An undated photo, released Wednesday, shows Shanghai customs officers checking pangolin scales at a port in Shanghai. Chinese customs seized over three tonnes of pangolin scales, state media said, in the country’s biggest-ever smuggling case involving the animal parts. STR/AFP/Getty Images
Thanks to National Public Radio (USA) for reporting the news related to this remarkable animal:
China Announces Its Largest-Ever Seizure Of Trafficked Pangolin Scales
Camila Domonoske
Chinese officials have seized 3.1 tonnes (more than 3.4 tons) of illegally trafficked pangolin scales from a port in Shanghai, according to state media.
It’s the largest such seizure China has ever made, Xinhua News Agency reports.
Pangolins are the world’s most widely trafficked mammals — their meat is a delicacy and their scales are used in traditional Chinese medicine.
All eight species of pangolin are facing extinction.
“The pangolin is about the size of a raccoon and looks like an artichoke with legs,” NPR’s Jackie Northam wrote last year. “Its head and body are covered with an armor of thorny scales, giving it the appearance of a reptile. When a pangolin is scared, it curls up into a tight ball.”
This fall, commercial trade of the pangolin was “officially banned by the international body responsible for regulating the international trade of endangered species,” as NPR’s Rebecca Hersher reported.
Pangolins are now covered by “the strictest protections available under international law,” she writes…
Read the whole story here.
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