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New Paper, 23 Mar 05 Woman finds pangolin in her HDB flat By Teh Jen Lee WHEN she found a strange scaly creature in the kitchen of her HDB flat, Madam Tang was worried. What if it attacked me, she thought. She needn't have worried. It was an endangered but harmless animal known as a pangolin. But how did a pangolin end up in the kitchen of an HDB flat? Going by what Madam Tang said, someone had abandoned it in a box made of two plastic baskets outside her home in Block 274, Yishun Street 22. Madam Tang, 45, said she heard the sound of hurried footsteps on the corridor in the early hours of Sunday morning. 'It woke me up but I thought nothing of it and went back to sleep,' the housewife told Shin Min Daily News. She said she saw the plastic baskets in her kitchen later that morning, but didn't look into it until the afternoon. AFRAID According to Madam Tang, her 16-year-old son had found the baskets outside their flat and taken them in. He had then gone to sleep without telling anyone about it as he was tired after spending a night at Sentosa. When Madam Tang finally looked into the baskets, she said she was shocked to find the animal inside. 'I couldn't recognise it. My eldest son said it was a pangolin and did an Internet check on it. 'Since we were not familiar with it, we were afraid it would attack humans.' They called the police. They need not have worried - pangolins are shy and solitary creatures which usually curl up into a ball when they feel threatened. This one was probably more afraid of Madam Tang than the other way round. She said it tried to claw its way out of the basket at first but then it stayed still, only moving its head a little to sniff its surroundings. The animal weighed about 4kg and measured 85cm from the tip of its snout to the end of its muscular tail. But how did it end up there? The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) was called in to investigate. The animal was later taken to the zoo but it remains to be seen if it will stay alive. Pangolins are extremely hard to keep in captivity because of their highly-specialised insect diet. Hunting and habitat destruction has contributed to the endangered status of pangolins worldwide. Pangolins are easy to hunt as their first instinct is to run and hide in a hole. Poachers either dig them out or suffocate them by burning chillies at the burrow entrances. Pangolins are listed under Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites). Under the Endangered Species (Import and Export) Act, which was gazetted in 1989, Cites permits from AVA are required for the import and export of pangolins. However, Miss Lye Fong Keng, head of AVA's wildlife regulatory branch, has spoken of a global ban on international trade in wild pangolins. Anyone who smuggles endangered species is liable to be prosecuted in court, fined a maximum of $5,000 per species ($10,000 for repeat offences) and/or jailed for one year. Madam Tang said: 'Although keeping a pangolin is illegal, the person shouldn't have discarded it so irresponsibly. 'Whatever it is, it is still a life.' links Related articles on Singapore's biodiversity |
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