Please Help Pangolins

Please help save pangolins. They are the most trafficked mammal in the world, and unless we act now, they could disappear forever.

Every single day, hundreds of pangolins are ripped from the wild to have their bodies are carved up for meat, and their scales are pulverised for mythical medicines. They are plummeting towards extinction.

But there is still time.

If we can act now and bring down the illegal wildlife trade in pangolins, then their numbers can still stabilise.

That’s why we’re asking for donation today that could help keep them safe. By donating just £10, you could help pay for a week’s fuel of a motorbike, allowing FFI’s teams to move between remote villages as they support undercover operations into the trafficking networks. This will end the trade, and end the pangolin poaching.

So please, make a donation today and help save pangolins.

Could illegally trafficked pangolins be the missing link in the coronavirus outbreak?

The deadly coronavirus outbreak, may have been transmitted from bats to humans via pangolins, according to some research.

An as-yet-unpublished study by Chinese scientists has pinpointed these endangered scaly anteaters – the world’s most trafficked mammal – as “the most likely intermediate host” of the virus.

If verified, the findings could have enormous implications for the future of these endearing and intriguing animals, potentially inspiring a bloody backlash against them that their already desperate population won’t be able to cope with.

It wouldn’t be the first time diseases have crossed the species barrier. Many serious human infections have originated in wild animals. These include influenza, plague, smallpox, rabies, typhus, yellow fever and AIDS.

In some instances, after being transmitted to humans, a virus will mutate and become a human-specific infection. In other cases, a virus will remain largely unchanged and remain only in the initial host species, until there is an opportunity to transfer to humans.

These opportunities are increasing. Growing global travel, climatic changes, urbanisation and other forms of human encroachment on wildlife habitats are providing more opportunities for so-called zoonotic infections to emerge. As the coronavirus outbreaks suggest, wildlife markets are providing the perfect breeding grounds.

The crucial point, worth re-emphasising here, is that pangolins – if indeed they turn out to be the vector of the outbreak – are not the villains of the piece. There is a genuine danger that the knee-jerk reaction will be to demonise an animal that is an unwitting accomplice in a human-induced crisis. The real crime is being committed by the profiteers who are hoovering pangolins from the wild in industrial quantities and driving them towards extinction. And the solution is to give these extraordinary and irreplaceable creatures the protection they desperately need, rather than making them the scaly scapegoats.

That’s why FFI is asking you to please make a donation today. We still have time to save them.

Who are FFI?

Fauna & Flora International (FFI) is the world’s oldest conservation charity. Over the last 100 years, we have literally saved species from extinction and even – with the help of our vice-president, Sir David Attenborough – helped bring mountain gorillas back from the brink. We work to protect plants and animals around the globe, and spend 94% of our income on charitable activities.

That’s why we’re sure that – if everyone reading this donate just £10 – you could help save pangolins.

Thank you.