Reasons for Upgrading Pangolins to National First-Class Protected Animals, Protection Measures and Significance

The announcement of the intermediate host of COVID-19 this year has once again drawn attention to the consumption and protection of pangolins. And recently, pangolins have been upgraded to national first-class protected animals! So why the upgrade? What are the measures and significance of protecting pangolins?

1. Pangolins have been upgraded to national first-class protected animals!

According to the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, in order to further strengthen the protection of pangolins, China has upgraded all species of the genus Manis from national second-class protected wild animals to first-class. This marks that the Chinese pangolin currently naturally distributed in China, as well as the Malayan pangolin and Indian pangolin that were once recorded as distributed in China according to literature, will receive strict protection.

2. Why have pangolins been upgraded to national first-class protected animals?

To strengthen the protection of pangolins, China strictly banned hunting pangolins in the wild in 2007; in August 2018, it completely stopped the commercial import of pangolins and their products, and through measures such as carrying out special operations, it increased efforts to crack down on crimes damaging pangolins and other wild animal resources. However, due to reasons such as the continuous disturbance and destruction of the species' habitat and insufficient punishment for the indiscriminate consumption of pangolins, the sharp downward trend in pangolin resources has not been completely reversed. For this reason, in recent years, China has accelerated the work of upgrading pangolins to national first-class protected wild animals. On the basis of comprehensively collecting information on the species' population and habitat, experts were organized to conduct scientific assessment and demonstration, and opinions were widely solicited from various departments, with legality review carried out, providing a scientific basis and reliable guarantee for this work.

Next, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration will continue to take a series of measures to strengthen the protection and rescue of pangolins. These mainly include: accelerating field population and habitat surveys and monitoring of pangolins, laying a scientific foundation for carrying out comprehensive and systematic research, delineating protection areas, and launching special protection operations. Organizing forces to strengthen field patrols, strictly preventing poaching and illegal hunting, and continuously improving and restoring their living environment. Strengthening research on artificial breeding and rewilding and release of pangolins, and building a pangolin protection research center and gene bank. Further increasing publicity for pangolin protection, severely cracking down on illegal activities such as illegal trade, smuggling, and indiscriminate consumption of pangolins and their products, reversing the trend of continuous deterioration in pangolin populations and habitats, and promoting the continuous recovery and growth of pangolin populations.

3. What are the measures and significance of protecting pangolins?

1. Ecological environment

The feeding habits of pangolins are very special: they eat only ants and termites. By preying on termites, pangolins can control termite population numbers, thereby controlling the harm termites cause to forest trees, maintaining the service functions of forest ecosystems, and protecting ecological balance. It is estimated that one adult pangolin can eat 70 million termites or ants a year.

2. Species diversity

The most distinctive feature of pangolins is that their bodies are covered with hard scales. They are the only mammals with scales. There are 8 species worldwide, mainly distributed in the tropical and subtropical regions of Asia and Africa. In China, they are mainly distributed in more than 10 provinces south of the Yangtze River. Pangolins are timid and shy by nature, have relatively poor defensive ability, and are almost non-aggressive, making them very easy to capture; pangolins have relatively low reproductive capacity, generally one litter per year and one pup per litter, and once they suffer indiscriminate hunting, their populations are very difficult to recover.

Now pangolins have been upgraded to first-class protected animals, and whether hunting or eating them is even more strictly prohibited.