A CALL TO STOP PANGOLIN POACHING
WORDS: SHIRLEY LE GUERN
The multi-trillion-dollar disaster that is the Covid-19 pandemic makes pangolins, the supposed vectors in helping to transfer the novel corona virus from animals to humans, the most expensive meal ever eaten by mankind.
That is just one of the somewhat shocking and hard hitting observations from author, radio, television and documentary film presenter, Richard Peirce, who this week chatted to a diverse local audience via the Struik Nature Club and the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens from his home in the United Kingdom about his latest book, Pangolins: Scales of Injustice.
Richard says he was in Tswalu, a large private reserve in the Northern Province close to the Kalahari Desert which is synonymous with pangolin research, in February 2020 when the news broke that pangolins had been identified as the likely vector for Covid 19 to get to humans.
“A 90% match had been achieved between Covid 19 and the Malayan pangolin. What we think happened (was that the virus moved from) bats to pangolins to humans. Wire cages in wet markets are stacked one on top of the other so, if they have a bat on the top and civet or pangolin underneath, poo and pee from bat cages goes down and can affect the pangolins or the civets.
“Alternatively, when these animals are bought and killed, they are chopped up on a block of wood. We witnessed this. It’s pretty unhygienic. These blocks of wood are not cleaned properly and, if you have raw meat from different animals, things can easily transmit from one type of meat to another.”
His harrowing experience at wet markets in Laos and Vietnam during the filming for a soon-to-be released movie focusing on the horror of canned lion hunting in South Africa co-incided with the latest book that he was authoring. He was appalled to find out just how easy it was to buy pangolin scales or order the critically endangered mammal at restaurants in South East Asia.
Pangolins: Scales of Injustice is one of a number of books authored by Richard. These include Orca -the day the Great White Sharks disappeared (apex predators), Giant Steps (elephants), Cuddle Me Kill Me (captive lion industry), Nicole (marathon journey of a shark) and Poacher’s Moon (rhinos).
The presentation by this prolific writer was a chapter-by-chapter journey through this latest book which tells the story of Zambezi, a pangolin that was captured in Matabeleland in Zimbabwe and then trafficked to South Africa where it was rescued thanks to a sting operation launched by one of the many inspiring characters in the book, Professor Ray Jansen founder and head of the African Pangolin Working Group.
SETTING A SORRY SCENE
Apart from being labelled the most trafficked animal on the planet, Richard says that very little is known about the enigmatic pangolin.
With a long sticky tongue that is the length of its body and is extended into termite mounds to capture a meal of ants and a body covered in what look like prehistoric scales, the pangolin is tragically fascinating and shy, but harmless to all but ants and termites.
“The way that I do my books is to tell the true stories of animals and, by making them like adventure stories, I try to get people interested in the animals and open to various other messages in order to try and give them a future,” he explains.
Then there are the cold, hard facts.
One kilogram of scales is worth approximately $3000 (close to R43 000 depending on the performance of the rand on any single day). In 2019, 97 tons of pangolin scales were illegally shipped out of Africa to Asia. About 1 900 pangolins are killed for every ton of scales, translating into 160 000 pangolins.
He points out that experts believe that only about 10% of illegal shipments leaving our shores is intercepted. Based on this, at least 1,5 million pangolins are exiting Africa for South East Asia every year.
Sadly, Richard adds, between 60 and 70% of the world’s people don’t know about pangolins and why they are important.
One of the people who helped open Richard’s eyes to the pangolin dilemma was Professor Ray Jansen who Richard describes as initially coming across as something of an absent minded professor. “For me, as a writer, meeting him was an extraordinary gift because he is a complete enigma… He’s a zillion miles away from a gun toting secret hero but actually that’s what he is. Ray runs the sting operations which end up in pangolins being rescued from the trade. As a writer, he was a real gift. I listened spell bound as he told me the tale of (what he was doing) and rushed back to where we were staying and wrote it all down to make sure I really captured the essence of this incredible guy who you’ll meet in the book.”
Last, but not least, comes another observation: “I believe that poachers are just as much the victims in this as the animals they are poaching. They are very often hungry and can’t buy food or medicines for their families. They are below anyone’s definition of the poverty line. Then, someone comes along and flashes a whole lot of money at them. They are going to take it. They often end up in jail.
Those are the guys on the first rung of ladder. The ones I would like to see in jail are on the (higher) rungs at the end of the process who make all the money.”
MEETING UP WITH ZAMBEZI
Those are the guys on the first rung of ladder. The ones I would like to see in jail are on the (higher) rungs at the end of the process who make all the money.”
Initially, Richard admits that he was a little confused about just what it was about these enigmatic and even mysterious creatures that was drawing attention to them.
“I kept on being told that the eye of a pangolin was special and, for me, there was a big build up to this. Everyone I met talked about the eye. I was told that it bewitched you, drew you in, that it was magic. When I met my first pangolin, I guess maybe I was expecting too much. It was just an eye. But actually it wasn’t.
The more I looked at that animal and it looked at me, I absolutely understood. There’s something magical about it – it looks through you, into you, around you. It is wise, understanding and, you know what, it is forgiving, which is an extraordinary thing.”
Following the actual rescue of Zambezi, Richard’s book deals with the rehabilitation and recovery of what he describes as “not a very well animal at all”. He pays tribute to those who reach out to help these persecuted animals survive against the odds.
“It’s not an exaggeration to say that people who help these animals become their friends, get personally attached to them and will always go that extra mile for them. It really is something special,” he observes.
