Would you buy and eat this scaly little animal? If you did, you would be breaking the law.
More than one million of these creatures, called pangolins, have bene poached in the last 10 years. Because of that, pangolins are endangered. At the end of September, people who protect wildlife held a meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa. They decided to make pangolin trading illegal. Does that mean people will stop trading and eating pangolins? Maybe not.
Pangolins taste sweet. In some places, their meat is considered a delicacy. Their hard scales are used in Chinese medicine. Many of the creatures are poached in poor parts of Africa like Uganda. People there need money. Why should they save an animal they could sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars? People need to be rescued from poverty. That may be the only way to save the pangolin.
