Against All Odds
The Story of a Pangolin born in Captivity
Meet KeeKee, a brave female ground pangolin that was born in captivity, sadly rejected by her stressed mother when she was captured by poachers, adopted by humans, survived despite everything, and is now getting ready to be released back to the wild!
In October last year, officers from the Department of National Parks and Wildlife rescued a female pangolin from illegal traffickers in Sioma, Western Zambia.
What they didn’t know at the time was that the pangolin was actually pregnant and was to deliver in a few days. The new mother and her pup were sent to a facility that rehabilitates pangolins rescued from the illegal wildlife trade before releasing them into the wild.
At the facility, the team that works with the pangolins noticed that the mother didn’t seem to be too attached to her new pup. She didn’t breastfeed the pup enough and often tried to get away from her. The team believes the birth may have been prematurely stress-induced. It is commonly known that pangolins are very sensitive and don’t do well in captivity. The nightmare of being removed from their habitats by poachers who often rough-handle them and even deliberately injure them puts pangolins in a panic state.
When pangolins are stressed, they lose weight, their immunity weakens, and their health deteriorates. For pregnant pangolins, this can induce an early birth.
The team explained that in her stressed state, the new mother chose survival over her maternal duties and considered the pup an unnecessary burden that would make it harder for her to survive. When the team noticed the baby was becoming weak, they decided to release the mother in one of the national parks as she was in good health.
With the mother safely in the wild, the team now needed to do everything they could to save the weak pup. This was against common knowledge, which says that pangolin pups are almost impossible to keep alive in captivity. They decided to bottle-feed the pup, giving her six to seven feedings a day.
The next four weeks would be the team’s biggest test. If the pup didn’t gain enough weight or if she picked up other health complications, her chance of survival would be next to zero. This wouldn’t be surprising as pangolins born in captivity only have a 50-60 percent chance of survival. Without her mother to provide support and comfort, this pup’s odds were already slim. Fortunately, and to the relief of the team, KeeKee gradually gained weight and got stronger. By the time she was two months old, she had grown in size and had put on enough weight to get her out of the “danger zone.”
She is now four months old and in good health, weighing around 2.2 kilos. The team is now introducing her to eating ants and termites, her natural diet. In the wild, adult pangolins feed almost exclusively on insects. They can eat a staggering 23,000 insects a day (around 70 million a year), making them an important natural pest control.
The team explained that it is also important for her to start eating ants because they are rich in calcium, which she needs for her scales to grow strong. Pangolins are covered in tough scales, from head to tail. Some people wrongly believe the scales have medicinal benefits, so they poach pangolins to the point where they are considered the most illegally trafficked mammals in the world. The two pangolin species that occur in Zambia; the Ground pangolin, which is terrestrial and the Tree pangolin, which spends a lot of time up in the trees, are both under extreme pressure from illegal trafficking, with decreasing populations.
Contrary to the wrong beliefs, pangolin scales don’t have any medicinal value, they are made of keratin, the same protein our hair and fingernails are made from.
The team plans to set KeeKee free in one of the national parks once they are satisfied that she is no longer dependent on humans and that she can survive in the wild on her own.
Alarming numbers of pangolins are being poached from Zambian forests due to the black market demand for their scales and other body parts. Through collaborations with its local partners, the Department of National Parks and Wildlife is able to rescue some of these mammals from the illegal wildlife trade. And since 2018, the Department has been rehabilitating rescued pangolins to give them the best chance of survival once released into the wild. To date, more than 180 pangolins have been rehabilitated and put back in their natural habitats.
To get more information on Pangolins, visit the Protect the Pangolins page on facebook https://www.facebook.com/protectthepangolins