanger the species,” Odong said.

___

THE UNDERCOVER INVESTIGATOR

Rebecca T. works as an undercover investigator into the trade of pangolins for the Natural Resource Conservation Network, a Ugandan nonprofit group. The 27-year-old agreed to an interview on condition of partial anonymity because revealing her identity could undermine her investigations.

Posing as a potential buyer, Rebecca connects with traffickers and travels across Uganda to meet them, see the products — usually live pangolins or scales — and negotiate prices. Once a deal and meeting has been set up, the group works with police to mount an operation and arrest the traffickers.

“They have big people behind them, they are not alone,” the investigator says of the traffickers. “They use expensive dogs, sometimes guns, and if you trace these guns you find that they come from the authorities.”

___

The International Women’s Media Foundation supported Franchineau in her reporting in Uganda as part of its Africa Great Lakes Initiative.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

TCM just likes pangolins because their weird looking.

[GeneChing]

Approximately 5,000 to 7,500 pangolins. ******. :mad:


China Announces Its Largest-Ever Seizure Of Trafficked Pangolin Scales (http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/28/507220370/china-announces-its-largest-ever-seizure-of-trafficked-pangolin-scales)
December 28, 20168:06 AM ET
CAMILA DOMONOSKE

http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2016/12/28/gettyimages-630598630_wide-7e4e677e0cd500d7c0e39f09b54a995411618f81-s800-c85.jpg
An undated photo, released Wednesday, shows Shanghai customs officers checking pangolin scales at a port in Shanghai. Chinese customs seized over three tonnes of pangolin scales, state media said, in the country's biggest-ever smuggling case involving the animal parts.
STR/AFP/Getty Images

Chinese officials have seized 3.1 tonnes (more than 3.4 tons) of illegally trafficked pangolin scales from a port in Shanghai, according to state media.

It's the largest such seizure China has ever made, Xinhua News Agency reports.

Pangolins are the world's most widely trafficked mammals — their meat is a delicacy and their scales are used in traditional Chinese medicine.

All eight species of pangolin are facing extinction.

"The pangolin is about the size of a raccoon and looks like an artichoke with legs," NPR's Jackie Northam wrote last year. "Its head and body are covered with an armor of t***** scales, giving it the appearance of a reptile. When a pangolin is scared, it curls up into a tight ball."

This fall, commercial trade of the pangolin was "officially banned by the international body responsible for regulating the international trade of endangered species," as NPR's Rebecca Hersher reported.

Pangolins are now covered by "the strictest protections available under international law," she writes.

http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2016/12/28/gettyimages-610214710_wide-05a123aa8cc2412f663db761d5eb119f97b1866b-s800-c85.jpg
A game reserve guide in Zimbabwe holds a female pangolin at Wild Is Life animal sanctuary outside Harare on Sept. 22. Pangolins are the world's most heavily trafficked mammal; demand for pangolin meat and body parts is driving the secretive scaly ant-eating mammals to near extinction.
Jekesai Njikizana/AFP/Getty Images

Rebecca continued:


"In a statement following news of the international commercial ban, Elly Pepper, the deputy director of the Natural Resource Defense Council's wildlife trade initiative, wrote that the trade ban would 'give the world's most-trafficked mammal a fighting chance at survival.' "

The pangolin scales seized in Shanghai were mixed in with wood products shipped from Nigeria, Phys.org reports, citing state broadcaster CCTV.

The illicit animal parts were discovered on Dec. 10, the South China Morning Post reports, and authorities accuse the suspects of smuggling pangolin scales from Africa to China since 2015.

Approximately 5,000 to 7,500 pangolins must have been killed to produce the more than 3 tons of pangolin scales, Xinhua reports.

Based on reported black-market prices for the scales, the seized scales would have been worth more than $2 million, Phys.org says.

"The scales are nothing more than keratin, the same substance that makes up fingernails," the science news service writes. "Yet it has been falsely touted as a cure for multiple ailments, including cancer, among some practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine."

[GeneChing]

It's AngelAbaby, not Angelbaby (as an editor, I feel the pain of a misspelled headline, and maybe just a shade of schadenfreude ;) )

Good ol' WildAid (http://www.wildaid.org/). This is why we support them (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57416-WildAid-Tiger-Claw-Champion).


Angelbaby teams up with WildAid and Wunderman Shanghai to save Endangered Pangolins (http://brandinginasia.com/pangolins-wildaid-wunderman/)
It is estimated that over 1 million pangolins have been killed and illegally trafficked in the last decade to supply rising demand for their meat and scales in China and east Asia.

By Staff - Jan 12, 2017

http://brandinginasia.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Wildaid-Angelbaby-696x357.jpg

WildAid, an environmental organization that focuses on reducing the demand for wildlife products, together with Wunderman Shanghai have just launched a China-based integrated activation campaign aimed at raising public awareness of the plight of pangolins, the world’s most trafficked and least understood wild mammal.

It is estimated that over 1 million pangolins have been killed and illegally trafficked in the last decade to supply rising demand for their meat and scales in China and east Asia.
WildAid has enlisted celebrity spokesperson, Angelababy, to serve as the organization’s ambassador and have recently launched a campaign with her to promote awareness of the plight of these endangered pangolins.

http://brandinginasia.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Pangolin-Angelbaby-300x188.jpg
The might pangolin

This phase of the campaign, created by Wunderman Shanghai, includes metro and airport advertising in major Chinese cities and an interactive WeChat platform that encourages conservation awareness of these gentle creatures through an interactive game.

The interactive game involves players going on a search for pangolins in a forest. Once they are able to spot and catch a pangolin, they are given a choice of what to do with their catch: sell, cook or bring home. All responses receive a personal reply from Angelababy encouraging them to stop the killing of these defenseless creatures, delivering the message of “when the buying stops, the killing can too.” Users are then prompted to spread the word of protecting pangolins on social media.

http://brandinginasia.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Wildaid-Angelbaby-2-557x420.jpg

“We found that even with a superstar power like Angelababy, Chinese consumers are more likely to want a digital interactive platform that engages them in the message,” said Bryce Whitwam, CEO of Wunderman China.

Pangolins, the only known mammal with scales and are found in China as well as southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. These shy and harmless nocturnal mammals are the most heavily trafficked and poached for their meat and scales, believed in traditional Chinese medicine to cure rheumatism, asthma and other diseases.

http://brandinginasia.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Angelbaby-Lovely.jpg
Chinese-born Hong Kong model, actress, and singer, Yang Ying, better known as Angelababy.

All 8 global pangolin species were recently uplisted at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to appendix 1 status, meaning international trade in pangolins will be banned. But more awareness is still needed to further reduce demand for their products.

WildAid’s acting chief representative in China Steve Blake says “this partnership between WildAid and Wunderman gives us an exciting new way to deliver the message of protecting pangolins. Campaigns like these have already proven to decrease demand for wildlife products, and we believe it is only a matter of time before we can start seeing this for pangolins.”

[GeneChing]

THAILAND SEIZES RECORD HAUL OF PANGOLIN SCALES INTENDED FOR TRAFFICKING (http://www.newsweek.com/thailand-seizes-record-haul-pangolin-scales-intended-trafficking-551767?rx=us)
BY JACK MOORE ON 2/2/17 AT 1:12 PM

THAILAND
Thai authorities revealed almost 3 tonnes of pangolin scales Thursday, in what they said was a record haul of the trafficked animal part.

The scales, made out of keratin, the same protein that fingernails consist of, were shipped from the Congo, through Turkey, before authorities seized two air cargo deliveries at Bangkok’s Suvarmabhumi Airport.

The hauls, worth more than $800,000, were intended to reach Laos. Poachers would have killed some 6,000 pangolins to create that amount of scales, according to customs chief Kulit Sombatsiri, Reuters reported.

http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/full/public/2017/02/02/pangolin.jpg
A vet from Save Vietnam Wildlife (SVW), holds an injured pangolin, as part of its Carnivore and Pangolin Conservation Program in Cuc Phuong National Park in the northern province of Ninh Binh, October 22, 2016. Thai authorities seized a record 3 tonne haul of pangolin scales, they said Thursday.
HOANG DINH NAM/AFP/GETTY

“This is the biggest lot (of pangolin scales) that we have seized,” Police Major General Worapong Thongpaiboon, acting commander of Thailand’s Natural Resources and Environment Crime Division, told AFP news agency. Thai police showed the haul, packed into white bags, to journalists at Bangkok airport.

Pangolins, shy in their nature, are the world’s most-trafficked mammal. Demand for their scales has risen because of the belief in some Asian countries, Vietnam and China for example, that they have medicinal benefits.

They are viewed as a delicacy in the region and pangolin fetus soup is believed to improve male fertility. As with other exotic animal parts, such as elephant tusks, they are mostly garnered in Africa and sold in Asia.

The harmless animals have sticky tongues that allow them to eat ants and termites. The animal recedes into a ball when it feels threatened.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the global body that sets wildlife trade legislation, banned the global trade of eight species of pangolins in January. The animal is critically endangered, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

Why is it that any creature that is unusual and unique is believed to help with male virility?

[GeneChing]

I'm going to copy out all the pangolin items to their own indie thread off the Endangered Species in TCM thread (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?56248-Endangered-Species-in-TCM).


‘In love with the taste of wildlife’ – probe launched after officials hold 'endangered pangolin feast' in China (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/07/love-taste-wildlife-probe-launched-officials-hold-endangered/)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2017/02/07/pangolin-1-asociated-press-large_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq2oUEflmHZZHjcYuvN_Gr-bVmXC2g6irFbtWDjolSHWg.jpg
Pangolin's carry their offsprings on their tails CREDIT: AP

Neil Connor, beijing
7 FEBRUARY 2017 • 12:21PM

China has ordered an investigation after online images showed local officials holding a lavish banquet of meat of endangered pangolin, the most trafficked animal on earth.

