Operation Pangolin launches to save world’s most trafficked wild mammal

Researchers and conservationists are embarking on a bold initiative to save the world’s most trafficked wild mammal — the pangolin.

With core-funding support from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, Operation Pangolin has launched in Cameroon and Gabon with plans to expand into Nigeria soon. Among the least studied animals in the world, little is known about the natural history or ecology of the world’s eight pangolin species. Even less is known of their role in a significant criminal economy where trafficked pangolins and the illegal sale of their scales and meat often go undetected. Operation Pangolin will generate much-needed data to inform conservation strategies in Central Africa, with global implications for the illicit wildlife trade. The team will then help implement the identified strategies, including wildlife crime prevention, with the hope of expanding their efforts into Asia, the only other continent with native pangolin populations.

“In the last decade pangolin populations in Central Africa have been under increasing pressure from offtake for local use and international trafficking of their scales,” said Dr. Dan Challender, an interdisciplinary Conservation Scientist based in Oxford University’s Department of Biology and the Oxford Martin School, who has been involved in pangolin research and conservation for 15 years. “This project has the potential to transform pangolin conservation, first in key locations in Central Africa, and then extending into parts of Asia. By taking an interdisciplinary approach and using novel technology and artificial intelligence methods, the project will give pangolin populations in these regions the best chance of survival.”

There are four core pillars to the project:

1. monitoring of pangolin populations, including developing and deploying new technologies to do so;

2. understanding the social-ecological systems in which pangolins are harvested, used, and traded in key areas in Central Africa to inform locally-led sustainable conservation solutions;

3. using insights from conservation criminology to prevent the illegal harvesting and trafficking of pangolins;

4. using artificial intelligence and machine learning approaches to unite diverse data streams to prevent wildlife crime involving pangolins, including through predictive approaches.

The researchers will work with local conservation stakeholders, including indigenous peoples, local communities, and government agencies to deploy pangolin monitoring programs, implement conservation interventions, and develop predictive tools for addressing wildlife crime.

Led by Dan Challender, the University of Oxford will focus on the social component of the project. This will conduct research in and around key protected areas with pangolins in Cameroon to understand the social-ecological systems in which pangolins are harvested, used, and trafficked. This will involve working with key stakeholders to collectively identify the conditions that result in the illegal harvest and trade of pangolins. This information will be used to inform context-specific conservation interventions with local actors (including indigenous peoples and local communities) to ensure that any future use and/or trade of pangolins is legal and not unsustainable.

 “Without urgent conservation action at a global scale, all eight species of pangolins face extinction,” said Shirley, project lead for Operation Pangolin. “Operation Pangolin is a chance to alter the conservation landscape for pangolins and other wildlife threatened by illicit human behavior.”

The researchers are joining forces with Carla Louise Mousset Moumbolou and her team from the Agence Nationale des Parcs Nationaux (Gabon’s national parks agency) to lead implementation efforts in Gabon and Andrew Fowler and his team from ZSL (Zoological Society of London) to lead implementation in Cameroon. The project is supported by the IUCN Pangolin Specialist Group, a global network of 189 pangolin technical specialists.

The team is developing toolkits for pangolin monitoring and data collection, a critical first step to prevent extinction of these evolutionarily distinct and imperiled mammals. The toolkits will incorporate the latest advancements in hardware and software, while using locally accessible and low-cost technological components. The researchers will work with local conservation stakeholders, including indigenous peoples, local communities and government agencies to deploy monitoring programs, implement conservation interventions and develop predictive tools for addressing wildlife crime.

“Accurate, actionable data is the foundation of effective conservation efforts,” said Gabe Miller, director of technology on behalf of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. “Operation Pangolin will provide a blueprint for how conservationists can turn data into solutions that address important issues like wildlife trafficking and the biodiversity crisis head on.”

Both IUCN and the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) agree that the development of pangolin-specific monitoring methods linked to anti-trafficking efforts is the highest conservation priority for these mammals. Throughout history, pangolins have been sustainably used for food and medicine, but overexploitation has exploded in recent decades resulting in threatened status for all eight species. The main threat, both in Asia and increasingly in Africa, is poaching for international wildlife trafficking. Enough pangolin scales have been seized in the past decade to account for at least 1 million pangolins, yet little is known of the trafficking supply chains. This number does not account for the pangolins that are removed undetected from the wild to fuel this illegal enterprise. At least 250,000 are estimated to be taken from African and Asian forests every year for consumers in China, Vietnam, and even western Europe and the United States.

The $4 million grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation supports the current launch of the project in Central Africa. The research team is concurrently raising funds in an effort to expand the project to Asia by 2027.