Sabah pangolin bust a world record
Published on: Wednesday, February 20, 2019
By: Kan Yaw Chong
KOTA KINABALU: The world’s press picked up the sheer magnitude of Sabah’s recent 30-tonne pangolin haul and called it a record.
The seizure from one single raid of a seven-year operation that went unnoticed by the authorities not only established it as a world record but also confirmed massive poaching in Sabah.
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By comparison, HongKong seized 9 tons of Pangolin scales worth US$5.4 million in January. So Sabah’s 30 tons combined weight is 3 times worse whereas Uganda captured 4.2 tonnes on Feb.1 and Vietnam two tons in Hai Phong.
NGO Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network (TRAFFIC), said the incident is “throwing a spotlight on Sabah’s role in sourcing and trafficking of the endangered scaly mammal”.
What shocked Sabahans was the huge cash worth RM8.4million. But converted to US dollar it goes down to 2 million – not so shocking to Americans or Europeans so the foreign press play on what’s big by everybody’s standard – 30 tonnes.
AP quoted TRAFFIC as further saying: “Including this bust, Sabah has been implicated in over 40 tons of pangolin smuggling since August 2017, including 13 tons of African pangolin scales.
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AP cited “2009 when Sabah authorities discovered a log book kept by another pangolin trafficking ring, which revealed that 22,000 pangolins were killed and 834.4 kg of scales sourced throughout the state and supplied to the syndicate over 13 months.
All these widely publicised stories of terrible indiscipline at the wildlife front is ruining the reputation of Sabah that used to be sold as a premier nature destination. The question arises whether we are asking the world to come to watch wildlife or is it a wildlife crime state to watch.
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The AP report clear says the latter.
“There were occasional seizures of live and processed pangolins since then (2009). But the massive seizure of African pangolin scale shipments in 2017 at a Sabah port and at Kuala Lumpur International airport originating from Sabah highlighted Sabah’s emerging role as a transit point in the global trafficking of pangolin scales from Africa to Asia.
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