Chinese Trade In Pangolin Meat Down To Animals' Last Stongholds In SE Asia - Tons Smuggled Annually

[hatrack]

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

[imdjh]

1. Fear not, if it gets out that there is an animal that eats ants and termites...

Florida will order herds of them and release them in the urban wilds.

[Nihil]

2. They are a curse on anything that walks, swims or flies ...

... and I'm not talking about the pangolins ...

I wish the Chinese would discover that eating Chinese people made
their stomachs full and their dicks bigger ...

:grr:

[bhikkhu]

4. Many good things become curses

when they become too numerous. Traditional medicines developed when the population was smaller and still integrated into the natural environment.

Now, well, everyone knows what has happened. Its happening the same all over the world, and we are currently at the center of another great extinction event. Its not the Chinese, but all of us.

[grizzlieorkus]

3. Chinese stand down!

I do wish the pangolin would be introduced to other territories but this is risky for the balance of already out-of-balance ecosystems. I saw the african pangolin scampering around on its hind legs in a nature program, very nice creature. There is no reason to eat them, its only some kind of hysteria.

[pscot]

5. Environmental vandals

What the fuck is the matter with those people?