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Saving the pangolin Trying to save the pangolin

A Brookfield Zoo symposium on saving the widely unknown but most poached mammal in the world reveals deep differences in what the most ethical approach should be

By Ted Gregory
Chicago Tribune
August 25, 2018


Little Anthony, an 18-month-old pangolin at the Brookfield Zoo, licks the hand of animal care specialist Lisa Photiades. (Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune )


Dead pangolins are sold with other animals at the Owendo market in Libreville, Gabon, in August 2014. (Celia Lebur/Getty-AFP )

The pangolin, a docile and reclusive animal that resembles an anteater covered in hard scales, is the world’s most poached mammal. But when William Zeigler and other animal advocates try to stoke public interest in the pangolin’s plight, they run into the same challenge.

“They have no idea what a pangolin is,” said Zeigler, senior vice president of animal programs at the Chicago Zoological Society, which operates Brookfield Zoo. “When you talk to the general public, you go, ‘Come see our pangolin.’ They go, ‘Your penguin?’”

Yet their relative obscurity may not be the biggest hurdle for saving the odd-looking creature from extinction. As dire as their status is — some conservationists estimate that upward of 200,000 are killed every year — restoring the pangolin population is a divisive topic.

This week, the Chicago Zoological Society is wading into the debate by hosting the first Chicago International Symposium on Pangolin Care and Conservation. The gathering has drawn about 50 participants from Africa and Asia, and zoos, research institutions and universities in North America.

Among them is Paul Thomson, co-founder of Save Pangolins, one of the earliest pangolin conservation groups. In an indication of how delicate the subject of pangolin restoration can be, Thomson declined to talk about the controversy over whether the animals should be taken from the wild and held in captivity at all.

“My hands are a little tied,” Thomson said Wednesday, a day before the symposium opened. “I don’t want to say anything that’s going to jeopardize our conversations. I’ve got to be diplomatic.”

The oddly charismatic, almost slothlike pangolin inhabits Asia and Africa. Its eight species vary in size — from the weight of a house cat to nearly 60 pounds. They are nocturnal, have powerful, small claws but are toothless and possess an extremely long tongue, which helps the pangolin consume thousands of ants and termites.

When threatened, the animal curls around itself, protected by its hard scales, which are made of keratin, the same material found in fingernails.

Although recent efforts to place them on threatened species lists, prohibit their trade and spread the word about their endangerment have helped, scores of pangolins are still killed every year in the production of traditional medicine, meat, leather, jewelry, even wine and male virility elixirs. They are particularly popular in Southeast Asia, where the their numbers are thought to be extremely low.

One essential question in attempts to restore the animals’ population is whether zoos should be plucking pangolins from the wild and bringing them to North America for research, breeding and, essentially, public relations.

Some pangolin advocates say efforts to save the animals should focus almost entirely on regions of the world that they inhabit, initiatives known as “in-situ conservation.”

“That’s where they survive best,” said Adam Peyman, programs and operations manager for Humane Society International Wildlife, noting their “critical roles in the ecosystem,” primarily as ant and termite eaters.

He pointed out that the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which has designated all eight pangolin species as “threatened with extinction” since 2014, has expressed concern that taking the animals from the wild hurts their sustainability, largely because no one has a clear estimate of the pangolin population.

Peyman also said moving the animals to zoos is so stressful that many end up dying in transit or in captivity a short time later.

He took a pass on attending the symposium.

“Our priorities are elsewhere, to put it simply,” Peyman said, before adding that he expects to receive reports from representatives of the conservation union and nongovernment organizations who are there.

Collaboration is focus

In the symposium program, the Chicago Zoological Society says it aims to “ensure all parties have been heard” and to develop an integrated approach to saving the species that could include keeping some animals in captivity.

In disputing the contention that zoos’ approach is detrimental to saving pangolins, Zeigler pointed to the accomplishments of a consortium that includes Chicago Zoological Society and six other North American institutions.

That group in 2016 brought 45 pangolins to North America, taking care to acclimate the animals to humans in the country of origin, rid them of parasites and place them on a new diet, Zeigler noted. The animals that did not transition well were released back to the wild, Zeigler said.

One did die in transit, he said, and several have died in captivity, although an exact number was unavailable.

Overall, captive breeding has been successful, he added, including two pangolin births at Brookfield in early August.

Today, the consortium has 40 pangolins, Zeigler said. The largest number, 13, reside at Brookfield, where one is on public display in the Habitat Africa! exhibit.

Bringing the animals to the institutions and breeding them has allowed staff to glean valuable knowledge about the mysterious pangolin, Zeigler said. Researchers have learned about gestation periods, young pangolin development and the animals’ genetics, disease threats and nutrition, he added.

Merely being able to analyze thousands of samples of the animals’ waste allows the measurement of hormones — important in assessing several health components, Zeigler said.

“If you don’t know anything about the animal, how can you save it?” Zeigler said one afternoon in his office at the zoo. He noted several species, including the black-footed ferret and the Bali mynah, California condor and Guam kingfisher birds “would have been gone” without help from zoos.

“That’s what’s going to happen to pangolin,” Zeigler said, unless zoos participate in restoring the animals’ population.

The goal of the symposium, he said, “is to look at every possible avenue of collaboration between professional care people as well as field people to see what can be done to increase the science knowledge, increase the success rate of the species being rehabbed.”

Having the pangolin in zoos also helps build awareness of its plight, Zeigler added, noting that more than 7 million people a year visit the institutions that are members of the pangolin consortium.

But Peyman said analyzing pangolins in captivity to obtain a clearer understanding of how they behave in the wild is comparable to analyzing incarcerated humans to get a clearer understanding of how they behave outside prison.

“They’re going to act differently,” Peyman said.

At least one area of agreement

Both sides do agree on one primary issue: changing cultural perceptions and practices is critical to curbing illegal trafficking.

Among those myths is that pangolin scales, when ground up and placed in water, can cure headaches and insomnia and enhance sexual desire.

“If we could change that culture and convince people that that’s not really true,” Zeigler said, “the demand would drop significantly. … We think that would go tremendously toward saving all eight species.”

Whether progress is made on that issue or others at the symposium remains to be seen. But Thomson, of Save Pangolins, did say he is “really curious to explore ways that the zoo community can work together with the conservation community for the good of the pangolin and find ways to collaborate.”

“There’s no time to lose,” he said. “There’s room for everybody and a need for everybody.”

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