Pangolins are armoured, scaled, small mammals that are living out their last years on earth, and most of humankind has never even heard of one.
Pangolins are 85 million years old and have become known as the “wise old man” of the African bush. They are totems of good luck, the bringers of rain, and are the guardians of the forest, grassland, and bush veld landscapes.
Their sole job in life is to maintain a balanced ecosystem by eating termites and ants, but they have found themselves in a sticky situation on South Africa’s red list of endangered species.
Their numbers are expected to decrease by 30% between 2005 and 2032 and have been named an endangered species by the South African National Biodiversity Institute. Also concerning is the World Wide Fund stating pangolins are officially the most poached mammal on our planet.
Besides having no vocal cords, teeth, or claws, thereby being virtually harmless except to certain insects, pangolins have become the prey for Asian, Indian, Chinese, Malaysian, Vietnamese and African markets. Wanted for traditional medicines, cultural ceremonies, or for ornaments and talismans, the pangolin life is one of trauma and pain from birth until death.
Photo: Victoria Hill
Pippa Ehrlich, a wildlife filmmaker and journalist, explains how these armour-plated creatures have 30-centimetre tongues that catch their food and clean their scales. They have a highly tuned sensory system and use their noses to interact with the world.
They also have soft underbelly’s so they can exercise their abdominal muscles to be able to curl into small balls as a defence mechanism. As cute as they may be, pangolins are mysterious and nocturnal creatures who camouflage to their environment to disappear altogether.
Ehrlich calls all these features their superpowers. But their most important power of all, she says, is the pangolins’ ability to captivate the human mind.
She explains “when you find this little creature and it comes out of a box, and it’s been through the most horrible things you can imagine at the hands of human beings, and the first thing it does is uncurl and snuggle into your neck, you immediately fall in love.”
With all this in mind, the CIRCA Gallery in Rosebank held an art exhibition and subsequent auction on Thursday, July 25, 2024, in collaboration with the African Pangolin Working Group (APWG) to raise funds for their organisation.
The APWG rescues pangolins from the illegal trade network and rehabilitates them with the hope to release them back into the wild. Nicci Wright, the co-chairperson for the APWG, shared the first time she met a pangolin: “It was in 2007 that someone put a pangolin in my hands for the first time, and I didn’t know how to hold it. I’ve worked with all kinds of wildlife, and I knew how to hold all of those. But this pangolin was the most incredibly odd, hard, gentle, soft shape, and it was one that had been taken off the illegal trade. But when that pangolin looked at me, I felt my heart open.”
With 12 pieces of artwork auctioned on the night by Strauss & Co, a fine art auctioneering house, the APWG raised R355 000, excluding their seven online auction items available until Monday, August 5, 2024, which will all go towards saving the pangolins from their plight.
FEATURED IMAGE: Proclaimed artist Douw van Heerden was creating a spectacular piece throughout the evening to be sold via the online auction. Photo: Victoria Hill
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