Nigeria

Written by Jordie Ndomo on March 18, 2023

Pangolin scales, all bagged up for their journey to China

The Pangolin

It’s human greed at work, still, in Nigeria. They trap and ship to China and other Far Eat countries the most trafficked animal in the world, the pangolin. It is a cute, little, ant-eater-like scaley, harmless-to-humans mammal that lives in the dense forest, eats ants, and rolls into a tiny ball when scared. Its biggest enemy is us humans. The Chinese value pangolin scales for their traditional medicine, which, of course, does nothing, but don’t tell that to them, or any other tradition-keeping society. In fact, it’s quite obvious that superstition has plagued mankind’s progress worldwide for millenia; look how long it took for the scientific method to take hold.