The meat of the elusive creature - which is often likened to a tiny dinosaur – is seen as a delicacy by some in China, and feasts are considered an extravagant show of hospitality.

But Beijing banned the trade in pangolins more than ten years ago, amid fears that the insect-eating animal was being hunted to extinction.

The alleged feast in the southern province of Guangxi became a hot topic on the Chinese Internet this week after an online post went viral from a businessman who was present.

“This is the first time I have eaten it (pangolin), and it tasted great,” said the comment, which was posted alongside images of cooked meat and bones.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2017/02/07/Pangoli-meat-global-times-large_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqZ9XL2X431wTPNFE7gDJFdQ1vLv hkMtVb21dMmpQBfEs.jpg
'Pangolin meat' CREDIT: WEIBO/GLOBAL TIMES

“I have fell deeply in love with the taste of wildlife,” added the post, which was reputedly made by a businessman from Hong Kong who was describing a trade trip to Guangxi.

Pangolin smugglers in China can be served with prison sentences of ten years.

But there is huge demand for the nocturnal creature as its scales are highly-prized in Chinese traditional medicine as an ingredient which some believe can improve blood circulation.

Scales can sell for up to £2,000 on the black market, while a pangolin dish at Chinese restaurants would be expected to cost hundreds of pounds.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2017/02/07/JS119486308_AP_pangolin-scales-large_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqJOFPLyy_tlW1XZeapVO4-oTfaxFLFKTsddCrjfeRcj4.jpg
Thai customs officials arrange African pangolin scales at the Customs Department headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand, after they seized their biggest haul ever of African pangolin scales CREDIT: SAKCHAI LALIT/AP PHOTO

Animal protection campaigners believe up to 90,000 dead and alive pangolins have been seized by customs officials over the last ten years in China and Hong Kong.

Heather Sohl, chief adviser of wildlife, at WWF-UK, said: “Pangolins are the most trafficked mammal in the world and this is having a devastating impact on populations across Africa and Asia.”

The pangolin banquet, which was reported to have taken place in July 2015, had “violated Chinese law”, said Keith Guo, regional spokesman for Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).

“In China, some people still believe the meat of wildlife can improve health, and this has no scientific basis,” he added.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2017/02/07/PD30069642-Pangolin-2-large_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq0yUt6ugM98uus3IXa1PYRbKrvq 5ANpb-j7WGBSw77vY.jpg
A Malayan pangolin is seen out of its cage after being confiscated by the Department of Wildlife and Natural Parks in Kuala Lumpur CREDIT: JIMIN LAI/ AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Comments on Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, expressed outrage towards officials, who are often critisised for their extravagant lifestyles.

Beijing ordered provincial authorities to investigate the alleged feast, news site thepaper.cn said. Local authorities did not respond to a request from The Telegraph for comment

“So officials entertain themselves by eating endangered wildlife,” said one post. “No wonder I am concerned about the future of the country.”

Additional reporting by Christine Wei

[GeneChing]

Chinese Officials Investigated For Allegedly Serving Endangered Pangolin At Banquet (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pangolin-banquet-china-investigation_us_589d517be4b03df370d5035c?)
The world’s most trafficked mammal is protected in China. Eating pangolin carries a penalty of up to 10 years behind bars.
02/10/2017 10:04 am ET
Dominique Mosbergen
Reporter, The Huffington Post

Chinese authorities have launched an investigation into whether government officials dined on pangolin, the world’s most trafficked mammal, at a banquet in Guangxi province in 2015.

The investigation was prompted by a resurgence of social media interest in a series of photographs of the meal, first published in 2015. The photos were posted by Weibo user Ah_cal, who claimed the banquet had been hosted by Chinese government officials. One of the dishes shown was a pot of meat, which Ah_cal described as “cooked pangolin.”

The pangolin meat was “delicious,” the Weibo user wrote in a caption, noting that the mammal was a particular culinary favorite of one of the officials hosting the event.


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WildAid ✔ @WildAid
Chinese officials being probed for serving #pangolin at a banquet @sphasiaone #extinctioncrisis https://shar.es/19W909
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Chinese news outlets have identified the Weibo user as a Hong Kong businessman. He has since deleted the photographs.

“These days the quality that stands out most in our officials is wickedness,” said one Weibo user, according to Agency-France Presse.

Chinese forestry officials said on Wednesday that they’d launched an investigation into the incident.

Government officials from the Guangxi Investment Promotion Bureau have been fingered as the possible hosts of the banquet, reports Chinese news agency Xinhua. The bureau, however, has denied any involvement.

“We have diligently identified the diners in the photographs, and none of them belong to Guangxi Investment Promotion Bureau’s leadership or staff,” a spokesperson told newspaper Chengdu Shangbao.

A regional disciplinary commission has supported this claim. The commission told Xinhua that the bureau had indeed hosted an investment tour for Hong Kong entrepreneurs in July 2015, but the banquet — which it described as a “private” event — had happened after the tour and involved a few “individual members of the group.”

A government official was at the banquet, the commission said, but it was a man named Li Ning, a former official with the regional work committee of higher education. Li was arrested in May 2016 on suspicion of corruption, Xinhua reports.

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GETTY IMAGES
This pangolin was released into the wild after being seized from the illegal trade in Sibolangit, North Sumatra, Indonesia on April 27, 2015.

All eight species of pangolin are vulnerable to extinction. Some species, including the Chinese pangolin and Sunda pangolin, are critically endangered.

The primary threat facing pangolins is poaching. At least 10,000 pangolins are killed every year, both for their scales and their meat. Pangolin scales are highly-prized in Chinese traditional medicine (they are made of keratin, the same material as human fingernails, and have no medicinal value) and their meat is considered a delicacy in some parts of Asia.

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PAUL HILTON/WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR AWARDS
Photographer Paul Hilton captured this photograph last year of thousands of frozen pangolins that had been seized from a seafood trading company in Indonesia. This photograph won first prize in the single image category at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards in October.

In September, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, banned the international trade of pangolins and their parts. A few months later, Chinese authorities announced the largest ever seizure of trafficked pangolin scales in the country. More than three tons had arrived in a Shanghai port from Nigeria. Approximately 5,000 to 7,500 pangolins were estimated to have been killed for that shipment.

In China, the pangolin is a protected animal. Eating its meat is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, according to the AFP.

I used to think pangolins were hideous, but now they are growing on me. Now they seem kinda cute.

[GeneChing]

'Princess' is way to flattering a term. I was thinking something like pangolin ***** ****.


'Pangolin Princess' detained in China after posting images online of cooked wildlife (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/14/pangolin-princess-detained-china-posting-images-online-cooked/)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2016/09/15/108593186_A_man_holds_a_pangolin_at_a_wild_animal_ rescue_center_in_Cuc_Phuong_outside_Hanoi_Vietnam-large_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqEdIKu83o0pz_swQ9X1vgQYbzrE-0IEMPXiaMtKHE9z0.jpg
A man holds a pangolin at a wild animal rescue center in Cuc Phuong, outside Hanoi, Vietnam CREDIT: KHAM/REUTERS

Neil Connor, beijing
14 FEBRUARY 2017 • 2:00PM

A woman who was nicknamed “Pangolin Princess” in China after she posted online images of various cooked wildlife that she had eaten has been held by police, authorities said on Tuesday.

Among the dishes posted by the woman, who was named Ms Lin by authorities, was a soup made up of meat from eight different animals, including “pangolin, snake and swan”.

Another photo showed a dish which was described by Ms Lin – who could face ten years in prison under Chinese law - as “pangolin-blood fried rice”, along with images of live caged owls and pangolin.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2017/02/14/JS120678247_Pangolin-princess-large_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bqvh1sNWxVmCs2gJEc0YM84SKclW RvQos-sa3JxsR9-DQ.jpg
'Pangolin Princess' Ms Lin CREDIT: SOUTHERN METROPOLIS DAILY/WEIBO

The rice dish was described as “very special” in her posts, according to the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper.

A soup of pangolin and caterpillar fungus – an expensive and highly sought after ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine – was “very delicious”, Ms Lin was reported to have said.

She was detained by police in her home town of Shenzhen, in China’s south, the city’s Urban Management Bureau said in a post on its verified social media account on Tuesday.

“The forestry sub-branch of Shenzhen Police will harshly crack down against and investigate thoroughly any criminal and law-breaking behaviour relating to wildlife,” the bureau added.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2017/02/14/Pic-2-fried-rice-with-blood-of-pangolin-xlarge_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqCKQT0PXyAw9lN4HQjnBQHep1W nwAWfLF2YgsIS_3YGE.jpg
'Pangolin-blood fried rice' CREDIT: SOUTHERN METROPOLIS DAILY/WEIBO

The social media postings, which were made in 2011 and 2012, were recently deleted after web-users shared them widely, branding the poster “Pangolin Princess”.

They were highlighted on the Chinese Internet after an investigation was launched last week into a lavish banquet of pangolin meat that was allegedly held by officials in Guizhou province, which is also in China’s south.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2017/02/14/JS120678250_Pangolin-rice-xlarge_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqGLLAPY3LddE1Qiv-bsIMYO14Pz-15YqJf4CTW25MJ6s.jpg
'Eight animal soup'

The meat of the nocturnal creature is seen as a delicacy by some in China, but Beijing banned the trade in pangolins more than ten years ago, amid fears that the insect-eating animal was being hunted to extinction. Swans are also protected in China.

Google has been raising awareness to the pangolin, the world's most trafficked animal, with its latest doodle.

