Despite this protection, poaching of this species explodes: early January, four Chinese nationals were arrested with 189 skins of pangolins in their luggage in Jakarta. In November, October and April, the French customs seized dozens of kilograms of scales at Roissy airport. A record 7.5 tonnes pangolin meat was also discovered at a port in Jakarta in May 2011, hidden under frozen fish in boxes destined for Vietnam. And many other seizures were made in Thailand, Cambodia, India, Malaysia, Burma and Vietnam.
"Since 2000, at least several tens of thousands of animals were sold each year in countries from Pakistan to Indonesia in Asia and Zimbabwe to Guinea in Africa," says Dan Challender, a researcher studying trade in pangolins, quoted in an excellent article on the website Mongabay. In 2010, the organization of protection of species Traffic issued a report estimating that a union of the Malaysian Crime had captured 22,000 pangolins over 18 months. In 2011, between 40 000 and 60 000 animals were also reportedly caught anything in Vietnam.
If they are often transported live to facilitate the preservation of meat, many die on the way, from hunger or thirst. In addition, traffickers often inject their water to increase their weight.
As for elephants, rhinos or tigers, laws and fines are inadequate to deter trafficking. And little of the kind of visibility helps keep concealed. Kanitha Krishnasamy, project manager for the NGO Traffic concludes, quoted by AFP: "Unfortunately, pangolin does not attract public attention, so by extension the authorities, because these scaly animals are considered less sexy than larger mammals. "
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