Christy was said to be feisty, active, beautiful and friendly. This harmless creature would have ended up in the steaming pot of a Chinese; or would have had her scaly skin peeled off for some Asian traditional medicine, but somewhere in the Southwest region of Nigeria, before she crossed African borders into Asia, some persons showed up and rescued her from her captors. She was rehabilitated and returned to her natural habitat where harm, at least from humans, will never reach her.
The above anecdote about ‘Christy’ sounds like a little girl rescued from human traffickers. However, Christy is no human. She is a sulking Pangolin, who was rescued by a Nigerian non-governmental organisation in March 2022.
Like Christy, so was Cheqs rescued; so was Olivia; so was Ivy, and so were over 70 Pangolins rescued so far by the Pangolin Conservation Guild Nigeria (PCGN) since it was founded in 2016.
Nigeria Is A Hotspot For World’s Most Trafficked Mammal
Despite its nocturnal and elusive nature, the pangolin is the world’s most trafficked mammal. They are trafficked via criminal smuggling networks between Sub-Sahara Africa and Asia.
There are eight species of the Pangolin. Four are found in Asia, and four in Sub-Sahara Africa. All eight species of pangolin are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the highest international law on Wildlife, yet they are threatened with extinction.
According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, three of the four Asian species are flagged ‘Critically Endangered’ which is a step away from ‘Extinction’. The African species rank between ‘Vulnerable’ and ‘Endangered’.
The near extinction of the Asian species over the years has shifted traffickers’ focus to Africa, and Nigeria has been identified as a major hotspot for traffickers. A report found that Nigeria in particular has become a global pangolin scale export hub, accounting for 55 percent of seizures of whole Pangolins and scales between 2016 and 2019.
Pangolins are killed and trafficked for a number of reasons. In Asia and Europe, they are luxury meat. Its parts and scales are also used for traditional medicine, rituals, and luxury artefacts, although there is no scientific proof that the Pangolin or its scales have medicinal value.
However, the continued existence of Pangolins is healthy for the ecosystem as they contribute to the regulation of the insect population. It is estimated that one Pangolin consumes about 70 million insects in one year, that is about 191,780 insects per day! This, in addition to their burrowing skills, helps improve soil quality for crops and trees.
Rescuing Nigeria’s Pangolins
Professor Olajumoke Morenikeji is the Chairman of the PCGN. She conceived the idea of saving Nigeria’s Pangolins when she was Director of the Zoological Garden, University of Ibadan (UI) between 2010 and 2016. “Every time we got a Pangolin, it died after some few days. I became very worried because, at that time in the zoo, we had a lot of successes with animals, but the Pangolins we got were not surviving. So I took a special interest in it because I wanted to know why,” she recalled in her chat with UCJUI.
Prof. Morenikeji found that the Pangolins would not survive in captivity, because they need their natural habitation to thrive. So she gathered like-minds and they formed the PCGN. The guild has conservationists, veterinary doctors, animal biologists, zoologists, and other professionals determined to save the Pangolin from total extinction. They started by sensitizing all stakeholders and students.
The Professor of Parasitology noted that “all the law enforcement agents we invited in 2016, almost none of them had seen a Pangolin before, despite the fact that under the law there is a protection for wildlife animals. So if law enforcement agents do not know anything about Pangolins, how are they going to enforce the law.”
Data from the Environmental Investigation Agency show that not a single seizure of Pangolins or their scales was recorded in Nigeria until 2016, even though many seizures made in Asia, America, and other African countries were traced to Nigeria.
However, since 2016, the Nigerian Customs has seized hundreds of thousands of Kilograms of pangolin scales. Thanks to the awareness created by the PCGN and other wildlife conservation groups. But the PCGN prefers to rescue the Pangolins alive.
More Awareness, More Collaboration, More Rescues
PCGN kicked off its campaign with sensitization of stakeholders, including community leaders, hunters, politicians, and law enforcement agents. It also extended its sensitization campaigns to secondary schools, tertiary institutions and youths.
Frequently the organisation would hold lectures for people in rural communities, as well as local vigilante groups, enlightening them on wildlife conservation. Last year, they gathered youths and students from tertiary institutions at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library and sensitized them on the significance of conserving the Pangolin.
This year, PCGN launched a Community Taskforce for Pangolin Conservation, in Epe, a riverine community in Lagos. Epe is a known hub of sales of wildlife meat, which the local people call ‘Eran Igbe’ (Bush meat). The Taskforce includes local hunters, market leaders, community chiefs and some youths. Its task is to monitor the Epe market and other areas for sales of Pangolins and report to the NGO.
Chinwendu Igwe, a final year student at the University of Ibadan, and a newly inducted member of the PCGN recalled that she had not heard about Pangolins until two years ago when she participated in one of the sensitization programmes of the PCGN.
Now, with her influence as a student leader, she sensitizes her fellow youths on the significance of Wildlife conservation, and the need to save the Pangolin from extinction.
From Lagos to Ogun, to Ondo, and far away Kogi, its sensitization efforts have paid off as local hunters would call the PCGN hotlines to report hunting or smuggling of pangolins. Sometimes the organisation would alert security agencies like the Police or Customs to help rescue a captured pangolin, especially when the captor is hostile; other times its members would go to the scene to rescue a Pangolin.
After rescuing a Pangolin, it is rehabilitated and given a name, and released into a protected forest “where they cannot be reached by poachers.”
Explaining the idea behind giving them human names, the Professor said, “We give them names to show our fondness for them, and also to keep record, and to remember the peculiarities of each Pangolin. The ones we got last Christmas, we named them Olly and Ivy. That will help us remember that it was during Christmas that we got them.”
The organisation also inserts a tracker on each Pangolin rescued to monitor its movement and sustain the conservation efforts. Over 70 Pangolins have been rescued since 2016.
Prof. Morenikeji shares her fondness for Pangolins. “They are sweet, shy, and lovely,” she says. However, she noted that not all Pangolins rescued from poachers and hunters have made it through rehabilitation alive.
She stated that sometimes the Pangolins are badly injured or overstressed before they are rescued, and this reduces their chances of survival. She recalled how a particular Pangolin recently rescued went through surgery but did not survive. “He was so resilient; he fought really hard, but the cut was too deep and it died during surgery,” she sighed.
She agrees with other experts that little is known about the biology and ecology of African pangolins. She noted that there is a need for more funding for research.
Recently, the University of Ibadan donated 3.5 acres of land to the organisation. Prof Morenikeji stated that there is no funding to develop the land yet.
While she commended Law enforcement agents for the support so far, she sought more support, especially in the Prosecution of wildlife traffickers. She urged the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NASREA) to strengthen Nigeria’s Wildlife regulation law by including stricter punishments and prosecuting offenders.
“We need a vehicle. People call us from all over the country. Somebody called us from Kogi state one day, and we had to go there. If we have a running vehicle, we will always move more, and do more rescues.
“We are looking at wildlife conservation funding agents to support us; we are looking at individuals to support us; we are looking at companies to support our efforts at making sure that the environment is conducive for humans to live in. it can only be conducive when we take care of everything in the environment,” she added.
