Pangolin upgraded to national first-class protected animal! Why upgrade? What are the measures and significance of pangolin protection?

With the announcement of COVID-19 's intermediate host this year, the food and protection of pangolins have been paid attention to again. Recently, pangolins have been promoted to the national level to protect animals! Then why the promotion? What are the measures and significance of protecting pangolins?

First, pangolins are promoted to the national level to protect animals!

According to the State Forestry and grassland Administration, in order to further strengthen the protection of pangolins, China has upgraded all species of the genus pangolins from the national second-class protected wild animals to the first level, which marks the current natural distribution of Chinese pangolins in China. Malay pangolins and Indian pangolins that were once distributed in China will be strictly protected.

Second, why pangolins are promoted to the first level of national animal protection?

In order to strengthen the protection of pangolins, China strictly banned the hunting of pangolins from the wild in 2007; in August 2018, it completely stopped the commercial import of pangolins and their products, and by carrying out special actions and other measures, we will step up efforts to crack down on crimes of destroying pangolins and other wildlife resources. However, due to the continuous disturbance and destruction of the species' habitat and insufficient punishment for overeating pangolins, the sharp decline of pangolin resources has not been completely reversed. To this end, in recent years, China has accelerated the promotion of pangolins to the national first-level wildlife protection work. On the basis of the comprehensive collection of the species population and habitat information, organize experts to carry out scientific evaluation and demonstration, and extensively solicit the opinions of various departments to carry out legality review, so as to provide scientific basis and reliable guarantee for this work.

In the next step, the State Forestry and Grass Administration will continue to take a series of measures to strengthen pangolin protection and rescue work. It mainly includes: speeding up the investigation and monitoring of pangolin field population and habitat, so as to lay a scientific foundation for comprehensive and systematic research, delineation of protected areas and special conservation actions. Organize forces to strengthen field patrol, strictly prevent poaching, and constantly improve and restore its living environment. Strengthen the research on artificial breeding and wild release of pangolin, and build pangolin protection research center and gene bank. Further strengthen pangolin protection publicity, severely crack down on illegal trade, smuggling, overeating pangolin and its products and other illegal activities, reverse the continued deterioration of pangolin population and habitat, and promote the continuous growth of pangolin population.

What are the measures and significance of protecting pangolins?

1. Ecological environment.

Pangolins eat only ants and termites. Pangolins can control the population of termites by preying on termites, so as to control the harm of termites to forest trees, maintain the service function of forest ecosystem and protect ecological balance. It is estimated that an adult pangolin can eat 70 million termites or ants a year.

two。 Species diversity

The biggest feature of the mountain beetle is that its body is covered with hard scales. it is the only mammal with scales. There are 8 species in the world, mainly distributed in the tropics and subtropics of Asia and Africa, and in more than 10 provinces south of the Yangtze River in China. Pangolin is timid and shy, has poor defense, has almost no aggression, and is easy to catch; pangolin has relatively low reproductive ability, usually one baby a year, and it is difficult to recover once it is indiscriminately hunted and hunted.

Now pangolins have been promoted to the first level of animal protection, whether hunting or eating are more forbidden.