First published by Die Burger
I spent many of my childhood holidays in the bush, and a large part of my adult working life has been in the savannahs, deserts, mountains and rain forests of Africa.
I have tracked and seen some of Africa’s rarest animals – desert-dwelling black rhino and elephants in the Kaokoveld; Walia ibex and gelada baboons in Ethiopia’s Simyen Mountains; Ethiopian wolves and giant mole-rats in the Bale Mountains; gerenuks and Grevy’s Zebra in Kenya’s Samburu; 13 different primate species in one day in Uganda’s Kibale Forest; and even an incredibly rare melanistic black leopard in Kenya’s Aberdares National Park.
But I have only ever seen a pangolin once – a dead Temminck’s ground pangolin, killed by a bush fire in Zambia’s Kafue National Park.
It takes around 1,900 pangolins killed to produce one ton of scales. In 2018, 48 tons of scales were seized, the equivalent of 91,200 pangolins - a helluva lot more gets through undetected. Pangolin scales are a lot easier to smuggle than rhino horns or elephant tusks.
Pangolins are now the most heavily poached mammal on Earth, but because so little is known about these elusive and enigmatic creatures, they don’t get anywhere as much attention as the more charismatic species, like rhino, elephants and lions.
There are four species of African pangolin: African white-bellied pangolin, giant ground pangolin, Temminck's ground pangolin and black-bellied pangolin.
Film-makers Bruce Young, director of the acclaimed documentary, Blood Lions, and Johan Vermeulen set out to capture all four species on film. The result is the documentary,
style="font-family: Georgia, sans-serif;">Eye of the Pangolin.
The film, which recently had its only big screen showing, in Cape Town, has now gone straight to YouTube for free viewing and maximum exposure as part of a campaign by the NGO, Pangolin Africa.