Pangolins - Scales of Injustice

The most trafficked wild animal in the world!

The burgeoning international trade in pangolins means that all eight of the world's pangolin species (four African and four Asian) are under threat of extinction. When, in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic swept across the globe, it shone a new light on the trade in pangolins, fingering these mammals as possible vectors for the transmission of the virus from its bat hosts to humans. Southeast Asia's wet markets, where assorted wild animals are stacked in cages one on top of the other with their bodily fluids mingling unchecked, were identified as the likely source.
In "Pangolins - Scales of Injustice", Richard Peirce introduces readers to this enigmatic and discreetly charming mammal, and follows the likely journey of a pangolin poached in Zimbabwe and brought to Johannesburg to be sold to a waiting trafficker. Readers accompany an agent of the African Pangolin Working Group on a real-life sting operation to capture the law breakers and rescue the animal, and follow its subsequent rehabilitation and release into the wild.
Peirce unpacks the methods and terrifying statistics of the trade, describes visiting wildlife markets and restaurants in Southeast Asia, explains the links between wildlife and Covid-19, and details China's response to the unfolding drama of the pandemic.