Nigeria accounts for the biggest quantity of detected pangolin scales illegally traded from Africa. Between 2010 and 2021, 190,000kg of scales – representing practically 800,000 African pangolins – had been seized in shipments linked to Nigeria, regardless of a ban on worldwide commerce.
Pangolins are scaly mammals discovered throughout Asia and Africa. They’re thought of the world’s most trafficked wild mammals and they’re exploited in numerous methods on completely different continents.
In Asia, primarily China, their scales are utilized in large-scale therapeutic medicines, regardless of not having identified medicinal properties. Their meat is consumed as a delicacy, so it is costly and extremely wanted.
In Africa, pangolin scales are primarily utilized in small portions to make conventional medicines and, like most different wildlife on the continent, their meat is bought and consumed domestically. Nonetheless, the decline in Asian pangolin populations has prompted the trafficking of African pangolin scales to Asia.
As a result of comparatively latest rise in worldwide demand, the drivers of African pangolin exploitation stay unclear. Nonetheless, some conservationists and researchers suggest that this exploitation is primarily pushed by abroad demand for pangolin scales utilized in conventional medication.
My new research challenges this view and means that African pangolin exploitation is motivated extra by native demand for meat than worldwide demand for scales.
Having grown up in Nigeria, I developed private connections with most of the hunters and distributors and have spent the previous 5 years constructing a reliable relationship with them as a way to analysis pangolin commerce from throughout the business.
My colleagues and I despatched an nameless questionnaire to 590 hunters and 219 wild meat distributors in 33 areas in southeast Nigeria. We wished to learn the way many pangolins they caught yearly and the way they had been captured. We additionally requested what their motivations for looking had been, how a lot they bought pangolin merchandise for and the following makes use of of meat and scales.
Provided that pangolin meat is eaten as meals, we requested one other group of 570 hunters, distributors, and different family members to attain the palatability (perceived sensory qualities of meat flavour and texture) of 96 meat and fish dishes consumed in Nigerian communities.
Of the roughly 21,000 white- and black-bellied pangolins, which we estimated had been killed yearly throughout the hunters within the panorama between 2020 and 2023, 97% had been captured opportunistically (that’s, whereas performing actions apart from looking) or throughout basic looking. Of these, had been picked up by hand – these animals weigh simply 2-3kg on common and are comparatively slow-moving.
Surprisingly, 98% of captured pangolins had been caught for his or her meat, with 71% eaten by the hunters and 27% bought domestically. This excessive charge of private consumption in comparison with native gross sales is probably going pushed by their distinctive style. In southeast Nigeria, the three pangolin species eaten scored highest in palatability amongst 96 wild meats assessed, and had been comparable solely with the African brush-tailed porcupine.
By comparability, rural southeast Asian communities more and more forego consuming the pangolins themselves and as an alternative promote them to city centres as a result of they get excessive costs for meat and scales.
A lot of the pangolin scales (70%) had been discarded. Lower than 30% had been traded illegally. We additionally discovered that, on a per-animal foundation, pangolin scales have been three to 4 occasions decrease than meat since 2010, when Nigeria’s first pangolin scale seizure was documented.
Past Nigeria
Whereas our research centered on pangolin commerce in southeast Nigeria, our findings probably apply to different African forest areas the place pangolins make up the same proportion of the hunters’ complete catch and the place the worth of scales is comparable.
Our evaluation solely applies to white- and black-bellied pangolins; however that is nonetheless substantial as they make up roughly 98% of African pangolins trafficked internationally (based mostly on seizure knowledge) and 96% of pangolins caught by hunters throughout central and west Africa (based mostly on hunter offtake knowledge from six international locations).
Securing the way forward for African pangolins calls for a daring shift if they’re primarily being hunted for meat quite than scales, as seems to be the case in southeast Nigeria. Anti-trafficking measures alone will not shield pangolins if trying to find native consumption stays unchecked.
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Selling various protein sources or sustainable livelihoods for hunters may assist cut back wild meat dependence. As present international commerce bans do not all the time replicate native looking motivations, understanding why individuals hunt protected species and the way they get traded each domestically and globally shall be essential in creating conservation methods that can deal with the basis of the issue and encourage a transition to extra sustainable practices.
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Charles EmogorSchmidt Science Postdoctoral Fellow, Division of Zoology, College of Cambridge
