WHY PANGOLINS ARE ENDANGERED
Above all, pangolins are mostly hunted because it is considered a delicacy with nutritional and medicinal qualities. They have exotic culinary properties, and are very sough after for its nutritional values. According to the dictionary, pangolin scales can be "used to cure tumefaction (swelling), promote blood circulation and help breast-feeding mother produce milk". In culinary aspect, the pangolin is thought to have a trait for curing skin disease. However, with the meat now selling at an exorbitant $100 a kilogram, most depend on others of higher ranks to indulge in their taste for the exotic; some large state-owned companies have been known to throw a dinner where the menu included pangolins steamed with boiled mineral water.
The pangolin trade is now a major industry, and their population is decimated through trade in pangolin skin, leather, meat and live animals; whereas the scales are much sought after for the preparation of traditional Chinese medicines.
In some cases, illegal smuggling of pangolins and other endangered animals have resulted in the death of these creatures; as upon discovery, neither the receivers nor the senders wanted to keep them. The officials had no choice but to incinerate the animals after they "failed to adapt to their new habitat". Hunting tactics include, but not limited to, locals going out unattended and capturing the creatures in their own habitats. Pangolins live underground in a burrow, and hunters tend to burn twigs and leaves and the entrance, and smoking these animals out.
Another threat to the life of the pangolins are habitat loss and unsustainable hunting. Large areas of forests are destroyed for timber and agriculture purposes. Many protected areas are small, unallowing the animals to roam freely. In Sarawak, a rapidly expanding road network means that formerly remote forests are now accessible to hunters with shotgun, spotlights and freezers.