Additional reporting by Christine Wei

[GeneChing]

I've been wondering why this topic has been trending so much lately.


The endangered pangolin has found an unlikely ally: the same country driving it to extinction (https://qz.com/913508/the-endangered-pangolin-has-found-an-unlikely-ally-china-the-same-country-driving-it-to-extinction/)

https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/pangolin-china-trading-2017-e1487317196716.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&w=1600
A rescued pangolin stands still while being shown at a news conference in Bangkok, Thailand Saturday, May 26, 2012. The Thai custom on Friday have rescued 138 endangered pangolins worth about $46,000 that they say were to be sold and eaten outside the country. The animals hidden in a pickup truck were seized at a custom check point in Chumporn province, south of Bangkok Friday, according to the officials.
Grappling with the scale. (AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong)

WRITTEN BY Echo Huang
OBSESSION

China's Transition
February 17, 2017

The pangolin, a quirky animal that looks a bit like a pinecone come to life, has been driven to near-extinction thanks to insatiable Chinese demand for its meat and scales. The latter are especially prized in traditional medicine, based on bogus claims about their health benefits. But now the pangolin appears to have gained an unlikely guardian: Beijing.
This month Chinese authorities and state media—no doubt aware of World Pangolin Day on Feb. 18—have stepped up efforts to discourage people from eating the animal and persuade them that its parts have no medicinal value.
On Feb. 8, police launched an investigation into a 2015 banquet in Nanning, the capital of the Guangxi region, in which local officials served pangolin meat to Hong Kong investors. Bordering Vietnam, the region is known for pangolin smuggling.


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Chris Buckley 储百亮 ✔ @ChuBailiang
Guangxi police catch a smuggler who somehow crammed 39 pangolins in his car: http://goo.gl/g50ZDM
3:20 AM - 24 Jan 2014
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A post by the US nonprofit WildAid on Weibo, a social media platform in China, shows scenes from the dinner.


View image on Twitter (https://twitter.com/WildAid/status/829388076195729446/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
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Chinese officials being probed for serving #pangolin at a banquet @sphasiaone #extinctioncrisis https://shar.es/19W909
9:55 AM - 8 Feb 2017
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On Feb. 14, authorities in neighboring Guangdong province apprehended a Weibo user after seeing a 2011 post where she bragged about the “special” taste of fried rice with the animal’s blood and the “richness” of pangolin soup. Meanwhile media reports have reminded readers that fines and jail terms of more than 10 years could await those found guilty of catching, killing, buying, or selling the state-protected animal.
The People’s Daily created about a dozen Weibo posts condemning incidents like the above and stressing that the animal’s parts have no medicinal use. Another newspaper, Zhongyang Guancha, noted in a Feb. 17 editorial (link in Chinese) that “the effectiveness of pangolin scales was actually denied by many traditional Chinese medicine practitioners. In fact, a dozen scales were not as effective as green bean soup, and pangolin meat was not as rich as beef or lamb.”
China’s insatiable demand has made the pangolin the world’s most trafficked mammal, and spurred relentless hunting for it in India, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Just three months after an international trade ban on the species, authorities in Shanghai seized a massive haul of pangolin scales weighing 3.1 metric tons (3.4 tons) and valued at more than $2 million on the black market.
With incentives like that, the pangolin needs all the help it can get.

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0i9HjbdcTM

Jackie Charity work (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?41401-Jackie%92s-Charity-work) - Pangolins (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70061-Pangolins) & WildAid (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57416-WildAid-Tiger-Claw-Champion)

[GeneChing]

Good work, Zhang Jie!


Chinese textbook removes endangered pangolin from 'medicine' category (http://www.ecns.cn/news/society/2018-07-17/detail-ifyvzyvz7265631.shtml)
1 2018-07-17 16:09:51CGTN Editor : Gu Liping

A lawyer in south China’s Guangdong Province was recently astonished to find the pangolin, a national protected animal, being defined as a medicinal ingredient in a sixth grade science textbook.

In the chart, animals were categorized according to their relationship to humans under one of three options: “cloth,” “food,” or “medicine.” The pangolin was listed in the medicine category as an ingredient used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), alongside the deer. The chart can be seen in the biodiversity unit on page 139 of the “Science” book designed for sixth grade students at local primary schools.

The book did not include any relevant content about conservation or animal protection.

“How could children treat the pangolin nicely when they grow older after receiving such education?” asked the lawyer Zhang Jie. “The answer can’t be more obvious.” He also cited the fact that about 1,000,000 pangolins were smuggled into China during the past decade due to the traditional belief that the pangolin has pharmaceutical value – a belief that’s especially common in Guangdong Province.

“The mistake must be righted”, Zhang said.

Zhang noticed the problem three months ago in April. After reporting it to the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, he co-issued a lawyer’s letter with the NGO to the book’s distributor in June, urging the institute to revise its content in two months before releasing it in the coming autumn semester.

“The textbook ‘Science’ has posed irreversible loss to the nation’s wild animal protections. Its content would have resulted in the inaccurate and life-long world-views to the young adults in thinking the pangolin as an edible ingredient,” read the lawyer’s letter.

In response, the publisher, Educational Science Publishing House, officially replied to the letter on July 10 after it was noticed by the book’s distributor who said it was “improper to refer [to] a national protected animal as a pharmaceutical component.” According to the announcement, “the company has revised the relevant content immediately after verification and promised it will not appear ever again in the newest edition.”

The announcement was reaffirmed in a July 13 report by local media outlet Southcn, where the publisher said it had revised the chart in the textbook and reference book used by teachers in the latest edition.

“The content [is] intended to highlight the friendship between animals and humans, and let children picture the ‘construction of mutualistic symbioses.’ However, the author’s description of the pangolins was definitely indiscrete and devious to the original intention,” a staff at the publishing house told the Southcn.

The pangolin has been recognized as a Second Class national protected animal since 1988 in China. Selling or killing pangolins in wild have been banned in the country. China stepped up its enforcement in the new wild animal protection law, which was put into practice at the beginning of 2017, ruling that people who eat the animal would also be in violation of the law.

[GeneChing]

There's some nice short vids behind the link.


China’s push to export traditional medicine may doom the magical pangolin (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinas-push-to-export-traditional-medicine-may-doom-the-magical-pangolin/2018/07/20/8d8c52d4-7ef1-11e8-a63f-7b5d2aba7ac5_story.html?utm_term=.63f83672ef7a)
By Simon Denyer
July 21

In a rescue center, the pangolin slowly wakes and uncurls, sniffing out a nighttime feast of ants’ eggs, then lapping it up with its implausibly long tongue. One of 74 pangolins rescued from the back of a truck in Vietnam in April, its survival has defied the odds.

This almost mystical creature, looking like a cross between an anteater and an armadillo but unrelated to either, is the world’s most trafficked mammal: A million of them are thought to have been poached from the wild in just a decade.

Already almost wiped out in China, the pangolin is fast disappearing from the jungles of the rest of Asia and, increasingly, from Africa to supply China’s booming market in traditional medicine.

Now, as China pushes to export traditional medicine around the world under the umbrella of its Belt and Road investment plan, many wildlife experts fear that the animal faces extinction — unless something changes very soon.

“Traditional Chinese medicine should be a healing force for good, but not at the expense of animal cruelty or the extinction of species,” said Iris Ho, wildlife program manager at Humane Society International.

China’s decision to ban the ivory trade at the end of last year gave hope to those battling elephant poaching, “but the real litmus test lies within China’s action — or lack of action — in pangolin conservation,” Ho said.

The air of mystery attaching to the reclusive pangolin has been its downfall, sparking an unjustified belief that its scales have magical medicinal properties. In hospitals and pharmacies across China and Vietnam, powder made from pangolin scales is prescribed for an impossibly wide range of ailments, including rheumatism, wound infections, skin disorders, coronary heart disease and even cancer.

Mothers take powdered pangolin scales to help them lactate, while men drink pangolin blood or consume fetuses in the belief that this will make them more virile.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/doagOejEl2yCw__ENCcS5hIIKUk=/1484x0/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/FH3GDVEF7UI6RHQGJW2SVRBOAU.jpg
A woman shops on a Hong Kong street popular for dried foods used in traditional Chinese medicine and dishes including deep-fried scales of endangered pangolins. (Dale de La Rey/AFP/Getty Images)

The use of pangolins in Chinese medicine dates back thousands of years. A 16th-century document recommends eating their scales to reduce swelling, invigorate blood circulation and promote lactation. A 1938 article in Nature suggests they were used to treat malaria, deafness, “hysterical crying” in children and women possessed by “devils and ogres.”

In fact, the scales are made of keratin, a fibrous protein that is the main ingredient of hair, feathers, claws and hoofs throughout the animal kingdom; patients might as well chew their own fingernails.

Pangolins are also served at the dinner table, despite a ban on pangolin meat in China imposed during the 2002-2004 SARS epidemic amid fears that exotic meats could spread disease.

The pangolin is the world’s most trafficked mammal: A million of them are thought to have been poached from the wild in just a decade. (Paul Hilton for WildAid)

In late 2016, all eight species of pangolin were listed in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), making all international trade in them illegal. But that does not obligate China or Vietnam to curb domestic trade — except to the extent that such trade now relies mostly on sources abroad.

Customs officials make regular seizures at China’s ports, but the very size of those captures makes depressing reading: In the southern city of Shenzhen, 13 tons of scales were seized in November alone, representing tens of thousands of slaughtered pangolins.

Nocturnal and solitary, the pangolin has an effective defense against most predators — even lions can’t work out what to do when the animal rolls up into an armored ball. Its English name comes from the Malay word “pengguling,” which means rolling ball; its Chinese name, chuanshanjia, refers to its supposed ability to “bore through mountains,” a reference to the powerful claws that dig into anthills and termite mounds before that sticky tongue gets to work.

