Do you know what "pangolin" is?
Have you heard of the pangolin? Do we even what it is? Well, it’s an 80 million year old, pre-historic mammal. The moment it senses danger, it rolls up into a ball and its protective shell is so thick that even an axe attack cannot hurt it. Yet, this mammal is being poached to extinction in India. Poachers just pick up the pangolin when it rolls into a ball, put it in boiling water; all this for its protective shell, which is used as a medicine to treat diseases, right from asthma to cancer. These scales are sold for an average of Rs.15,000 per kg. And the trade thrives in India, China, Thailand, Vietnam, and other South-east Asian countries. Pangolin sales now account for up to 20% of the entire wildlife black market.
According to World Wide Fund (WWF), since 2010, some 4.3 tonnes of pangolin scales were seized in India. In 2011, some 1.8 tonnes of scales were seized in a single instance in Manipur. In fact, 42 out of 51 cases of seizures between 2011 and 2013 were out of India’s northeast, and involved smuggling over the thin borders.
The point of this story – we are spending all over energies and money to conserve only some species – tiger, elephant, rhino and the lion. But what about lesser known ones like the pangolin? Why do we have this “blinkers on” attitude towards all facets of our life and not a more inclusive one? Maybe that’s why we have inequality all around us…