Op-Ed: Through the Eyes of a Pangolin

Hi! My name is Pangea. I’m a pangolin. You probably haven’t heard about me, but although I may not be as celebrated as the mighty elephant or as elegant as a giraffe, I am remarkable. And I’m trying to get my little voice heard before it is too late.  

My name refers to a supercontinent that existed long ago when the earth was one great land mass. We are actually prehistoric. Our ancestors have been around for 80 million years – far longer than humans who may have been around for about 3.5 million years. Despite having been able to adapt and survive this long history, humans are kidnapping us from the wild for our meat and scales at a rate that is now threatening our survival. This is our story…

We Pangolins live in jungles and bush and tend to sleep during the day, and look for food at night. My type live mainly on the ground. My other mates live mainly in trees. It could be said that we are reclusive. We certainly do not bother humans. Most people have never seen even one of our kind, though we live across much of Africa and Asia.

We Pangolins live in jungles and bush and tend to sleep during the day, and look for food at night. My type live mainly on the ground. My other mates live mainly in trees. It could be said that we are reclusive. We certainly do not bother humans. Most people have never seen even one of our kind, though we live across much of Africa and Asia.

Over the millennia we’ve developed some pretty clever tactics to get food. I live on ants and termites – nothing else. I get through huge numbers of them a year – up to 70 million. My eyesight is not that good but I can sniff them out. Then I use my fantastically long (up to 40 cm) and sticky tongue to extract them from soil, trees and crevices. Wow. Delicious.

We help to control ant and termite numbers, contributing to the delicate balance of the ecosystems we inhabit. And we take care of the soil: Our elongated claws enable us to excavate ant and termite nests and in doing so, the soil is mixed and aerated, which improves its nutrient quality and aids the decomposition cycle, providing a healthy substrate for lush vegetation to grow from. Our extinction may seem irrelevant, but the more parts you remove from a system, the closer it becomes to collapse. What’s good for nature is most often also good for humans too.

To help me mash the insects up and digest them I sometimes swallow the odd stone.

I can dig through almost anything very quickly – even concrete. I can make huge burrows – big enough for a man to stand up in.

I know how to defend myself. I’m protected by my thick scales, which account for about 20 per cent of my bodyweight. My nickname is the ‘walking pinecone’. If a predator attacks me, I wrap myself up in a ball. Not even a lion can bite through my scales. Biting ants are child’s play! I can also deter enemies by emitting a nasty smell, or lashing out with my tail.

When I was a baby I remember being carried around by my mum on her tail. At first I fell off a few times, but I soon got the hang of it, I stayed on it for months, who wouldn’t? After a couple of years, I left mum to go off on my own to explore and find out what the wider world had to offer.

The one animal I am afraid of is the human animal. We’re being exterminated by them - in huge numbers. We are the most illegally trafficked animal on the planet, even though most people have never even heard of us. They just pick us up and carry us away. You can’t do anything about it. I know because it happened to my relatives. They never came back. Then one day it happened to me. I smelt them coming just as I was enjoying a delicious meal. I tried to protect myself, but it was no use. They just put me in a bag, plunged me into darkness, and removed me from the land I loved.

Most of my friends are caught because some people like our exotic meat, which is apparently used as a status symbol. Others sell our scales for use in medicine and for unproven remedies. How can we protect ourselves from greed? Taking us from the wild is illegal, but some people don’t seem to care.

A few humans are trying to save us.  I was one of the lucky ones. I ended up with a passionate young conservationist who has made it her mission not to let the plight of my species go unnoticed. But there are not many humans that can help us because they don’t know how.  We are more complicated than we may seem, like we need to eat live ants or termites to survive, not potatoes! Even if they mean well, we often die in captivity. Some of my friends have been rescued, only to be captured again once they were re-released into the wild. Until our wild homes are made safe, our future is bleak.

Maybe if more people know how interesting and useful we really are, they will find alternatives to killing us for parts they don’t need.

Will you fight for me?

You can join UN Environment’s Wild for Life campaign to help put an end to the illicit trade in wildlife, which is putting an estimated $23 billion annually into the pockets of criminal networks. Find out how you can help fight wildlife crime on the Act page.