Pangolin mothers carry their young on their backs for the first three months and curl up around the babies if attacked until the young ones’ scales are sufficiently hard.

But the sensitive pangolin adapts poorly to captivity, almost always dying in a few months or years because of stress, disease or digestive problems without reproducing. Secretive pangolin “farms” in China are basically fronts for trafficking operations, experts say.

Conservation groups are trying to reduce demand by educating people about the dangers facing the pangolin and better ways to treat human disease than by consuming animal keratin.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/9LF-XpYSfM3fabGVJQyaisz5dqI=/1484x0/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/FTEMRQEF7UI6RHQGJW2SVRBOAU.jpg
A veterinarian with Save Vietnam’s Wildlife holds an injured pangolin. The false belief that pangolin scales and other parts have magical medicinal properties has fueled a trade that threatens the creature’s survival. (Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP/Getty Images)

The China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, a nonprofit group, has publicly exposed people selling or consuming pangolin meat, including a Chinese businessman who boasted online of enjoying “pangolin blood fried rice” on a trip to Vietnam. After a backlash on social media, he was sacked.

WildAid, whose use of Chinese celebrities to curb demand for ivory and shark fin soup has achieved considerable success, is trying the same approach for pangolins, enlisting the actors Jackie Chan and Angelababy in China and former Miss Universe Pham Huong in Vietnam to front publicity campaigns. It is also trying to persuade traditional-medicine practitioners to use alternative treatments.

Almost wiped out in China, the pangolin is disappearing from the jungles of Asia and also from Africa, to supply China’s traditional medicine boom. (Paul Hilton for WildAid)

Peter Knights, WildAid’s founder, argues that traditional Chinese medicine needs to stop using endangered wildlife products if it wants to become more accepted globally.

“If you want to expand it, you’ve got to clean it up,” he says, citing as precedents the removal of tiger bone and rhinoceros horn from China’s list of approved medicinal ingredients.

But surveys by the Aita Foundation and Humane Society International and by the U.S. Agency for International Development Wildlife Asia project suggest that the message is not yet getting through to the small but significant percentage of Chinese who still consume pangolin products.

Changing minds will not be easy as long as China’s government promotes the “medicinal” use of pangolin scales. Authorities claim to have a stockpile from which they supply hospitals and pharmacies with 26 tons of scales every year but offer no transparency about that process, effectively legitimizing the entire smuggling trade.

China also sparked controversy at a recent CITES meeting by arguing that it should have the right to purchase stockpiles of scales from other countries that were amassed before the Appendix I listing, an interpretation of the convention’s rules not shared by the United States or many other nations.

Meanwhile, on Vietnam’s border with China, powerful criminal gangs control the trafficking of people, drugs and wildlife products, bribing officials to turn a blind eye.

Scott Roberton of the Wildlife Conservation Society in Vietnam says it is hard to convince Asian governments of the importance of saving pangolins, as compared to elephants, rhinos and tigers. He hopes to gain traction by stressing how pangolin trafficking is caught up with other forms of transnational crime and by highlighting the public-health risks of the trade.

But the odds are steep. China’s traditional-medicine authorities have unveiled an ambitious plan to expand along the Belt and Road trade routes, with 57 international cooperation projects due to get underway this year.

And reports of Chinese companies’ trying to open pangolin “farms” in Africa, and of scales being prescribed by Chinese doctors in places as far-flung as South Africa and the United States, have intensified conservationists’ fears.

Nguyen Van Thai, who founded Save Vietnam’s Wildlife and runs the rescue center in Cuc Phuong National Park, says there is still no good strategy for curbing demand for scales or convincing the Chinese government that its support for the pangolin trade could damage its global reputation.

“China wants to show its power,” he said. “The more pressure you put on them, the more they resist.”

Liu Yang in Beijing contributed to this report.

THREADS
Pangolins (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70061-Pangolins)
WildAid Tiger Claw Champion (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57416-WildAid-Tiger-Claw-Champion)

[GeneChing]

Consider alternatives to pangolin scales, traditional Chinese medicine professors urge at conservation conference in Hong Kong (https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/2162999/consider-alternatives-pangolin-scales-traditional)
HKU academic warns that illegal vendors exaggerate the effectiveness of the scales for treating various conditions
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 06 September, 2018, 1:22pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 06 September, 2018, 9:09pm
Karen Zhang
https://twitter.com/karenised
karen.zhang@scmp.com

https://cdn2.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/980x551/public/images/methode/2018/09/06/293284ea-b185-11e8-b224-884456d4cde1_1280x720_165515.jpg?itok=YEx1EdRE

There are alternatives to pangolin scales that have similar medicinal qualities, Chinese medicine professors said, urging the public not to believe the exaggerated effects touted by illegal vendors.

Their call, made at an international conservation conference on Wednesday, came as the Post reported that the amount seized in the first seven months of this year had reached a five-year high, with most of the contraband being sourced from Africa.

At the event, traditional Chinese medicine academics, pangolin experts and conservationists from mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam and Africa gathered at the University of Hong Kong to discuss how to protect the highly trafficked mammals.

The scales, comprising mainly keratin and believed to have high medicinal value, were found to be a major reason behind the poaching of the animals, whose meat is also seen as a delicacy. There is no scientific evidence showing that pangolin scales are effective as a treatment.

“Many herbal medicines have very similar functions to pangolin scales,” said Professor Lao Lixing, director of HKU’s School of Chinese Medicine, during the conference organised by international conservation group WildAid.

According to Lao, in Chinese medicine, it usually takes between five and nine grams of processed scales per dose, along with supplementary materials, to treat conditions such as breast milk stoppage, rheumatoid arthritis, sores and furuncles.

He explained that the industry often associated the medical qualities of an ingredient with the animal’s behaviour.

“[Pangolins] can go through the soil, so it’s believed that [their scales] can go through the vessels,” Lao said, referring to the meridian system, through which life energy flows in traditional Chinese medicine.

https://cdn1.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/09/06/96ea38ea-b188-11e8-b224-884456d4cde1_1320x770_165515.jpg
Pangolins in Indonesia are at risk of extinction thanks to an illicit trade that sees thousands of them trafficked each year. Photo: AFP

Lao listed six substitutes including cowherb seeds, known in Chinese as wang bu liu xing, which could be used for promoting milk secretion. Earthworms, known as di long, can also dispel “heatiness” and expel wind from the body.

“There are so many [substitutes] if you look at the textbook of Chinese medicine. I just named a few here,” he said.

Lao called on the Chinese government to educate the public about the medical properties of pangolin scales, as he feared that some people might think the products must be effective if they were banned. The effects were often exaggerated by illegal vendors, he said.

Dr Feng Yibin, associate director at the same school, said the institution’s teachers always made it clear to students that the species were endangered and should not be used, although students were told about their medicinal value.

On the mainland, raw pangolin scales can be obtained only at designated hospitals and from approved pharmaceutical companies, while legally sold processed scales must display a special label issued by the government.

The Chinese government has supported captive breeding as a solution by granting approval to some companies to raise pangolins. International experts at in the conference however questioned the feasibility of this approach.

https://cdn1.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/09/06/97567e2e-b188-11e8-b224-884456d4cde1_1320x770_165515.JPG
Their scales, believed to have high medicinal value, were found to be a major reason behind the poaching of pangolins. Photo: K.Y. Cheng

Dr Helen Nash, vice-chairwoman of the pangolin specialist group under the International Union for Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission, cited an IUCN study stating that pangolin farming was not financially viable and that many animals had died in captivity.

Nash said that although the success rate of raising pangolins in captivity was a lot higher than it used to be, the cost of doing so – about US$7,000 – could not be covered by the animal’s market value. She added that zoos in Singapore and Taipei had tried for decades to raise pangolins but only managed to raise a handful. There was currently no commercial data for assessment, she said.

WildAid CEO Peter Knights voiced concern that commercial farming would become an excuse for encouraging the wildlife trade as it was too expensive, slow and suffered from very high mortality.

Dr Sun Quanhui, a senior scientific adviser from World Animal Protection, cited a 2010 survey that found most consumers were willing to buy wild bear bile at a higher price despite being given three alternatives, including bile from farmed bears.

He added that using wildlife would be an obstacle to Chinese medicine going global as it left a negative impression and would face restrictions imposed by international players.

According to WildAid, Chinese pangolins have disappeared from most of their habitats, with their population having fallen by more than 94 per cent since the 1960s. The demand then shifted towards the neighbouring Sunda pangolin, which in turn suffered an 80 per cent decline over the last 21 years.

THREADS:
Pangolins (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70061-Pangolins)
WildAid Tiger Claw Champion (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57416-WildAid-Tiger-Claw-Champion)

[GeneChing]

Just heartbreaking. :(


‘15,000 pangolins slaughtered’ for 7 tonnes of scales seized in China (https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2166083/15000-pangolins-slaughtered-7-tonnes-scales-seized-china)
Customs officials intercept three hauls since July of the endangered mammals, which are protected but are prized for their scales, meat and blood

PUBLISHED : Friday, 28 September, 2018, 11:32am
UPDATED : Friday, 28 September, 2018, 10:47pm
Mandy Zuo
mandy.zuo@scmp.com

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Authorities have seized more than seven tonnes of pangolin scales smuggled into south China from Africa since July, equivalent to 15,000 of the protected anteaters, which are believed to be the world’s most trafficked mammals.

Customs officers from Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, intercepted 7,262kg of pangolin scales in three batches, Legal Daily reported this week.

Helped by police, a task force captured four suspected smugglers. The leader of the gang, identified only by his surname Liu, has been arrested.

