BENGALURU: Bengaluru is fast emerging as a major hub for trafficking of the world’s most trafficked mammal, the pangolins. With demand growing for its scales and meat in China and Vietnam, the animal is being hunted ruthlessly along the inter-state borders in the south and brought to Bengaluru to be sold to contacts and later to agents. They are then further shipped to these countries.
The recent seizures of live pangolin and its scales in Mahalakshmi Layout and Nandini Layout reveals a network of agents who are involved in buying the scales that are globally marketed for as high as $3,000 per kg. According to police officials, it is not easy to stop the trading as recognising the pangolin scales is difficult for the local police unless there is specific information or a tip-off.
According to officials, farmers and unemployed local youth bring either live pangolins or their scales or both to Bengaluru to be sold to specific contacts in different locations. In the recent case, farmer Munivenkatappa claimed to have hunted this animal while tilling his land near Bannerghatta forests and managed to contact an agent in Bengaluru.
According to Bengaluru (Urban) honorary wildlife warden A Prasanna Kumar, pangolins are found in open patches of grasslands in Devanahalli, Hesaraghatta, Nelamangala and Kaggalipura. He added, “Highly elusive and unusual, this burrowing animal is rarely seen. I have rescued about four pangolins in the last 10 years while many NGOs are involved in their rescue, some tend to keep them.
We have been tracking these animals in the grasslands of Hesaraghatta and trying to study them. However, they are being killed and their scales smuggled out of Bengaluru daily. With absolutely no awareness about this animal and low conviction rate of hunters, trafficking of the animal continues unabated.
Hence, Bengaluru Urban area needs an exclusive wildlife protection unit.”
Forest officials say these scaly ant-eaters have neither been sighted nor camera-trapped in Bannerghatta and they are usually hunted in the inter-state borders and brought to Bengaluru as the hunter is assured of a good price for its scales. A forest officer told TNIE that pangolins were not sighted even once in Bannerghatta in a five-year study on mammals with camera traps.
He added, “Hunting is widespread along the borders and with Bengaluru being the nearest and biggest city for wildlife trading, most of the scales are brought from Hosur, Thalli, Dharmapuri and other areas. These areas are scrubby, deciduous lands and with pangolins thriving in grasslands, it has become easy for hunters to either kill them or remove the scales and bring them to Bengaluru. The demand for pangolin scales is well known and its price doubles along the delivery chain.”
Usually, pangolin scales are mixed with sand and other construction material and packed in gunny or jute bags and transported through conduits to Nepal or Myanmar and finally to their destination in China and Vietnam. With checking at these borders being slack, a conduit manages to smuggle in 1-2 kg of scales on a daily basis, according to officials.