A handful of animals hold public attention when it comes to wildlife conservation in India. The lion, tiger, rhino, and elephant receive overwhelming focus, partly because of the drama attached to their sightings in the wild and partly owing to their tourism potential. A few birds such as the great Indian bustard and the Indian vulture, too, get talked about.
Yet, India’s—and the world’s—most hunted animal is none of these. It is the pangolin, a toothless, pre-historic mammal that is estimated to have lived on earth for nearly 80 million years. In 2015, pangolins were the most traded species in India.
The sticky-tongued pangolin thrives on ants and termites. When threatened, the generally shy animal rolls itself into a ball protected by a scaly armour—pangolins are the only mammals with scales—so tough that they can withstand even a blow with an axe.
Tragically, their protective shield is the primary cause for their near-extinction.
Poachers simply carry away the scared and rolled up pangolin, boil them to death, and tear up the scales. These scales are then used to make traditional medicines that are said to cure diseases varying from asthma to cancer. They are also said have aphrodisiac qualities. However, none of this is conclusively proven yet.
The animal is traded in huge numbers from India to China, Thailand, Vietnam, and other South-east Asian countries. Their scales are sold for an estimated Rs15,000 per kg. The British daily, The Telegraph, reported in January 2015 that according to some estimates, pangolin “sales now account for up to 20% of the entire wildlife black market.”
In the last five years, 4.3 tonnes of pangolin scales were seized in India, according to a study by TRAFFIC, an international wildlife crime detection body, jointly run by the World Wide Fund for Nature and the World Conservation Union. In 2011, some 1.8 tonnes of scales were seized in a single instance in Manipur. In fact, 42 out of 51 cases of seizures between 2011 and 2013 were out of India’s northeast, and involved smuggling over the thin borders
For More: http://qz.com/643400/after-80-million-years-on-earth-a-shy-and-scaly-wild-animal-is-rapidly-dying-out-in-india/?utm_source=parSC
Source: Islamic News Daily