While their scales are valued for their use in traditional Chinese medicine, the mammals’ meat is considered a delicacy. Their blood is used as a healing tonic.

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The pangolin scales seized by customs officers in Guangzhou represented an estimated 15,000 animals. Photo: People.com.cn

“The cost of the scales from Africa is only about 340 yuan (US$49) per kilogram, but when they arrive in the Chinese black market, they are sold for 5,600 yuan per kilogram,” task force member Liang Jinkun was quoted as saying.

“The huge mark-up has lured the suspects to take the risk [of violating the law].”

Consider alternatives to pangolin scales, traditional Chinese medicine professors urge at conservation conference in Hong Kong

Zheng Jun, deputy director of the Guangzhou customs anti-smuggling bureau, said it was rare in the mainland for “such a huge amount of products made from endangered animals [to be] seized via a shipment of commodities”.

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Pangolin scales, like those seized by customs agents in Guangzhou, can fetch up to US$812 per kilogram on the Chinese black market. Photo: People.com.cn

More than two tonnes of scales were found packed in more than 100 white woven bags hidden in a shipment of granite slabs while they were being cleared for import in Luoding on July 11, Guangzhou customs officials were quoted as saying on Wednesday.

Officials became suspicious after noticing cracks in the slabs, and found the bags after a careful check-up, the report said.

Scales of endangered pangolin on sale in Hong Kong as loophole in law allows shops to cash in – but mostly to ‘people they know’

A task force was later set up and intercepted another two batches of pangolin scales, weighing about 2.7 tonnes and 2.3 tonnes, which had been smuggled into Guangzhou, to the northwest of Hong Kong, by the same method.

The quantity of scales seized amounted to poaching about 15,000 pangolins, according to Traffic, a non-governmental organisation that monitors wildlife trade to ensure it does not threaten the conservation of nature.

The scaly mammals, which live mostly in Asia and Africa, are increasingly victims of illegal wildlife crimes despite being protected under national and international laws.

Scales of endangered pangolin found for sale on Chinese e-commerce platform Pinduoduo

Although no authoritative estimate of pangolin populations exists, wildlife organisations believe its numbers are shrinking due to high demand for pangolin meat and scales, especially in China.

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Customs officials with the seized pangolin scales in Guangzhou. Photo: People.com.cn

Pangolin scales are often used in traditional Chinese medicine to promote blood circulation, stimulate lactation, disperse swelling and expel pus. Its meat is consumed as a luxury food item, often as a badge of social status, according to Traffic.

Critically endangered pangolins smuggled into China from Malaysia die soon after being rescued

On average, about 20 tonnes of pangolins and their parts are trafficked internationally each year, according to a research report jointly released late last year by the organisation and the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

China is the most common destination for large shipments of pangolin scales, while Asia as a whole is the primary arena for the trading of whole pangolins, the report said.

[GeneChing]

Jackie Chan's 'Kung Fu Pangolins' bag Shorty nomination (https://www.jacarandafm.com/shows/scenic-drive-rian/jackie-chans-kung-fu-pangolins-bag-shorty-nomination/)
Updated Oct. 26, 2018, 3:10 p.m. | By The Scenic Drive with Rian

International kung fu superstar Jackie Chan is doing his part to protect the endangered pangolin, and the Shorty Social Good Awards panel is taking notice.

https://turntable.kagiso.io/images/chan_x_pangolins.width-800.png
Facebook screenshot

Pangolins are the most trafficked wild mammal in the world and are regarded as an endangered species. The anteaters have tough scales, which poachers sell along with meat from the pangolin's body.

In 2017, American environmental organisation WildAid enlisted the help of international kung fu superstar Jackie Chan in creating a public service announcement about protecting pangolins. In it, Chan trains three pangolins to protect themselves by fighting back.

The PSA, which carries the tagline "It takes just one move to protect pangolins", was viewed 13 million times on social media. The campaign has now been named as a finalist in the Shorty Social Good Awards.
The impression left by the PSA was positive, with Shorty reporting notable changes in people's attitudes towards the buying and selling of pangolin products since seeing Jackie Chan's message.

WildAid's mission is to end illegal wildlife trade through public awareness campaigns. It's a noble cause that must be fought for - and it certainly helps to have a famous face to help it along. Jackie Chan exudes his trademark humour, charm and agility as he teaches the animals how to protect themselves, making the PSA as fun to watch as it is educational.

Chan has previously shown his concern for preserving wildlife species in a video aimed at curbing rhino poaching called "Say No", which was shot with the African Wildlife Foundation.

Image: WildAid


The PSA was posted here last year. (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70061-Pangolins&p=1304536#post1304536)

Jackie Charity work (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?41401-Jackie%92s-Charity-work) - Pangolins (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70061-Pangolins) & WildAid (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57416-WildAid-Tiger-Claw-Champion)

[GeneChing]

Seizure of 14 Tons of Pangolin Scales in Singapore Sets a Dismal Record (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/08/world/asia/pangolin-singapore-seizure-poaching.html)

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Sacks containing pangolin scales that were seized last week in Singapore. Credit National Parks Board Singapore, via Reuters
By Tiffany May
April 8, 2019

HONG KONG — Singapore has discovered more than 14 tons of pangolin scales in what conservation specialists called the largest such seizure of a single shipment worldwide, highlighting the stubbornness of the illegal trade of the scaly anteater.

Roughly 36,000 pangolins were believed to have been killed for the shipment, according to Paul Thomson, an official with the Pangolin Specialist Group, an organization belonging to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The group called it the biggest seizure of pangolin scales on record.

“The news of this record-shattering seizure is deeply alarming and underscores the fact that pangolins are facing a crisis,” Mr. Thomson said of the seizure, which took place last Wednesday. “If we don’t stop the illegal wildlife trade, pangolins face the risk of going extinct.”

Pangolins are believed to be the most frequently illegally trafficked mammal in the world, with an estimated 300 of them poached every day on average. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has declared all eight species as “threatened with extinction” since 2014, while two species are critically endangered.

Specialists say that the pangolin’s defense against predators, which is to curl itself into a ball, has made it an easy target for hunters.


Embedded video

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This pup was born at our Wildlife Release Station. Mother, Lucy, lost two feet after getting caught in a poacher's snare. Father, Thom, was brought to WRS in May 2018 after escaping a wildlife trader. When ready he will be released
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Singaporean customs officials and the country’s national parks board said in a statement that the scales, which had been shipped from Nigeria, were headed to Vietnam, home to the second-most lucrative black market for pangolin scales, after China.

In Vietnam, many see pangolin meat as a luxury that conveys social status and health benefits, according to a survey conducted by WildAid in 2015.

In China, about 70 percent of people surveyed by WildAid believed that the pangolin could cure ailments ranging from rheumatism to skin diseases; consumers often drink it in wine or in powder form as part of traditional Chinese medicine prescriptions.

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A pangolin rescued from poachers in South Africa. Pangolins are believed to be the most frequently illegally trafficked mammals in the world, with an estimated 300 of them poached every day on average.
Credit
Denis Farrell/Associated Press

International laws forbid trafficking of all pangolin species, and techniques such as fingerprint forensics seek to deter poachers, but recent seizures have shown that the pangolin is still heavily trafficked around the world.

In February, 33 tons of pangolin meat were seized in two processing facilities in Malaysia, according to Traffic, a wildlife conservation group. Earlier that month, the Hong Kong authorities intercepted a nine-ton shipment of pangolin scales and a thousand elephant tusks.

When Singaporean officials intercepted the pangolin scale shipment last Wednesday, they also found nearly 400 pounds of carved ivory, officials said.

THREADS
Pangolins (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70061-Pangolins)
WildAid Tiger Claw Champion (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57416-WildAid-Tiger-Claw-Champion)

[GeneChing]

Eco groups sue Chinese forestry department for failing to save smuggled pangolins (https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3009183/chinese-forestry-department-sued-failing-save-smuggled-pangolins)
Environmental NGO files lawsuit against Guangxi regional bodies accusing them of failing to look after endangered animals properly after rescuing them
Pangolins are among the world’s most trafficked mammals because of the demand for their scales in traditional Chinese medicine
Alice Yan
Published: 3:50pm, 7 May, 2019

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Pangolins are among the world’s most trafficked animals. Photo: AP

In the first lawsuit of its kind, a Chinese forestry authority has been sued for failing to save a group of smuggled pangolins.
The forestry department in Guangxi and its terrestrial wild animals rescue centre are accused of dereliction of duty in relation to the deaths of 32 pangolins two years ago, a court in Nanning, the region’s capital, heard on Monday.
The case, filed by Beijing-based non-governmental organisation the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation,is the first public welfare lawsuit in China involving the endangered animals, according to The Beijing News.
Pangolins are among the world’s most trafficked mammals and China is the most common destination for large shipments of pangolins because their scales are valued as ingredients in traditional medicine, their meat is considered a luxury food item and their blood is used as a healing tonic.
The foundation said that when the Guangxi rescue centre received the live pangolins that police seized from smugglers in August 2017, it offered to help treat the mammals, but the offer was rejected.

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Pangolins have low immunity and can become stressed when they are trafficked. Photo: AFP

The pangolins all died within 66 days. The foundation wants the two defendants to pay compensation for the ecological losses caused by the death of the animals and to apologise for their mistake in state media. It is asking the court to evaluate the scale of ecological losses.

Zhang Zhenqiu, deputy director of the forestry department’s protection section, told the newspaper that the accusation that it had failed to protect the pangolins was just “hype” because they were difficult to look after.

