Officially, pangolin scales are no longer on the 2020 listing of ingredients approved for use in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). All eight species of the most trafficked animal in the world was immediately protected after its status was raised by China's State Forestry and Grassland Administration (SFGA) last week.

Up to 400 million pounds pangolins are killed for meat with 286,000 of those pounds for scales. In 2019, WildAid recorded those numbers to represent about 400,000 pangolins in black market animal trafficking activity. The SFGA still permits TCM pharmaceutical companies to use parts from old stockpiles or poorly regulated "farmed" wildlife, but this practice can attract poaching and illegal trafficking of animals, including pangolins.

The rare reptile has been in the spotlight since the coronavirus outbreak as studies suggest that it may be been a host and source of the virus alongside bats. Experts have said that proving direct transfer of COVID-19 to humans may prove elusive.

Authorities have already shut down the Wuhan wet market, the suspected origin of the virus, since January 1. However, there are still no official details regarding all the wildlife found in the region. Officials discovered that out of 33 positive cases from the market, 31 came from pangolin-selling areas.

Pangolin meat has been consumed by China's elite with hopes of health or sexual benefits. On the contrary, ancient TCM texts show warnings against eating the animals.

Most Trafficked Creature

Since 2015, more than 14,000 pangolins have been confiscated by customs from smugglers crossing borders in Asia, with 95% of those in containers of 21 animals or more. C4ADS suggests that this data is a result of organized, coordinated trafficking activity.

Amanda Shaver, a wildlife crime analyst with C4ADS said that 'Notably, there has been a significant drop in reporting on pangolin seizures since December 2019... this is most likely due to the increased media focus and coverage on COVID-19, but our databases have not recorded a single seizure of whole pangolin in Asia in 2020.'

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Protecting the Pangolin

Zhou Jinfeng, secretary-general of the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF), was very encouraged by this new move of protecting the pangolin. 'Our continuous efforts for several years have not been in vain,' he said.

Earlier this year, China's National People's Congress had banned wild animal meat consumption. However, some wild animals were still traded for TCM in the fur and leather industries. The country continues to improve their wildlife protection law and might have final revisions by next year.

Steve Blake from WildAid Beijing said that they 'highly applaud this announcement, made in recognition of the need to protect critically endangered pangolins...along with upgrading pangolins to a national level 1 protected species, these two actions are crucial to help curb illegal trade.'

This is proof of China's increasing commitment to wildlife protection. "But we still have a long way to go," Zhou said. 'We need to be vigilant about so-called 'captive breeding' and medicinal research [related to pangolin] because some wrong findings could lead to the wrong policy decisions,' he continued.

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