Assessor: Matthew Child
Temminck’s Ground Pangolin is used at the local, national and international level for food, medicine and traditional ceremonies. The scales are used at local and international levels for ornaments and talismans (Pietersen et al. 2016). Numbers are difficult to estimate, but populations are believed to have drastically declined in North West and KwaZulu-Natal provinces (Kyle 2000; Ngwenya 2001; APWG unpubl. data). Similarly, in Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces, the population has decreased in areas where there are many local communities, such as Bushbuckridge, which supports the suspicion that the traditional medicine trade is impacting this species. These observations were also confirmed by on-going field observations by students working under the auspices of the APWG. For example, traditional medicine traders in KwaZulu-Natal Province stated that pangolins were in “high demand” (Ngwenya 2001), despite being sold at low frequencies, which perhaps suggests the animal is increasingly rare in the province. It has also been observed in tradtiional medicine markets in Gauteng (Whiting et al. 2011).
Local trade levels are potentially increasing, and there has been a steady, significant increase in the number of Temminck’s Ground Pangolins that have been confiscated and that were destined for either the local and/or international markets (Challender & Hywood 2012; Pietersen et al. 2014; APWG unpubl. data). International trade is increasing across Africa, and is likely to affect the local subpopulation in the near-future. There have been at least 79 confiscations in southern Africa between 2010 and 2013, with the annual number of confiscations displaying an exponential increase (Pietersen et al. 2014). Increasingly, the nature and circumstances surrounding seizures suggest links to intercontinental trade rather than to local use (Challender & Hywood 2012). For instance, a pangolin seized in Zimbabwe in May 2012 had had most of its scales removed, which deviates from the local practice of muthi, where the animal is kept alive and its scales removed as and when needed for medicinal purposes. In the past few years, the value of a Temminck’s Ground Pangolin in Zimbabwe has increased from USD 5,000 to USD 7,000 (Challender & Hywood 2012).
Challender DWS, Hywood L. 2012. African pangolins under increased pressure from poaching and intercontinental trade. TRAFFIC Bulletin 24(2):53–55.
http://www.pangolinsg.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2016/06/Challender-and-Hywood-2012-Poaching-and-Trade-TRAFFIC-24.pdf
Kyle R. 2000. Some notes on the occurrence and conservation status of Manis temminckii, the pangolin, in Maputaland, KwaZuluNatal. Koedoe 43(1):97–98.
http://www.koedoe.co.za/index.php/koedoe/article/view/212
Ngwenya MP. 2001. Implications of the medicinal animal trade for nature conservation in KwaZulu-Natal. Report No. NA/124/04, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife.
Pietersen DW, McKechnie AE, Jansen R. 2014. A review of the anthropogenic threats faced by Temminck’s ground pangolin, Smutsia temminckii, in southern Africa. South African Journal of Wildlife Research 44(2):167–178.
http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.3957/056.044.0209
Pietersen D, Jansen R, Swart J, Kotze A. 2016. A conservation assessment of Smutsia temminckii. In Child MF, Roxburgh L, Do Linh San E, Raimondo D, Davies-Mostert HT, editors. The Red List of Mammals of South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho. South African National Biodiversity Institute and Endangered Wildlife Trust, South Africa.
https://www.ewt.org.za/Reddata/pdf/RLA_Smutsia%20temminckii_VU.pdf
Whiting, M.J., Williams, V.L. and Hibbitts, T.J. 2011. Animals Traded for Traditional Medicine at the Faraday Market in South Africa: Species Diversity and Conservation Implications.” Journal of Zoology 284: 84–96.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-29026-8_19
Estimated mature population size ranges widely depending on estimates of area of occupancy, from 7,002 to 32,135 animals (Pietersen et al. 2016).
Pietersen D, Jansen R, Swart J, Kotze A. 2016. A conservation assessment of Smutsia temminckii. In Child MF, Roxburgh L, Do Linh San E, Raimondo D, Davies-Mostert HT, editors. The Red List of Mammals of South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho. South African National Biodiversity Institute and Endangered Wildlife Trust, South Africa.
https://www.ewt.org.za/Reddata/pdf/RLA_Smutsia%20temminckii_VU.pdf
All parts of the animal are used in traditional medicine and bushmeat trades where the animal is killed.
This is a long-lived species with low reproductive output that is increasingly affected by the loss of mature individuals (Pietersen et al. 2016). With the demise of the Asian pangolin populations, we suspect an increasingly severe level of poaching within southern Africa on a commercial scale, which thus represents an emerging threat to this species. Commercial harvesting pressure will synergise with the existing threats (such as high mortality rates from electric fences and local poaching for traditional medicine), as well as past habitat loss, so that a decline of 30% is likely over a 27-year period (three generations) between 2005 (c. when illegal trade began to escalate) and 2032.
Females become reproductively mature in their second year but are most likely to first reproduce when three or four years old (D. Pietersen unpubl. data). It is believed that males reproduce for the first time when they are 6–7 years old, although they probably reach sexual maturity before this (D. Pietersen unpubl. data). The female appears to give birth after a gestation period of 105–140 days. Field observations suggest that females may only produce a single young every second year.
Pietersen D, Jansen R, Swart J, Kotze A. 2016. A conservation assessment of Smutsia temminckii. In Child MF, Roxburgh L, Do Linh San E, Raimondo D, Davies-Mostert HT, editors. The Red List of Mammals of South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho. South African National Biodiversity Institute and Endangered Wildlife Trust, South Africa.
https://www.ewt.org.za/Reddata/pdf/RLA_Smutsia%20temminckii_VU.pdf