Pangolins within Tsavo conservation are set to receive more protection.
The Kenya Wildlife Service, Pangolin Foundation and Africa Wildlife Foundation among other partners are set to study, monitor and secure them.
“Pangolins need serious and elaborate monitoring system,” KWS Tsavo Conservation senior assistant director Robert Njue said.
Njue said under the programme, awareness about the mammal will be raised.
The director said those who might be tempted to poach pangolins may be coming from far.
Covering over 21,000 square kilometres, Tsavo Conservation is the largest protected complex in Kenya, and covers over four per cent of the entire country’s land mass.
It consists of Tsavo East, West, Chyulu Hills and South Kitui reserve which is under the county government.
The conservation area has in recent months witnessed fires. Herdsmen, honey harvesters and charcoal dealers were blamed.
Fires not only kill animals but also degrade the landscape and only small animals like rodents and snakes have been affected.
Pangolins are shy, burrowing nocturnal mammals that are covered in tough, overlapping scales.
The species vary in size from about 1.6kg to a maximum of about 33kg.
They eat ants and termites using an extraordinarily long, sticky tongue and are able to quickly roll themselves up into a tight ball when threatened.
Their scales are made from keratin, the same protein that forms human hair and fingernails.
Africa Wildlife Foundation Tsavo Mkomanzi landscape manager Maurice Nyaligu said pangolins play a critical role in the wildlife food chain as burrowing animals.
Nyaligu said there is a need to establish their population status for proper measures aimed at securing them.
He said AWF has been helping KWS to put off fires as well as monitor wildlife.
Large concentrations of giant pangolins and tree pangolins are found in Uganda, Tanzania and Western Kenya and parts of the Kenyan Coast.
In Asia, their existence is, however, being threatened as they are believed to have curative properties, and their meat is highly regarded.
It is estimated that as many as 200,000 pangolins are consumed each year in Asia for their scales and meat.
Conservation group WildAid says over 130 tonnes of scales, live and dead animals were seized in cross-border trafficking busts last year.
This, the organisation says, represented up to 400,000 animals.
In June, China banned the use of pangolin parts as traditional medicine, a move that the government lauded.
China omitted the use of pangolin scales in its 2020 list of approved traditional medicine, a reprieve to the most trafficked animal.
Tourism CS Najib Balala said, “This is a step in the right direction and we hope it will ultimately lead to the complete ban wildlife usage in traditional medicine.”
Balala said China's elevation of pangolins to a national level of protected species will speed up the fight against legal trade of the species.
“This guarantees that the species, which are nearly extinct, will at least now have room to breed and repopulate,” Balala said.
Edited by R.Wamochie
