Wildlife Conservation Kenya Project #28549

Protecting Pangolins

by David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation

Project Report | May 18, 2023
Protecting Pangolins - May Update

By Jo B | Senior Fundraising Executive

Pangolin - Credit Mark Boyd

The Giant pangolin faces the greatest existential threat of all pangolin species within Africa. In Kenya, the Nyakweri Forest ecosystem (30km²) is one of only two confirmed areas the species now resides, with an estimated population of 50-120 pangolins. They are a highly isolated population and therefore extremely vulnerable to local extinction.

Habitat loss is a major threat to the Giant Pangolins. The Nyakweri Forest is not a protected area, it is owned by a conservancy which leases plots to private landowners has lost an estimated 80% of its closed canopy cover since 2010, mainly due to the local charcoal trade and for cattle grazing and agriculture.

The second major threat to this population of Giant Pangolins is electric fences, put out by landowners around private land used for livestock. It is estimated that 1-2 pangolins were lost each month in the last year due to electric fences. Pangolins home ranges are estimated at around 5km²which means they can cover up to 50 plots of land depending on their direction of travel.

Over the next year, our frontline conservation partners in Kenya, will continue working within the Nyakweri ecosystem to ensure the safety of pangolin populations and grow the conservation activities in the area whilst working alongside the conservancy to encourage habitat and species protection.

These activities include: Encouraging and compensating landowners to protect habitat and remove electric fences, either all together or from below 65cm to allow pangolins to move safely between plots.Working with the conservancy and landowners to halt deforestation. Continuing household visits to education and improve awareness of the Giant pangolin and the risks it faces and how they can help protect them.

Equally important will be the project’s ground-breaking work to research the movement and behaviour of Giant pangolins. Through GPS tagging of pangolins, extensive use of camera trap surveys and on foot surveys from the monitoring team, the project will map the home range and burrow use of pangolins, giving them a greater understanding of population numbers and dynamics. Very little is known about the species and this work will be vital in developing strategies to protect them, the data collected can also be used as evidence within the region to protect the ecosystem. To aid in this research our team aim to increase the number of tagged pangolins to 30 and the number of camera traps to 200 in the next few years however this requires substantial funding with each tag costing $2500 and each camera trap costing $250.

In addition to our work in Kenya, our investigators in illegal wildlife trafficking continue to gather valuable and actionable intelligence on the ivory and pangolin scale trafficking networks operating in Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, and other regional countries. Intelligence indicates that pangolin scale trafficking continues to be prolific in West and Central Africa, with Nigeria remaining as a key export point for illegal trade to Asia. A field investigation as part of the Persons of Interest (POI) programme in Nigeria, has led to the provision of high-quality intelligence to assist in ongoing covert law enforcement investigations into key illegal trade networks. Our partners continue to identify persons of interest involved in pangolin scale trafficking in West, Central, and East Africa, and share information that will support law enforcement agencies at the national and international levels.

Only with your ongoing support can we continue to provide vital funding to our conservation partners protecting pangolins and ending the illegal wildlife trade across Africa and Asia.

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Jan 18, 2023
Protecting Pangolins - January Update

By Jo B | Supporter Care

Pangolin - The Pangolin Project

Over the past six months our ground-based partners have been focusing their attention on the Nyakweri ecosystem in Kenya which is one of only two places where giant ground pangolin are known to remain in the country. The area is not under formal protection and has sadly been heavily affected by deforestation for grazing livestock and charcoal production and now less than 20% of the forest now remains. Our partners research and monitoring of the giant ground pangolin in this area is being shared with government stakeholders in an attempt to catalyse action to stop deforestation to offer some hope for the remaining closed canopy forest and wildlife that live within it.

The team in the Nyakweri ecosystem will improve monitoring in the area to protect pangolins and estimate the number of giant ground pangolin within the area. This will be part of a new flagship programme, ‘Tipping the Scales In Their Favour”, for in situ protection for pangolin. This project will include the Counting Pangolins Programme – building on the pilot study previously carried out by the team. This will be the first attempt to estimate the density or number of pangolins within a specific area and will provide baseline data for future studies.

