Hunters target endangered pangolins in India
3rd December 2018
A study published November 3 in the journal Nature Conservation by
researchers at University of Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research
Unit (WildCRU) and the nonprofit World Animal Protection sheds new
light on pangolin hunting in India, a country known to be a source of
pangolins entering the illegal trade but that’s been little studied.
Pangolins
are scaly, ant-eating mammals that live in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Their scales are in high demand in the illegal wildlife trade, valued
for use in traditional Chinese medicine. Two species—Indian pangolin
and the Chinese pangolin—live in the northeastern Indian state of
Assam, where the research was carried out.
Researchers
interviewed 141 hunters from the Biate, Karbi, and Dimasa tribes in the
rural district of Dima Hasao, with the goal of understanding how, why,
and to what extent they hunt pangolins. People from these tribes mostly
rely on subsistence farming and hunting, and pangolin meat is an
established—though not favored—source of protein.
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