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Traditional Chinese medicine is fuelling demand for pangolin scales. Photo: KY Cheng

The authority said the pangolins died because of they had low immunity and were stressed by the long journey from being trafficked from Vietnam.
Many had digestive system illnesses as a result of being force-fed by the smugglers and some had serious injuries.
In February, 130 pangolins intercepted by Guangxi police from smugglers all died soon after they were sent to two breeding bases – one in Guangxi and one in Guangdong province.

It's ironic that a naturally armored creature has a low immunity.

[GeneChing]

AUGUST 13, 2019

https://static.asiatimes.com/uploads/2019/08/Screen-Shot-2019-08-12-at-7.33.21-PM-900x540.png
In order to revive the declining pangolin population because of habitat loss and rampant poaching, China is planning to upgrade the animal’s protection status. Handout.

China moves to curb pangolin trade, as opinion shifts (https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/08/article/china-moves-to-curb-pangolin-trade-as-opinion-shifts/)
Public backs the shift away from using animal’s scales in traditional Chinese medicine, survey finds
By DM CHAN

The Chinese mainland and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) are providing a new level of protection to the world’s most trafficked mammal — pangolins.

While the Chinese mainland intends to enhance the protection status of the animal, Hong Kong residents are demanding an end to the use of pangolin scales in traditional medicines, CGTN.com reported.

More than two-thirds of HKSAR residents showed strong inclination to phase out the use of pangolin scales in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), according to a survey by Hong Kong University and WildAid released at the 18th Consortium for Globalization of Chinese Medicine Meeting in Shanghai.

“There are sustainable herbal alternatives in traditional medicine and the public seems supportive in shifting away from the use of scales in TCM,” said Peter Knights, CEO of WildAid.

A whopping 96% of respondents agreed that “endangered animal species should be protected.” Around 85% agreed that “Chinese medicine should phase out the use of endangered wildlife species whilst promoting sustainable and herbal alternatives.”

“As a member of the Traditional Chinese Medicine community, I support removing endangered wildlife from medicine,” said Professor Lao Lixing, Director of the School of Chinese Medicine at Hong Kong University who prepared the survey’s result, the report said.

Despite the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), a global wildlife trade regulator, banning the international trade of pangolin scales and meat, the illegal trade still flourishes.

Concerned over the uncontrolled poaching, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) declared all eight pangolin species as threatened by extinction.

In order to revive the declining pangolin population because of habitat loss and rampant poaching, China is planning to upgrade the animal’s protection status, Xinhua reported.

“It is hard to come across wild pangolins,” said Wu Zhimin, head of the wildlife conservation department of the National Forestry and Grassland Administration at a meeting in Changsha in central China.

In China, pangolins are protected under the class-two of state wildlife protection law that bans the animal’s hunting. The country also banned the import of pangolin and its products in 2018. According to Wu, plans are afoot to move the protection level of the animal to class-one, the report said.

Apart from national-level policies to protect pangolins, Chinese customs officials also started sharing intelligence inputs to intercept illegal wildlife consignments.

It's great to see that WildAid (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57416-WildAid-Tiger-Claw-Champion)'s efforts for Pangolins (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70061-Pangolins) are paying off.

[GeneChing]

It’s a mammal. It looks like an artichoke. And China is driving it toward extinction (https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-08-31/its-a-mammal-it-looks-like-an-artichoke-and-china-is-driving-it-toward-extinction)

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More than 8 metric tons of pangolin scales are displayed in February at a Hong Kong Customs news briefing in Kowloon.(Alex Hoffard/Shutterstock)
By ALICE SUCHINA CORRESPONDENT
SEP. 1, 2019 5 AM

NANNING, China — The shopkeeper quickly scanned the traditional Chinese medicine market, looking for undercover police before she unlocked a desk drawer and dug out what looked like a clam shell, palm-sized and coffee-brown.
“It cures cancer,” she said.

The contraband was a scale from a pangolin, an armored anteater that looks a cross between an artichoke and a Pokémon.

A skittish creature that snuffles about for ants at night and rolls into a ball whenever threatened, the pangolin is now the world’s most-trafficked mammal, driven to the brink of extinction by poaching for a Chinese market that uses their scales for medicine and considers their meat a delicacy.

Hunting pangolin has been illegal in China for more than a decade, but smuggling of the animals is a growing industry, especially in the southern provinces bordering Vietnam and Thailand.

In Guangxi province, a Beijing-based environmental nonprofit has sued the government agency responsible for wildlife protection for letting hundreds of rescued pangolins die in its care.

Government records show that the agency placed hundreds of the animals in “foster care” with companies that have nothing to do with wildlife conservation. One was a steel manufacturer under police investigation for wildlife trafficking.

“There have been thousands that have disappeared,” said Zhou Jinfeng, head of the non-profit China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, which has been pressing the government to account for all the pangolins it’s taken in.

Guangxi’s forestry department says that pangolins are hard to keep alive and may have died because of mistreatment by smugglers before being rescued.

The animals are prized for their scales, which are pried off the bodies of pangolins that have been killed. A single animal can have 1,000 scales.

More than 50 tons of scales — which would require slaughtering more than 100,000 pangolins — have been seized globally in the last four months, according to San Francisco-based animal protection group WildAid.

https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/cc798e1/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2495x1682+0+0/resize/840x566!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fca-times.brightspotcdn.com%2F75%2F8e%2Fe62dd0c24420b2 726cf218237796%2Fgettyimages-149565796.jpgA single pangolin can have 1,000 scales. Chinese buyers use the scales for medicine and consider the meat a delicacy.(AFP/Getty Images)

Most of the demand comes from China, where pangolins are still legally approved for use in more than 60 medicines despite a 2007 ban on hunting the animals and a 2018 ban on importing them.

There are eight species of pangolin. Under the United Nations treaty on endangered species, six of the eight species are classified as “vulnerable” and two are “critically endangered.” All eight are banned from international trade.

Chinese pangolin populations have fallen by more than 94% since the 1960s, according to WildAid.

Chinese law considers the pangolin a Category II endangered species, meaning its protection is relegated to the provincial level and — unlike Category I animals such as the giant panda — it can still be farmed and sold with permits for limited use.

Critics say enforcement of that permit system is rife with corruption, allowing trafficking to continue.

In Nanning’s traditional Chinese medicine market, three different sellers warned that officials were cracking down on pangolin sales, but then brought out their products and promised they could source more for big buyers.

One of the shops sold individual scales for roughly $14 each. They are used for gua sha, a medicinal body-scraping that is meant to improve energy circulation, a core concept of traditional Chinese medicine. Polished, engraved scales that are collected as art could go for $140 apiece, the seller said.

Two other shopkeepers showed a Times reporter bags of dried pangolin scales available for roughly $336 a pound. Those scales could be ground up and consumed with water to improve blood circulation and lactation, they said.

Pangolin scales mostly consist of keratin, the same stuff that makes up fingernails. Their medical efficacy has not been proven, but the Chinese species (one of eight) is listed in the Chinese pharmacopeia, a catalog of official medicines and their standard uses.

Chinese medicine now relies on smuggled African and Southeast Asian pangolin.

Zhou said medicine based on non-Chinese pangolin is “fake,” driven by commercialization of Chinese tradition for a burgeoning middle class of unquestioning Chinese consumers.

“We don’t even need this much medicine,” he said. “It’s not real demand. It’s not actual human demand. It’s the madness of capitalism and corporations, pushing human action to also go mad. If we don’t change, the whole world’s pangolins will go extinct.”

Feng Yibin, the associate director of Hong Kong University’s School of Chinese Medicine, said demand for traditional Chinese medicine is hard to change, even when there are more sustainable alternatives.

“It’s thousands of years of culture and history,” he said.

Feng, for example, has failed to persuade many people that plant-based alternatives to bear bile, a traditional Chinese medicine ingredient, are more effective than the real stuff — despite publishing scientific papers showing it.

“You have this scientific data, but they don’t want to listen to it,” he said. “It’s a matter of belief.”

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A market popular for selling ingredients for traditional Chinese medicine in Guangzhou in southern China's Guangdong province. (Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty Images)

China has tried to strengthen wildlife protection, especially after consumption of civet cats was linked to the outbreak of SARS in Guangdong province in 2003.

In posters around the city of Guangzhou, celebrities including the Hong Kong martial artist and actor Jackie Chan and the Taiwanese singer Jay Chou pose with pangolins and warn that buying or eating endangered animal products is illegal.

But official corruption and lack of enforcement belie the messaging campaign.

As recently as 2015, government officials in Guangxi were posting social media photos of themselves feasting on pangolin meat at banquets.

A former wildlife rescue official in Guangxi’s forestry department told The Times that Chinese smugglers had called his office almost daily offering bribes for turning a blind eye to their black markets.

“There’s too much temptation for bribery in this position,"he said. “Today they offer you one hundred thousand, you say no. Tomorrow they offer you two hundred thousand, you say no. The next day, they offer you more money. What will you say?”

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he had always refused bribes but never arrested the smugglers because he was afraid of retaliation by powerful crime syndicates.

“For five years, the more I did it, the more scared I felt,” he said. “The three biggest trafficked items in the world are drugs, arms, and wildlife. This is terrifying. They’re the biggest criminal circles of illegal smuggling.”

Two other wildlife officials were later convicted of bribery, he said. He called the most recent case involving Guangxi forestry department “ridiculous.”

“What does a steel company do with pangolins?” he said.

The company in question, Yanbu Yuehuiteng Steel of Foshan, Guangdong province, sells metal hardware and electrical appliances.

It was implicated in an investigation by Hunan police involving 129 suspected wildlife traffickers and more than 50,000 smuggled pangolins, according to local media.

The pangolin is obscure but also a “flagship type of animal,” Zhou said. Saving the pangolin would set a precedent for wildlife protection in China, he said.

