Pandemic shines harsh light on Trump's failure to protect pangolins

[BeckyDem]

Wildlife conservation efforts are essential to preventing outbreaks, scientists and advocates say


Jimmy Tobias

Wed 15 Apr 2020 06.00 EDT
Last modified on Wed 15 Apr 2020 06.02 EDT

For more than five years, wildlife conservationists in the US have been clamoring for the government to provide Endangered Species Act protections to pangolins, a group of imperiled ant-eating mammals that are widely, and often illicitly, trafficked for their scales and meat. The Trump administration, however, has refused to act and that refusal has suddenly taken on grave new implications.

Earlier this year, scientists in China identified pangolins, along with bats, as one of the possible animal hosts involved in the transmission of the deadly coronavirus from wildlife to humans.


Although there is still much uncertainty about the nature of the disease’s emergence, the unwillingness of the Trump administration, and the Obama administration before it, to provide legal protections to pangolins, and other species, has intensified scrutiny of America’s faltering role in international wildlife conservation efforts. Scientists and advocates say these are essential to preventing the kind of pandemic currently sweeping the globe.

Though no pangolins live in the US, an endangered species designation could make additional funding available to preserve the species, bolster efforts to crack down on illegal trade and send a powerful signal to the international community that the animals ought to be protected.

Like HIV, Sars and Ebola before it, the coronavirus that is wreaking devastation worldwide is a zoonotic disease, meaning that it spilled over from animals to humans. It is widely believed that the disease originated in bats and was transmitted to humans in a live animal market in Wuhan, China, where a variety of animals mixed amid a bustling human crowd.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/15/coronavirus-pangolins-protections-us-trading?CMP=share_btn_tw