Pangolins receive surprising lifeline with new protections in China

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“This is the single greatest measure that could be taken to save the pangolins,” says Peter Knights, CEO of the environmental nonprofit WildAid, an organization that focuses on reducing demand for wildlife products.

The revelation that scales are no longer an approved medicinal comes days after China announced that it was upgrading pangolins’ standing under the country’s wildlife protection law. Pangolins now are ranked Class 1—the status given to the nation’s beloved panda—which prohibits almost all domestic trade and use of the animals.

Any formal announcements from China’s government about use of pangolin stockpiles or the omission of pangolin scales from the nation’s pharmacopeia list will likely be slowed by an ongoing controversy about the animal.

Connections have been rumored—but not proven—between pangolins that may have been sold at the wet market in Wuhan and the original spread of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 among humans, Thomson says.

Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/06/pangolins-receive-new-protections-traditional-medicine-in-china/