“We shouldn’t destroy our own natural habitat because of humans’ never-ending business growth,” Zhou said. “It’s going to come back to us.”



Alice Su
Alice Su is a foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times based in Beijing, China.

I've always thought a lot of TCM's use of exotic animals was based solely upon their exotic appearance embueing some sort of superstitious 'magical' projection. Which makes me wonder now - are there TCM uses for artichokes?

[GeneChing]

WORLD NEWS FEBRUARY 7, 2020 / 12:45 AM / UPDATED AN HOUR AGO
Scientists question work suggesting pangolin coronavirus link (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-pangolins/china-scientists-identify-pangolin-as-possible-coronavirus-host-idUSKBN2010XA)
Kate Kelland, Tom Daly
3 MIN READ

LONDON/BEIJING (Reuters) - Independent scientists questioned research on Friday that suggested that the outbreak of coronavirus disease spreading from China might have passed from bats to humans through the illegal traffic of pangolins.

https://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20200207&t=2&i=1487138421&w=1200&r=LYNXMPEG160Q0
FILE PHOTO: A man holds a pangolin at a wild animal rescue center in Cuc Phuong, outside Hanoi, Vietnam September 12, 2016. REUTERS/Kham
South China Agricultural University, which said it had led the research, said on its website that the “discovery will be of great significance for the prevention and control of the origin (of the new virus)”.

China’s official Xinhua news agency reported that the genome sequence of the novel coronavirus strain separated from pangolins in the study was 99% identical to that from infected people. It said the research had found pangolins - the world’s only scaly mammals - to be “the most likely intermediate host.”

But James Wood, head of the veterinary medicine department at Britain’s University of Cambridge, said the research was far from robust.

“The evidence for the potential involvement of pangolins in the outbreak has not been published, other than by a university press release. This is not scientific evidence,” he said.

“Simply reporting detection of viral RNA with sequence similarity of more than 99% is not sufficient. Could these results have been caused by contamination from a highly infected environment?”

Pangolins are one of Asia’s most trafficked mammals, despite laws banning the trade, because their meat is considered a delicacy in countries such as China and their scales are used in traditional medicine.

The outbreak of disease caused by the new coronavirus, which has killed 636 people in mainland China, is believed to have started in a market in the city of Wuhan that also sold live wild animals.

Virus experts think it may have originated in bats and then passed to humans, possibly via another species.

Jonathan Ball, a professor of molecular virology at Britain’s University of Nottingham, said that while the South China Agricultural University research was an interesting development, it was still unclear “whether or not the endangered pangolin really is the reservoir”.

“We would need to see all of the genetic data to get a feel for how related the human and pangolin viruses are, and also gain an understanding of how prevalent this virus is in pangolins and whether or not these were being sold in the Wuhan wet markets,” he said.

Dirk Pfeiffer, a professor of veterinary medicine at Hong Kong’s City University, also said the research was a long way from establishing a link between pangolins and the new coronavirus outbreak in humans.

“You can only draw more definitive conclusions if you compare prevalence (of the coronavirus) between different species based on representative samples, which these almost certainly are not,” he said.

Additional reporting by Dominique Patton in Beijing. Editing by John Stonestreet, Peter Graff and Giles Elgood

THREADS
Pangolins (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70061-Pangolins)
Coronavirus (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-Wuhan-Pneumonia)

[GeneChing]

It's tomorrow. Today is Valentines (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?40404-happy-valentines-day)...


Is This a Watershed Moment for Pangolins? (https://wildaid.org/is-this-a-watershed-moment-for-pangolins/)
February 14, 2020

https://cdn.shortpixel.ai/client/q_glossy,ret_img,w_400/https://wildaid.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Screen-Shot-2020-02-13-at-4.23.54-PM-400x264.png

Pangolins have had a rough start to 2020 – though truthfully it’s been a rough couple of decades. In just the first six weeks, Nigeria Customs seized 9.5 tonnes of pangolin scales, representing tens of thousands of animals, while scientists in China have suggested a link between pangolins and the novel coronavirus.

It was over three years ago that the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) voted to protect all eight species of pangolins from international trade. Yet the pangolin remains the world’s most heavily trafficked mammal. It is estimated that up to 200,000 are taken from the wild every year across Africa and Asia to meet demand for their scales and meat.

And now they may be linked to an epidemic that has commanded the attention and vigilance of the whole world. In preparing to celebrate World Pangolin Day on February 15th, it’s hard to overlook the glaring fact that the pangolin’s future is uncertain.

Are pangolins vectors of disease?

Research is still being conducted but even before the novel coronavirus made headlines, scientists thought pangolins could be a good candidate to be an intermediate host for a virus. This is in part due to the nature of the multinational illegal trade, the shear amount of pangolins being traded, the animal’s low threshold for stress, and possibly a weak immune response to fight off infections.

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“Pangolins, as with other illegally-traded species, may become important reservoirs to possibly immunologically-naive populations of humans, livestock and other wildlife along the entire illicit trade supply chain,” says Sean Heighton, who is studying molecular traceability at the Laboratoire Evolution et Diversité Biologique, Université de Toulouse III (IRD). “The same can be said if pangolins are to be captive bred for consumers. In order for these pangolin farms to be a success, they would need to have a large enough founder population (requiring the capture of wild pangolins likely from different regions and thus naive to each other’s pathogens as well as the environmental pathogens of the facilities they are placed in), place them in an unnatural setting (stressful conditions can result in reduced immune responses to infection), try to provide them with nutritional requirements that are extremely specialized (nutrition from ants and termites) and allow them to be in continuous contact with humans. The health implications, not only for humans but for the pangolin populations placed in these conditions, may be noteworthy.”

The idea is that when pangolins are captured and smuggled for thousands of miles, often without food or water, they’re more likely to become hosts for a pathogen to live and multiply. These animals, along with the many other species they are traded with, may become “disease reservoirs” that can serve as a source from which other individuals, including humans, can be infected. If left alone in the wild, the shy, docile pangolin is a harmless creature filling an important ecological niche, controlling pest populations by individually consuming some 70 million insects per year. In other words, pangolins are unlikely a threat to anyone unless they are captured, handled, traded and consumed by people.

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Pangolin Demand in China and Vietnam

The use of pangolin scales in traditional medicine in both China and Vietnam is a major contributor to the pangolin’s endangered status. Despite all trade in pangolin meat and scales being banned internationally, Vietnam continues to be a major player in the trafficking chain. China still allows domestic sales of approved medicines containing pangolin scales despite a dwindling legal supply.

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But recently, China has taken steps to address the use of pangolins in traditional medicine. Last August, the National Medical Insurance and Human Resource and Social Security Bureau announced the country’s national insurance will no longer cover medicines containing pangolin as well as other products derived from threatened and endangered species. Vietnam has a similar regulation in place. China’s Wildlife Conservation Department of the National Forestry and Grassland Administration (NFGA) is also considering increasing the pangolin’s national protection status to Class I.

What’s Next?

In response to the coronavirus outbreak, more Chinese citizens are demanding sustained action against illegal wildlife trade and consumption. China has fast-tracked its legislation work related to wildlife, according to an ECNS media report. Later this year, the top legislature is expected to amend its law on the protection of wildlife as well as laws on animal epidemic prevention.

Wang Ruihe, an official with the Legislative Affairs Commission of the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee said on Monday, the potential public health security risks caused by trading and eating wild animals have drawn worldwide concern, stressing the need to improve laws and regulations related to wildlife.

But legislation is only part of the solution, said Professors Jie Li and Jun Li of Guangzhou University in a recent article in The Lancet.

“The ultimate solution lies in changing people’s minds about what is delicious, trendy, prestigious, or healthy to eat,” they said. “We believe that through a change in the outdated and inappropriate tradition of consuming wild animals and their products, we can conserve the natural habitat of wild animals, and humans and other living creatures can coexist in harmony.”

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What WildAid is Doing

As part of its behavior change campaign work in China and Vietnam, WildAid is working closely with these governments to reduce consumer demand for pangolins. With the help of legendary ambassadors like Jackie Chan and superstar Angelababy, our program aims to raise awareness of the pangolin poaching crisis and to reduce consumer demand. We are currently developing new activities to build on the current government resolve and pending new regulations. And working with our partners in media and the government, we will amplify messages to end the consumption of pangolin meat and scales, establishing this a societal norm.

A 2015 WildAid survey found that 70% of respondents in China believed pangolin scales had medicinal value. Eighteen months after launching our campaign, this figure had dropped 28.5% (in 2017, 50% believed in the medicinal value of scales), demonstrating the impact of our messaging on people’s perceptions of pangolins. Despite this progress, the number of respondents admitting to having purchased pangolin products continued to hover around 9% in 2017, indicating there is still demand for the products and much more work is needed.

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Meanwhile in Africa, WildAid is working on a public awareness campaign that we hope will inspire a sense of national pride in pangolins and start a movement to end live wildlife markets. WildAid recently traveled to Nigeria, a major pangolin trafficking hub, with Benin-born actor Djimon Hounsou to investigate wildlife markets and rescue live pangolins.

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“Africa needs to heed the lessons from China and close down these wildlife markets immediately,” said WildAid ambassador and Academy Award-nominee Hounsou. “As well as a massive risk to health, they endanger species and are inhumane.”

Despite all the doom and gloom news, we invite you to celebrate these magnificent creatures with us on World Pangolin Day.

Let’s make sure we harness the recent international attention for good, spotlighting all of the quirky, incredible (and harmless) features of these unique creatures who have existed on this planet for some 70 million years, while recognizing the urgency with which we must act to save them. Perhaps this is the watershed moment we needed to cement their future once and for all. #PangolinPower

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Voices & Opinion
The Challenge Facing China’s Wild Animal Trade Ban (http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1005240/the-challenge-facing-chinas-wild-animal-trade-ban-?fbclid=IwAR0y7IjykNky_t8gDGFRSywZAeNONKYE8j020nZm irqWISpkWYDUkOpOwT0)
If the country is serious about curbing the wild animal trade, it needs to rethink its approach.


