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My Pangolin Day
by Helen Laughlin
A 3-hour drive south of Hanoi, just inside the gate of Vietnam’s largest national park, is Save Vietnam’s Wildlife (SVW). Founded in 2014, SVW works to stop the extinction and champion the recovery of threatened species in Vietnam.
I have made arrangements by email to visit SVW before departing for Vietnam on an organized tour. I exchanged several emails with the Communications Officer, Nguyen Thi Dung, who likes to be called Zung. As soon as the car I have hired for the day pulls up to the rescue center, Zung comes running up. She is an attractive young woman with a good grasp of English and a gregarious personality. I like her instantly.
According to the SVW web site, “In Vietnam each year, thousands of animals are illegally traded for meat consumption, traditional medicine, pets, and souvenirs. Live animals that are being illegally trafficked are often dehydrated, nutritionally-stressed, carrying diseases, and have injuries from when they were hunted. Poachers and traffickers will often force-feed pangolins to increase their weight before selling them.”
After a tour of SVW’s impressive education center, Zung takes me to the medical clinic where I meet Ms. Thuy, veterinarian and manager of the medical facility. I have brought along supplies to donate, a microchip reader and lidocaine patches that are presented to the organization in a small ceremony with staff and volunteers. Microchips and feeding nipples, delivered to my home by Amazon too late to bring with me, have been mailed to a volunteer coming to Vietnam from Wisconsin in early February.
Ms. Thuy lets me meet one of the pangolin patients who was confiscated by Vietnamese law enforcement with a wire snare wound around her neck and brought to SVW for rehabilitation. She tells me that pangolins are difficult to rehabilitation because they stress easily and curl up into a ball when held. The particular pangolin I get to meet is Delilah who is somewhat accustomed to being handled and doesn't immediately curl up in a ball.
 The SVW medical clinic
With Zung (left), Ms. Thuy (3rd from left), Helen (2nd from right) and other volunteers.
Although SVW works with many carnivores, their primary patients are pangolins rescued from the illegal wildlife trade. Pangolins are known by conservationists as the most threatened, trafficked, and least-known mammal in the world. They are shy, warm-blooded, scaled mammals who give live birth and nurse their one baby, which the mothers carry on their back. They are nocturnal, sleeping in trees during the day and feeding on insects at night. Pangolins are toothless with long sticky tongues for trapping insect prey. The scales are made of keratin, the same substance as our fingernails.
Many of the rescued pangolins who come to SVW are being smuggled into China where their scales are used in traditional Chinese medicine erroneously thought to cure everything from cancer to arthritis. Pangolins are also butchered and sold for food as a symbol of wealth and prestige. Lately, pangolins held in wildlife markets are believed to have played a part in the transmission of the coronavirus, although the theory has been strongly disputed. Wildlife markets in China have been described as “ticking time bombs” for the spread of viruses like the coronavirus. The scene is dozens of stressed, dehydrated wild animals kept in cramped, filthy cages waiting to be butchered. The floor, stalls, and tables are covered in blood, feces, and other bodily fluids capable of transmitting live viruses.
Pangolins arrive at Save Vietnam’s Wildlife stressed, dehydrated, and with wounds from snares and other devices used to capture them. Often poachers have force-fed them substances, such as gun powder, making them weigh more to bring a higher price at sale. Many of the pangolins die; however, many are successfully rehabilitated and released to safe environments where they continue their lives in the wild.
Ms. Thuy holds Delilah, a juvenile pangolin, with a snare wound around her neck.
Pangolins desperately need help world-wide. The staff and volunteers at Save Vietnam’s Wildlife work hard to save as many pangolins and other carnivores as possible. They are a shining light of hope in Southeast Asia where cultural tradition and ignorance is driving the native wildlife, such as pangolins, to extinction.
February 15 is World Pangolin Day!
Reference: Huffpost, “Wildlife Markets Are Ticking Time Bombs For Epidemics Like Coronavirus,” Health, 2/9/2020
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