NAIROBI, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- Human and climate-induced threats to pangolins have soared, threatening their survival while worsening ecosystem imbalances and risk to public health, an African conservationist said Friday ahead of World Pangolin Day to be marked on Saturday.
Edith Kabesiime, the Wildlife Campaign Manager at World Animal Protection, an international animal welfare lobby, said that pangolins, the only mammals fully covered with scales, could be pushed to extinction amid illegal hunting and destruction of their natural habitat.
"Pangolins are facing an existential crisis and a raft of welfare problems. They are forcefully extracted from their habitats in the wild for extraction of their scales under the guise of satisfying the global market for traditional medicine," Kabesiime said in a statement issued in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.
Kabesiime, who described pangolins as sentient beings thanks to their high degree of consciousness and cognitive ability, said that African governments must prioritize their conservation in the face of mounting threats.
The population of pangolins in their natural habitats including Africa's wild jungles and tropical forests has been on the decline in the recent past, driven by illegal trafficking, climatic shocks and diseases, Kabesiime said.
She added that World Pangolin Day that is observed every third Saturday of February should be a wakeup call for governments, donors and local communities to invest in programs that advance protection of the scaled mammal.
In addition, Kabesiime called for enforcement of laws, enhanced surveillance, and public awareness to demystify myths around pangolin scales in a bid to halt their illegal hunting.
All the eight species of Pangolins were in 2016 listed at Appendix one of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), granting them the highest level of protection amid wanton exploitation.
According to World Animal Protection, four species of pangolin are found in Africa and the other four in Asia while their slow reproductive rate, where females give birth to only one or two offspring annually, has complicated efforts to restore their population amid over-hunting and climate-related threats.
