Rescued Chinese pangolin.

Despite their threatened status, there exist a very little information on the distribution and current status of ‘Asian Pangolins’ in Bangladesh. The lack of this basic information makes enacting a pangolin conservation plan, both within the country and throughout the species’ range, difficult. This project will help to fill this knowledge gap and enable conservation actions for pangolins in Bangladesh. The information gathered from his study will be a baseline to initiate long term conservation and research programs. The expected outcomes of the project are: increased understanding of the current status, threats and distribution of pangolins in Bangladesh, increased understanding of community perception toward pangolins, better knowledge on the ecology and natural history of pangolin and raised capacity of indigenous people. We will be using two different strategies to obtain the information: 1) Active search for pangolins employing traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and 2) Semi-structured questionnaire and focus group discussion (FGD) survey.

The pangolins will be actively searched for in selected areas with the help of Mro indigenous people. Three former Mro pangolin hunters will be trained as parabiologists and employed to conduct the surveys. Data from our pilot study indicates that employing TEK to gather pangolin information is more effective than applying conventional methods such as camera trapping or quadrat surveys. The project is administered by the Creative Conservation Alliance (CCA)- a Bangladesh based, non-profit conservation organization, and will be conducted in collaboration with the Forest Department of Bangladesh. Based on our active field surveys and interview surveys, we will prepare a survey report with an immediate conservation plan for pangolins in Bangladesh, involving the local communities, Forest Department, law enforcement agencies and other government and non-government stakeholders.