pangolins
Pangolins are highly trafficked animals. Image: Flickr/flowcomm

Home » Game farmers are making big effort to protect pangolins from electric fencing

Game farmers are making big effort to protect pangolins from electric fencing

It is reported that in the past decade, more than 1 million wild pangolins have been trafficked and killed. This is approximately 300 per day. But game farmers in South Africa are making a concerted effort to help save these endangered animals. Electric fences are wildly used by game farmers to prevent movement of large […]

22-05-23 15:11
pangolins
Pangolins are highly trafficked animals. Image: Flickr/flowcomm

It is reported that in the past decade, more than 1 million wild pangolins have been trafficked and killed. This is approximately 300 per day.

But game farmers in South Africa are making a concerted effort to help save these endangered animals.

Electric fences are wildly used by game farmers to prevent movement of large animals on their reserves but can result in the electrocution of smaller animals like pangolins. The organisation SavePangolins reports that this results in the deaths of more than 1 000 pangolins annually.

A new project launched by Pangolin Friendly Farm Fencing and led by Pangolin.Africa is aiming to help change this.

ALSO READ: Pangolins threatened by criminal networks in southern Africa

ELECTRIC FENCING CAN RESULT IN THE DEATHS OF SMALLER ANIMALS

These fences cause a major problem for the Temmick’s ground pangolin, which is native to South Africa. Because they are bipedal and often walk on their two hind legs the fences are lethal. A pangolin’s protecting from prey is to roll into a ball – however when they with electric fencing, this pangolin ends up wrapping itself around the live wire, which often leads to death. Electrical fencing also poses a significant threat to other wildlife species as well, including tortoises, snakes, chameleons, and small antelope.

ALSO READ: Oldest wild lion in Kenya has been killed

According to the organisation, SavePangolins, Pangolin.Africa is working in collaboration with Tikki Hywood Foundation, the Kalahari Wildlife Project – and funded by SavePangolins, to implement a groundbreaking new system of electrical fencing that would prevent accidental electrocution of pangolins and other wildlife. The project includes various study sites and habitats around South Africa where they will be testing and monitoring the new fencing technology for a minimum of 12 months while recording pangolin and other animal behavior to ensure its effectiveness.

ALL THE PARTNERS ARE WORKING TO IMPROVE CURRENT ELECTRIC FENCING PROBLEMS

The project hopes to reduce and eradicate pangolin-related deaths and their are hopes that the project will create a new precedent for future fencing to include pangolin-friendly measures as standard practice.

Project study sites have already been selected for field trials and these include Timbavati Private Nature Reserve in Limpopo Province, and Glen Lyon Kalahari Nature Reserve and several livestock farms in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. These sites represent the various habitats and land uses present in South Africa and are thus ideal for testing the new system. Installation has already taken place at most of the sites and monitoring of these systems has begun.

ALSO READ: Pangolins: All there is to know about the most trafficked animal

THERE ARE FOUR SPECIES OF PANGOLINS IN SOUTH AFRICA

In total there are eight species of pangolins – four species in South Africa and four species in China, the Phillipines, India and Sunda (in South-Eastern Asia). All of these species face declining numbers in the wild due to illegal trading.  In 2016, the 186 countries affiliated with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) – the treaty that regulates the international wildlife trade – voted to ban the commercial trade in pangolins.

Pangolins are poached for, amongst others, the use in traditional Chinese medicine. For many years, the Asian species were the primary target of poachers and traffickers. The decline in wild pangolins in these regions have caused smugglers to turn to poach African pangolins. In two record-breaking seizures in the space of a week in April 2019, Singapore seized a 14.2-ton shipment and and a 14-ton shipment of pangolin scales—from an estimated 72,000 pangolins—coming from Nigeria.

ALSO READ: Man sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for possession of live pangolin

This article was originally published by Angeline Schwan.