To further the conservation of the giant pangolin the team must be able to monitor them. Our partners have recently received permission from local authorities to tag up to 20 giant ground pangolin within the area in collaboration with the Kenya Wildlife Service and Wildlife Research and Training Institute which will enable the team to gather vital research on pangolin populations, behaviour, habitat use and movements.

Our partners have expanded their community ambassador programme by recruiting four new community based pangolin guardians. This has been followed by a widespread community engagement program raising awareness about the importance of the giant ground pangolin, their distribution levels, and the risks they face. Over 200 meetings and bazaars have been carried out in the past six months, engaging over 2,900 community members.

All rangers within the area have now received critical training relating to pangolin and pangolin related crime. The Kenya Wildlife Service have also increased their surveillance for pangolin related crime, and community members are increasingly engaged in protecting pangolins, including immediately reporting incidents to the rapid response team.

Arrests for pangolin related crime have remained stable compared to previous years. Information received from community members suggests that an active trade in pangolin products continues, and 1.5kg of pangolin scales have been collected from members of the public and handed in during the past six months. We will continue to support and provide funding to increase surveillance for Pangolin related crime at a local, regional and national level.

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Sep 23, 2022
Protecting Pangolins - September Update

By Jo B | Supporter Care & Database Executive

Pangolin - Gareth Thomas

Throughout the last 12 months our ground-based conservation partners in Kenya, The Pangolin Project have continued to identify key areas with relatively high frequency of sightings of Temminck’s Ground Pangolin through employment of community-based pangolin guardians. The guardians receive specialised training, and their focus has been on identifying priority areas of focus through identifying areas with a relatively high frequency of pangolin sightings. With more boots on the ground, they have expanded their range of surveyed, monitored and protection areas and worked increasingly closely with Kenya Wildlife Service. This has resulted in an increased number of reports of pangolins held by community members and an increased frequency of pangolin scales recovered, reported and secured by the Kenya Wildlife Service. In addition, through the process of establishing the pangolin guardians they have created increased awareness amongst community leadership, county leadership and conservancy board members about pangolins and the need to conserve them which has led to increased collaboration.

Pangolin Project highlights and statistics from June 2021 to May 2022:

87 sightings of the Temminck’s Ground Pangolin recorded.
9 sighting of the Giant Ground Pangolin recorded.
4 dead Pangolin or carcasses found and reported.
3 incidents where scales have been found and safely recovered, total of 354 scales recovered.
50 camera traps installed.
9 Ranger training workshops held.
421 events have been carried out delivering key messages to community members.
111 communities positively affected by organisation interaction through the education and awareness programme.

The Pangolin Project has used the sighting data from the last year to focus their activities in 2022 on specific regions due to the increased presence of giant ground pangolin, the relatively high frequency of reported sightings and increased threats within these areas, which include habitat loss as a result of rapid deforestation, electric fence electrocution and poaching. A team of six pangolin guardians will be full time employees to monitor these areas and work with the communities living alongside them.

As well as delivering key messages, the communities will be offered an incentive scheme if they report a giant pangolin Sighting. The pangolin guardians will act as a conduit for these reports. They will be required to respond immediately and will initiate a rapid response team that will respond to any reported giant pangolin incidents and either: 1. Attach a monitoring tag to the pangolin 2. Assist in relocation of the pangolin if required 3. Assist in moving carcasses and scales to a secure location with Kenya Wildlife Service. Through swift reporting and response our ground-based conservation partners can continue to provide protection for this rare species.

This report highlights the important work of just one of our ground-based conservation partners protecting the pangolins across Africa which is only made possible with your support. Thanks to loyal donors like you DSWF can continue to support all our partners working across Africa and Asia to prevent pangolin poaching at its source, fund law enforcement efforts in Africa by tackling the illegal trafficking of the species, support wildlife rangers and pangolin guardians on the ground, as well as supporting large-scale demand reduction campaigns in consumer countries like Vietnam, China and Nigeria.

Thank you for your continued support.

Find out more about our work with Pangolins

Pangolin - Gareth Thomas

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