Green Options

40 pangolins - including baby pangolins - have been rescued by Malaysian authorities.

A four-day stakeout by Malaysian special forces along the Sungai Sarang Buaya resulted in the rescue of about 40 pangolins - and the arrest of a smuggler.

Pangolins - scaly, toothless anteaters that resemble a giant walking artichoke - are being hunted to near extinction in Southeast Asia to meet the demands of illegal trade in pangolin meat and body parts in China.

To help raise awareness of these gentle creatures, here is a list of 11 cool facts about pangolins. Enjoy!

Malaysian authorities rescued nearly 100 pangolins from a poacher who was planning to sell the endangered animals for meat and “medicine.”

A raid on a house in northern Kedah by officials from the Department of Wildlife and National Parks yielded 98 pangolins and three kilograms of pangolin scales. The Straits Times reported that the self-employed man in his 40’s was arrested, and faces up to 23 years in jail and a fine, if convicted of the five different illegal possession charges.

Vietnamese customs officials found approximately four tons of endangered pangolin scales smuggled into Hai Phong Port from Indonesia.

A suspicious waybill was behind the discovery of four tons of illegal pangolin scales in a container that was marked as dried seaweed. There were also two tons of tortoise shells in another container - supposedly containing dried tuna stomach.

A female pangolin was rescued after straying into an urbanized area of coastal Neelankarai and making her way into a garden.

Unfortunately, the rapid development of the Neelankarai area is crowding into the surrounding wildlife habitat, and has required the recent rescue of many small animals by forest department officials. However, this was the first time a pangolin had been rescued from someone’s home, according the the Times of India.

The pangolin apparently climbed up a compound wall in order to get into the home’s garden. Officials from the animal rescue and rehabilitation center in Velachery were called, and were surprised to find the pangolin in such a populated area. One of the wildlife officers told TOI that there is a population of pangolins at nearby Guindy National Park.

The pangolin was taken to the animal rescue center and is to be released, presumably at Guindy National Park.

Pangolins - scaly, toothless anteaters - are being poached incessantly from their native Southeast Asia habitats. TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, announced that the rising demand for Pangolin meat and scales, mostly from mainland China, is driving the disappearance of these shy animals.

The sheer size of recent Pangolin seizures is alarming:

They include 24 tonnes of frozen pangolins from Sumatra, Indonesia, seized in Viet Nam and 14 tonnes of frozen animals seized in Sumatra in 2008.

(Note: 1 metric ton = 2,204.6 pounds)

Earlier this year, 45 Pangolins were found in the possession of Thai smugglers.

The Thai Navy arrested eight animal traffickers in possession of two tiger carcasses, both chopped in half, and 45 pangolins as they attempted to smuggle the animals across the Mekong River into Lao PDF.