Text by: Anjana Parikh
World Pangolin Day is celebrated on the third Saturday of February every year to promote awareness about one of the most endangered animals in the world, the pangolin (family: Manidae). Pangolins or scaly anteaters live in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa; there are eight surviving species. There are four Asian pangolin species, of which two — the Indian pangolin (Manis crassicaudata) and the Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) — are found in India.
With the abundance of greenery around, Pokhriabong, a hamlet 35 km from Darjeeling town in West Bengal and its adjoining areas, is home to a variety of birds and small mammals, among them, the Chinese pangolin (locally called salak).
Pangolins are considered the most trafficked mammals in the world. Being critically endangered, they have been given the highest levels of protection and are listed as a Schedule1 species under India’s Wild Life (Protection) Act of 1972. This means that if a person is caught poaching or in possession of its scales, they could face imprisonment for three to seven years. Unfortunately, the animal is hunted for various superstitious reasons, and its body parts are used for medicine and meat. According to some beliefs, the scales of pangolins are used to treat asthma, piles, arthritis, and sexual prowess. They are also used in manufacturing purses, jackets, and belts.
The Chinese pangolin is found in a wide range of habitats such as tropical forests, grasslands, and agriculture farms. Darjeeling’s tea plantations are a preferred foraging habitat for them. Photo: partha dalal photography/Getty Images Cover photo: Poornasmrithi Rumdali Rai is the former principal of a local school in Pokhriabong, a village in Darjeeling. When she is not managing her school duties, she is working hard to protect the Chinese pangolin. Photo courtesy: Poornasmrithi Rumdali Rai
In 2007, when Poornasmrithi Rumdali Rai, then the principal of Riverdale Academy and resident of Pokhriabong, was trekking near Pokhriabong she came across a few pangolins. Later, she learnt that the animal was killed for its meat, and its scales were smuggled and sold at Rs 15,000 (USD202) per kilo across the porous Indo-Nepal border.
“It is interesting to note that the forest department was completely unaware of the existence of the Chinese pangolin in the area,” she says. Learning that Chinese pangolins found in the area are either killed or smuggled, Rai decided she wanted to save the scaly nocturnal animal. She jumped into action to sensitise and spread awareness among local people and started a “Save the Pangolin” campaign at her school. Since then, she has been working relentlessly to conserve and protect the Chinese pangolin. She also approached the forest department and made a PowerPoint presentation before the officials, which received a good response. Passionate about her project and the predicament of pangolins, she also adds, “In China, if you’re caught trafficking the pangolin, the accused is given a death sentence”.
Spreading Awareness
As part of the “Save the Pangolin” campaign at school, students held poster exhibitions on the animal’s conservation and habitat. The campaign became a platform to spread environmental awareness by inviting people from the neighbouring areas of Pokhriabong Valley. The Valley consists of 11 tea estates and 16 villages. The nearest town, Sukhia Pokhari, is 9 km from Pokhriabong, a stretch of road that runs through a forested area.
“In the beginning, these programmes were done by my students and me. We organised short runs from Sukhia Pokhari to Pokharibong, conducted poster campaigns and exhibitions for different schools, distributed pressure cookers, and waste bins.” Students involved in the campaign would visit villages and tell locals about the animal’s plight. They encouraged them not to believe myths that pangolin meat can cure asthma. They would try to dispel absurd claims such as “the animal’s scales can be used to treat ailments such as hysterical crying in children or eyelashes curling inwards”.
Chinese pangolins have poor eyesight and rely on their sense of smell to get around and find prey. They mostly feed on ants and termites. Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters, CC BY 2.0
With time, the forest department and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) got actively involved in spreading awareness among the tea garden managers and workers. In 2018, WWF conducted an awareness programme and distributed locally made pangolin dolls, designed and made by Rai and a few women from the village. After a few months, Kalyani Pradhan, a talented artist from Kurseong, volunteered to knit pangolin dolls for Rai and her team.
If Rai ever got a whiff of any person possessing pangolins, she would immediately go meet them and ask them to either set it free or offer them money to rescue the animal. “If it was injured, I would bring it home, observe the animal for some time and release it in the wild. If not, then I would release it elsewhere,” says Rai.
But her journey wasn’t a cakewalk as people at one point suspected her of being a “messenger” of the forest department. “It took me a while to convince people that I am a harmless person,” she adds.
The awareness programmes included organising quizzes and poster campaigns at the school and village level. In 2009, they organised a run from Sukhia Pokhari to Pokhriabong, where the award-winning celebrity nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar, her author husband Gaurav Punj, and popular TV actress Kavita Kaushik participated.
Poornasmrithi Rumdali Rai and her team use creative ideas to spread awareness about the conservation of the Chinese pangolin. For instance, they made pangolin dolls (left) and had a school campaign (right) in 2009 to encourage students to create artworks and posters to spread the word. Photo courtesy: Poornasmrithi Rumdali Rai
Rai, who wrote Tales From My Hills: Nepali Folklore in 2008 (under the name Smrithi Rumdali Rai), also authored a colourfully illustrated book titled Meet Papo—A Tale of a Pangolin. “This book is an effort on my part to highlight the plight of the highly endangered Chinese pangolin population in the Darjeeling Hills. With the hope that this gentle creature gets a chance to live in peace and gets the support it needs from one and all.”
Meanwhile, during the months of September-October 2021, five live pangolins and 40 kg of scales were seized from the foothills of Darjeeling, as per the official sources. According to them, pangolin meat is sold for Rs 5,000-7,000 per kg.
According to official sources, one kilo of pangolin scales sells for Rs 40,000-50,000. Nearly 600-700 gm of dry scales are extracted and smuggled to China via Nepal from one adult pangolin.
(Left) Poornasmrithi Rumdali Rai works with the forest department to rescue pangolins and reports any incidence of the animal being captured for meat. (Right) Her book Meet Papo—A Tale of a Pangolin is an illustrated children’s story of a young pangolin who lives in a warm and cosy burrow under the hills of Pokhriabong. Photos courtesy: Poornasmrithi Rumdali Rai
Conservation and Research
A team led by Dr Sunita Pradhan, Conservation Biologist, ATREE, has been conducting a study on the Chinese pangolin and its conservation since 2014. She says: “It’s a difficult species to study. We didn’t even see the species in the first two years, only their burrows. So it took us some time to devise a method to study the species. Now, we are camera-trapping to understand their presence and relative abundance. The preliminary results show that the agroforests and agriculture areas (both in Darjeeling and Sikkim) and tea plantations of Darjeeling form important native habitats for the Chinese pangolin and thus are important for its conservation. Our engagement with the species’ conservation also led us to involve the local community and mobilise local “Pangolin Guardians” in the region.” Dr Pradhan asserts that habitat disturbance and trade of the species are significant issues that need to tackle for pangolin conservation.
Though the journey to save, protect and conserve the animal has begun, Rai feels “we still have a long way to go because the pangolins still face the threat of loss of habitat. Through my book (Meet Papo—A Tale of a Pangolin), I hope the children will take it further and protect this beautiful animal through the years”.
