world's most trafficked endangered animal

[DrLeftover]

4 Feb

...
The pangolin is the only mammal wholly covered in scales, and it simply curls itself into an impregnable ball when threatened by predators.

"The pangolin runs the risk of becoming extinct before most people have even heard of them”
- Prince William

It eats seven million ants and termites a year using a tongue that's almost as long as its body. It has no teeth, so it stores stones in its stomach to grind up its food.

The reason many of us have never heard of pangolins is because they seldom survive in captivity. Only six zoos in the world - and only one in Europe, Leipzig - have any.

Pangolins enjoy one other unfortunate distinction - they are the world's most trafficked mammal.

While the media focuses on the plight of the elephant and the rhinoceros, the celebrities of the natural world, roughly 100,000 pangolins a year are being snatched from the wild and sent to China and Vietnam.

In both those countries their meat is considered a delicacy, and their scales are deemed to have magical medicinal properties.

Already there are no pangolins left in great swathes of South East Asia, so Africa's pangolin populations are now being plundered. All eight species are threatened with extinction.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30833685

 

[+paradox]

they are sweet too, and can be great pets...

they also have great defenses that large animals can't seem to figure out how to get through...

 

[Jazzy]

Very unique looking animal. What a shame they're threatened with extinction.