TANZANIA: Infant Rats Training To Detect Trafficked Pangolin Parts And Smuggled Hardwood Timber In Morogoro

The pangolin, a scaly anteater coveted by poachers, might have a new champion: rats that will be trained to sniff out trafficked pangolin parts in shipments heading from Africa to Asia.

A pilot project to turn African giant pouched rats into conservationist sleuths is literally in its infancy — the 10 to 15 rodents being reared in Tanzania to detect pungent pangolin remains as well as smuggled hardwood timber are just a few weeks old and most are still with their mothers.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service , however, is on board with the vermin trial, which organisers hope can eventually be used to find hidden elephant ivory and rhino horn. The American agency has provided $100,000 to support what it says could be “an innovative tool in combating illegal wildlife trade.”

The challenge seems overwhelming.

Conservationists describe the pangolin as the world’s most heavily trafficked mammal because its meat is considered a delicacy in Vietnam and some parts of China, and its scales are used in traditional Chinese medicine. Wildlife contraband is concealed among vast numbers of shipping containers that annually leave Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, Mombasa in Kenya and other African ports.

Yet APOPO , a non-profit group based in Tanzania, already harnesses the rats’ keen sense of smell to find mines and other explosive material on old battlefields in Angola, Mozambique and, more recently, Cambodia. The organization also uses rats to detect tuberculosis in sputum samples of patients in Tanzania and Mozambique.

The rats in the conservation project will start “socialisation training,” which means being carried around on people’s shoulders and in their pockets, being driven around and generally getting used to sights and sounds, APOPO spokesman James Pursey said.

Then comes “click and reward” training in which the rats are fed a treat whenever they hear a clicking sound, and they’ll eventually learn to link the gamey smell of pangolin scales with edible rewards.

Later, the intensity of the pangolin smell will be reduced and other smells will be added to confuse the rats. The ultimate aim is to train the rodents to scratch or linger over the pangolin or hardwood aroma for three seconds, tipping handlers to a possible find.

APOPO is confident it can get rats to discriminate between a pangolin scent and other smells, and “the challenge is going to be how the rats actually test the containers,” Pursey said.

The Endangered Wildlife Trust , a South African group leading the project, said the trial “builds on the use of scent detection by dogs, but will take advantage of the rats’ added agility and ability to access the container vents, which would provide the most air from the container, and potentially the most scent. Alternatively, the rats will detect scents sampled onto a filter through the vents.”

Handlers can dispatch rats with leashes and harnesses into hard-to-reach areas, but then “how are they going to tell us that they’ve found something?” said Kirsty Brebner of the Endangered Wildlife Trust.

One option being considered is to install small cameras on the backs of the rats, an idea that has been discussed for the detection of people trapped in collapsed buildings after an earthquake or bombing.

WWF and TRAFFIC have supported “successful” tests using dogs and air-filtering technology to detect wildlife contraband, “but we are still learning the best ways to apply the system for prime time, permanent applications,” said Crawford Allan, a leader of an anti-wildlife crime initiative launched by the two conservation groups.

“Dogs do need a lot of care and we won’t risk them crawling into tight spaces where they could be injured — so bringing in a conservation ‘pied piper’ and a squad of rats could help in those circumstances where they can move freely, with low risk in more cramped conditions inside shipping containers or on the back of trucks etc.,” Allan said in an email. He is not involved in the rat research.

If the training goes well, it could still be another year or so before the rats finally get to work. They’ll stick to cargo perusal rather than, for example, checking out people’s luggage in airports. Travelers, Pursey of APOPO said, wouldn’t be “particularly enamored” to have vermin crawling on their belongings.

MALAYSIA: Stop Wildlife Trafficking Sahabat Alam Malaysia Says

All Malaysians must work together to stop wildlife trafficking once and for all. If we don't act decisively, many of the country's most beloved and iconic species are doomed to die out.

That is the message of one of Malaysia's best-known environmentalist groups, Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM). "If illegal wildlife trade is not curbed, then Malaysia’s 26 endangered animals (including the Malayan tiger, common otter and 11 species of bats) will go extinct," the group, which was set up in 1977 with the aim of championing environmental justice, stresses in a statement. "Other animals in the ‘vulnerable,’ ‘near threatened’ and ‘of least concern’ categories are not safe either as poaching, illegal wildlife trade, possession of endangered species, and the consumption of animal parts as exotic food are decimating their population," SAM adds.

The nonprofit has issued its renewed call for more comprehensive action against wildlife trafficking in the wake of a new UN report that identifies Malaysia as a global hub of the illegal trade. Endangered and protected animals – be they mammals, birds, reptiles, or marine creatures – are equally at constant risk from poaching and trafficking.

Meanwhile, Malaysia continues to serve as a regional transit hub for wildlife trafficking, a highly lucrative business accounting for billions upon billions of dollars in overall revenues worldwide annually. The country's officials can often do little more than fight rearguard action against the well-funded and resourceful criminal syndicates that are behind much of the trade. "Enforcement efforts should also match with the level of growing involvement of sophisticated, well-funded and increasingly armed criminal organisations in the illegal wildlife trade," SAM notes.

Hampering those enforcement efforts, however, is the unrelenting demand for the parts of exotic animals that are highly sought internationally as ingredients for traditional Chinese medicine. "Such fallacious beliefs," as SAM puts it, in the medicinal properties of rhino horns and tiger bones have encouraged poachers to hunt endangered animals into near-extinction levels in Malaysia.

To stop rampant poaching and trafficking, the group recommends increased online surveillance of social media sites to monitor the activities of traffickers who are increasingly taking to platforms like Facebook to reach a larger clientele with ease across Malaysia and farther afield. The group also wants to see a comprehensive hunting ban enacted to protect all endangered species in Malaysia's forests. "Don’t just ban the hunting of sambar deer. Stop issuing hunting permits for all wildlife,” stressed Mohamed Idris, the group's president.

He has also called for harsher penalties for wildlife trafficking to serve as deterrents, in tandem with stepped-up educational programs in local communities to continue raising awareness of the need for wildlife conservation. "The tame enforcement efforts point to a lack of political will among those responsible at national and international levels for protecting wildlife species," Idris said. “Strong deterrent measures such as heavy fines and longer jail terms must be imposed and enforced stringently.”

ZAMBIA: ZAWA Boost Efforts To Protect The Pangolin

In the past week, Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA) has rescued six pangolins through four separate operations across western Zambia. These scaly anteaters had been illegally captured from the wild by poachers and were being sold as part of the illegal wildlife trade.

GRI Wildlife Veterinary Project has assisted ZAWA in releasing four of the pangolins back into wild in Kafue National Park. Sadly two died as a result of their capture, one of which was a premature newborn whose mother gave birth due to stress.

Pangolins are often trafficked because their scales are prized in traditional Chinese medicine. In Zambia it has been reported that some cultures put a pangolin scale in their business cash box to protect their money. Other cultures believe that if the pangolin is fed special foods for a few days and then killed and opened a diamond will be found inside.

CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) has reported that these scaly anteaters are now the most hunted animal on the planet. Making matters worse, the female pangolin only gestates once per year, so opportunities for reproduction are limited.

GRI Wildlife Crime Prevention Project provides operational support to the ZAWA Intelligence and Investigations Unit involved in these anti-trafficking operations to deter and prevent the illegal wildlife trade in Zambia.