Pangolin scales have been removed from an official 2020 listing of ingredients approved for use in traditional Chinese medicine in a move lauded by animal protection groups as a key step in stamping out trade in the scaly anteater, the world’s most trafficked mammal.
Zoology has an illustrious history; it has triggered paradigm shifts in thinking.
The illegal wildlife trade is one of the highest value illicit trade sectors globally, threatening both human well-being and biodiversity. A prominent example is ivory poaching, leading to an estimated 30% decline in African elephant populations between 2007 and 2014 and costing African states an estimated US$25 million annually in lost tourism revenues.
In a ramshackle barn somewhere in rural Vietnam, a balding chicken stumbles over a giant heap of chalky tiger bones.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic there is heightened public interest in the risk factors that lead to such events.
South African traders with China are illegally selling thousands of wild animals threatened with extinction and endangered, under the guise of legal exports, according to an investigation.
