China's insatiable demand for pangolins is threatening the survival of the vital pest eaters in Southeast Asia and governments must do more to protect them, experts and activists warned Tuesday.
"Due to continual demand and the decreasing Chinese wild population, in the past few years pangolin smuggling from Southeast Asia has resulted in great declines in these producing countries' wild populations," wildlife trade monitoring group TRAFFIC said in a report. "China has a long history of consuming pangolin as meat and in traditional medicine," it said. The animals are toothless, scaly mammals that provide natural pest control in the wild by eating ants and termites.
"Pangolin populations clearly cannot stand the incessant poaching pressure, which can only be stopped by decisive government-backed enforcement action in the region," said Chris Shepherd, Acting Director for TRAFFIC Southeast Asia.
The solution is better enforcement of national and international laws designed to protect the animals, improved monitoring of the illegal trade and more research on existing pangolin populations, TRAFFIC said. A spokeswoman for TRAFFIC told AFP that no estimates of the remaining pangolin populations were available, but the report noted that they are the most frequently encountered mammals seized from illegal traders in Asia.
EDIT
http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Chinese_appetites_wiping_out_pangolins_in_Southeast_Asia_999.html