Feb 27, 2020 5-min read
Voices
Zhou Hongcheng
Professor of food culture
Zhou Hongcheng is an assistant professor of Chinese food culture at Zhejiang Gongshang University.

On Feb. 24, China announced it would implement a “comprehensive” and immediate ban on the trade and consumption of wild animals nationwide. The move cemented an earlier emergency ban enacted amid the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic, which has killed 2,800 and sickened over 80,000 worldwide as of Feb. 27.

But whether it will have a lasting impact is another question. This isn’t the first time a zoonotic coronavirus has devastated China or sparked a legislative and popular backlash against wild animal consumption. SARS, which some scientists believe jumped to humans from masked palm civets at a wet market in southern China, killed nearly 800 people around the world from 2002 to 2004. While recent research has cast doubt on the theory that COVID-19 originated in a live animal market in the central city of Wuhan, virologists still believe it was likely transmitted to humans from wild animals, possibly endangered pangolins.

In the wake of the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak, China updated its existing rules governing the wildlife trade, but a combination of loopholes and muddled enforcement has continued to render them largely ineffective. If we want this time to be different, we first need to understand the cultural and commercial drivers of the trade, as well as the flaws in the current regulatory and enforcement system.

Chinese have consumed wild animals for thousands of years, though contrary to stereotypes abroad, they are hardly a fixture of the country’s dinner tables. In its most basic form, the practice was a matter of survival: China had a large population, limited arable land, and a long history of natural and man-made disasters. In times of need, many ordinary Chinese turned to wild animals and plants for sustenance.

In non-emergencies, the traditional notion that “like nourishes like” led many to believe that eating animal parts could have a beneficial effect on the diner’s corresponding body part. For example, braised beef tendon was seen as a curative for frail knees, and sheep’s ***** as a virility booster.

As the above examples show, such customs aren’t necessarily tied to the consumption of wild or exotic animals. But there is a long-standing belief in China that the rarer something is, the greater its value. Rare or hard-to-obtain meat was — and sometimes still is — thought to have extremely potent medicinal effects. It could also be a powerful symbol of filial piety, love, and respect, as in the folk story of the woman who cut flesh from her thigh to cook a medicinal porridge for her mother-in-law.


One domestic media outlet found over 100 possible exceptions to the new rules, including sika deer, red deer, and ring-necked pheasant.
- Zhou Hongcheng, professor
These customs have been reinforced by the tenets of traditional Chinese medicine, which makes liberal usage of ingredients extracted from wild animals — such as tiger bone, pilose antler, and deer fetus. Pangolins are another common source of curatives. And while the consumption of pangolin meat is illegal in the country, an exception for TCM practitioners has long allowed the scales of farm-bred pangolins to be prescribed for medicinal use — a loophole that has greatly complicated efforts to protect the species.

China has had a wildlife protection law on the books since 1988, but its single-minded focus on encouraging the commercial rearing and breeding of species over conservation has led many critics to dub it the “wildlife exploitation law.” In particular, species categorized as one of the “three haves” — having “ecological, scientific, or social value,” like pangolins — were eligible to be bred and sold by licensed farms, which have become a key pillar of rural economies in impoverished parts of the country.

In addition to forming a regulatory blind spot — the relevant authorities generally lack the resources to ensure wildlife farms are operating legally and within regulations — farm-raised wildlife muddies the waters for what is and isn’t legal to consume. The latest ban, despite its claim to be “comprehensive,” does little to clear things up. One domestic media outlet found over 100 possible exceptions to the new rules, including sika deer, red deer, and ring-necked pheasant.

It doesn’t have to be this way. On Feb. 25, the day after China announced its nationwide ban on the wild animal trade, the southern megacity of Shenzhen unveiled its own version of the rules, including a white list with just nine types of meat on it. On the city’s black list were a number of species, including turtles, snakes, and some types of birds that local authorities believed posed a risk to public health, despite still being legal to raise under national law.

That’s a far simpler and more effective approach than the convoluted new national ban, but it may not be enough on its own. One of the primary reasons China is so vulnerable to zoonotic diseases is the very nature of its cities — and the places where animals, both wild and domesticated, are sold.

Wet markets have been linked to numerous infectious disease outbreaks in China over the years, from SARS to bird flu, and their close proximity to residential areas makes them a sizeable community risk. COVID-19 might not have originated in a Wuhan wet market, but the market’s central location almost certainly helped accelerate its spread.

Wet markets’ reputations as incubators for disease makes them easy targets during epidemics, and local governments around the country have responded to the current crisis with bans and cleanup campaigns. The eastern province of Zhejiang, for example, has not just cracked down on the wild animal trade, but also the sale of live poultry.

These campaign-style enforcement efforts cannot achieve lasting change. As long as small markets are allowed to sell and slaughter live animals, resource-strapped local governments will be hard-pressed to monitor and regulate their compliance with health and sanitation codes. To reduce the risk of animal-to-human transmission, slaughter and packaging operations should be moved to large-scale, advanced, and easier-to-monitor operations away from residential areas.


The guiding principles of any legislation should be clarity and practicability
- Zhou Hongcheng, professor
Ultimately, the guiding principles of any legislation should be clarity and practicability. Banning the wildlife trade altogether while carving out a broad array of exceptions for different species and market needs clearly hasn’t been effective. And although Shenzhen’s new guidelines are admirably clear, they likely go too far: One of the delights of any cuisine is variety, and banning all but the most common livestock outright will likely cause resentment that could set back the conservation movement. We need to assess the risks and conservation needs of each individual species before making a clear and definite decision one way or the other.

Meanwhile, we should take steps to lower demand for wild animals. There is research showing young Chinese are already less interested in wild animal consumption than older generations. We should encourage this trend through health and scientific education, such as by pointing out the lack of scientific evidence for most TCM remedies. Higher taxes can also be used to slowly discourage consumption of wild animal byproducts.

Changing long-ingrained eating habits will take time. Rather than rushing in with a blanket ban, we should rationally examine the issue, identify the core problems, and work to resolve them, step-by-step.

Translator: David Ball; editors: Wu Haiyun and Kilian O’Donnell.

(Header image: A Chinese pangolin strolls in the soil, June 2017. IC)

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South China Morning Post
Chinese gang of pangolin smugglers jailed over US$17.6 million haul of scales (https://sg.news.yahoo.com/chinese-gang-pangolin-smugglers-jailed-142642351.html/)
Echo Xie
Tue, 5 January 2021, 6:26 am GMT-8·3-min read
A court in eastern China has sentenced a gang of pangolin smugglers to up to 14 years in jail in one of the biggest cases of its kind in recent years.

Wenzhou Intermediate People’s Court announced on Tuesday morning that two of the defendants, identified by their family names Yao and Wang, had been sentenced to 14 years and 13 years in jail respectively and fined 4 million yuan (US$618,000) and 3 million yuan for trafficking 23 tonnes of scales from one of the world’s most endangered animals.

Fifteen others were given sentences ranging from 15 months to 12 years, ThePaper.cn reported.

Get the latest insights and analysis from our Global Impact newsletter on the big stories originating in China.

The report said Yao and Wang had started trafficking the scales, which are valued for their use in traditional Chinese medicine, in 2018. An associate smuggled them into the country from Nigeria and the pair then sold them on in China.


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The gang was caught in October the following year, when Wenzhou police seized over 10.94 tonnes of pangolin scales after they intercepted a shipment. At the time it was hailed as the largest haul seized that year with an estimated value of 114 million yuan (US$17.6 million).

A report by Science and Technology Daily estimated that more than 50,000 pangolins would have been killed to generate such a haul.

Pangolins are the most heavily trafficked wild mammal in the world.

Pangolins removed from Chinese directory of medicines

Three of the eight species of pangolin found in Asia and Africa – including the Chinese pangolin – are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Although the pangolin scales are made of keratin – the same protein found in human nails – scales and fetuses have been used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries.

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Police in Wenzhou intercepted a shipment of scales in October 2019. Photo: Weibo
Beijing has stepped up its protections in recent years, banning the hunting of pangolins in 2007, and outlawing imports of the animals and their by-products 11 years later.

But trafficking has remained rampant. According to the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, 123 tonnes of pangolin scales were confiscated by Chinese authorities in 2019 alone.

Following the coronavirus outbreak in 2020, the Chinese government passed a fast track ban last February on the trade and consumption of wild animals in an effort to avoid further outbreaks.

Could pangolins be a piece of the coronavirus puzzle?

In June last year, the authorities also banned the use of pangolin scales in traditional Chinese medicine, a move hailed by conservationists as an important step.

The decision came just days after the National Forestry and Grassland Administration designated pangolins a “first-tier protected wild animal” on a par with giant pandas and tigers.

The change in its protected status means the maximum sentence for anyone found guilty of hunting or trading pangolins has been raised from five to 10 years to life.

Sophia Zhang, director of the pangolin working group at the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, said that there would still be more cases like the latest one because of loopholes in the law and policing practices.

“Pangolins are delisted from the traditional Chinese medicine official list, but some medicines containing pangolin scales are still on sale, so the law needs to follow up,” she said.

Under Chinese criminal law, smuggling cases that involve fewer than eight pangolins would not be considered “severe” crimes and only warrant a relatively light penalty.

“Now people know that pangolins are as precious as pandas, but there are still some deficiencies in the law and practice,” Zhang said.
How many pangolins does it take to get a tonne of scales?