Without giving too much away, Richard sums up the story. “He’s trafficked, rescued, looked after and has met the very worst and the very best in humans. Then he gets released on to the Phinda reserve. What was fabulous about this is that Zambezi and other pangolins that are being released there actually mark the return of pangolins to an area in which they’d become locally extinct.
“Sadly, any release is going to have the occasional victim and one or two haven’t made it but Zambezi has and he’s living very well, very happily and enjoying life back in an area which his kind had left many decades ago.”
As part of this future, the pangolins are fitted with the “telemetric gadgets” that enable researchers to continue to track and study them.
“It’s a funny dilemma really. I often think animals are entitled to their secrets (and I question) the need to spend our time and money for the sake of a PhD to enter their worlds and discover their secrets. But, of course, we need to know their secrets and lifestyles in order to have effective conservation so those tools are very important in conservation and research.”
DIGGING DEEPER
Following the release of Zambezi, the book moves on to Tswalu, part of the &Beyond group along with Phinda and tipped as the most likely place to meet up with the elusive pangolin and a destination for travellers from around the world.
Richard’s trip to South East Asia followed.
“It was a pretty horrific experience. I’m a Westerner and I was posing as being on holiday. I was going into shops and able to find pangolin scales freely on sale. This is pretty appalling as countries like Laos and Vietnam who have signed up for CITES – the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (of wild fauna and flora) – are simply ignoring what they’ve agreed to. If I just walk in to shops and… see this, so can the police. So what are the police doing. Answer – they are looking the other way.”
During a trip to a cluster of shops in Laos, Richard was offered not only pangolin scales but tiger wine, rhino products and more.
He also visited wet markets much like the one in Wuhan, China, from which Covid-19 is believed to have originated. “That market sold absolutely everything you can think of animal wise – pigeons, frogs, snakes, fish, chickens, rabbits, baby pigs, lizards, almost anything that was in the animal kingdom. We were told that the legal stuff was on the top of the tables and the exotics like pangolin and civet are under those tables.”
Pointing to a photograph of two men at a chopping board, Richard explains that this was a civet. “Some may be aware that civets were the probable vector for the first SARS epidemic in 2002/3. What we have at the moment is the second SARS epidemic where pangolins are the likely vector.
He goes on to describe CITES, to which many governments signed up as long ago as 1963, as “ineffective and ignored” and suggests that it needs to be completely over hauled.
Richard observes that, when the whole world started speculating that Covid-19 came from pangolins sold in a wet market in China, it was hoped that the Chinese government would do something to curtail the consumption of wild life.
Pointing to the fact that more and more of the Chinese middle class are becoming wealthy enough to afford the exotic body parts that are traditionally believed to have medicinal properties, he does not mince his words.
“If the Chinese would modify or stop the consumption of wildlife, it would go a massive way towards stopping future pandemics and saving Africa and other contents’ wildlife.”
Sadly, the People’s Congress in China spent much of last year in a “consultative process” looking at their wildlife laws and introduced some clear cut changes when it came to the consumption and farming of wildlife.
“There were changes, but not enough. There are still loopholes. So, we are not 100 % back to square one but not all that far away from it. I hope that we aren’t going to have to learn an even harder lesson than we’re learning at the moment.”
Surprisingly, Richard still believes that pangolins might just have a future – if enough people speak out and do something to stop what is happening.
The opposite is also possible, of course. Frightened and ignorant humans might more actively pursue and kill them.
“There is already evidence that bats are being persecuted because of the perception that they’re bringing the corona viruses to humans, so pangolins probably won’t be getting a sympathetic hearing from those who think the answer is to kill things. My experience with sharks is that, after a shark attack, even though these animals are simply doing what they’ve been doing for hundreds of millions of years, people’s reaction is to hunt and kill.”
However, the warning might have been delivered. “There have been some plusses. Vietnam put in place robust laws governing the consumption of wildlife. What we need to see is if they implement and police these laws.”
AN OPTIMIST IN A BLEAK WORLD
What we have to hope for is that this pandemic will change the way we go forward on this planet … (One day we might be able to say) well done pangolins, you’ve actually taught us some sense.”
Richard says that, despite writing about animals in deep distress and facing extinction, it is not doom and gloom all the time. He wouldn’t be writing or playing his part as an activist if he did not believe that there is the change of some resolution.
In fact, he adds, all can play a part.
“I hope that this book contributes towards giving these very beleaguered, little understood creatures a future. I’ve got to be an optimist because, if I wasn’t doing what I do, I would wake up in the morning and find a piece of rope and a tree and hang myself. Sometimes it feels like you are making no progress at all. But, every now and again, amazing things happen.
“Barbara Creecy, the Minister of Forestry and Fisheries and Environmental Affairs in South Africa, recently announced the banning of captive breeding of lions and canned hunting. We all know that won’t happen in five minutes. No one was seriously expecting this. But events like this give people like me a huge boost to carry on, to move forward. So, we can leave the piece of rope in the cupboard and not bother looking for a tree.”
Penquin is running a special offer on Richard’s book until the end of the month. To take advantage of this, please click on the following link: https://bit.ly/2SjmDUR
PLEASE ALSO LOOK OUT FOR OUR FOLLOW UP TO THIS STORY. WE’LL BE CHATTING ABOUT THEDOCUMENTARY LIONS BONES AND BULLETS WHICH IS BASED ON RICHARD’S BOOK CUDDLE THEM, KILL THEM. THIS TAKES A LOOK AT CANNED LION HUNTING IN SOUTH AFRICA.
