Assessing Africa-Wide Pangolin Exploitation by Scaling Local Data

Ingram, Daniel J., Coad, Lauren, Abernethy, Katharine A., Maisels, Fiona, Stokes, Emma J., Bobo, Kadiri S., Breuer, Thomas, Gandiwa, Edson, Ghiurghi, Andrea, Greengrass, Elizabeth, and others. (2018) Assessing Africa-Wide Pangolin Exploitation by Scaling Local Data. Conservation Letters, 11 (2). Article Number e12389. E-ISSN 1755-263X. (doi:10.1111/conl.12389) (KAR id:100855)

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/conl.12389

Abstract

Overexploitation is one of the main pressures driving wildlife closer to extinction, yet broad-scale data to evaluate species' declines are limited. Using African pangolins (Family: Pholidota) as a case study, we demonstrate that collating local-scale data can provide crucial information on regional trends in exploitation of threatened species to inform conservation actions and policy. We estimate that 0.4-2.7 million pangolins are hunted annually in Central African forests. The number of pangolins hunted has increased by ∼150% and the proportion of pangolins of all vertebrates hunted increased from 0.04% to 1.83% over the past four decades. However, there were no trends in pangolins observed at markets, suggesting use of alternative supply chains. The price of giant (Smutsia gigantea) and arboreal (Phataginus sp.) pangolins in urban markets has increased 5.8 and 2.3 times respectively, mirroring trends in Asian pangolins. Efforts and resources are needed to increase law enforcement and population monitoring, and investigate linkages between subsistence hunting and illegal wildlife trade.

Item Type:	Article
DOI/Identification number:	10.1111/conl.12389
Uncontrolled keywords:	Africa; hunting; market; OFFTAKE; pangolins; trade; wild meat
Subjects:	Q Science > QH Natural history
Divisions:	Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Anthropology and Conservation
Depositing User:	Daniel Ingram
Date Deposited:	12 Apr 2023 08:13 UTC
Last Modified:	05 Nov 2024 13:06 UTC
Resource URI:	https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/100855 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Ingram, Daniel J..

Creator's ORCID:	https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5843-220X
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