Pangolins: Scales of Injustice

'The most trafficked wild mammal in the world' - so scream the headlines. The burgeoning international trade in these mammals means all eight of the world's pangolin species (four African and four Asian species) are under threat of extinction.

However, the global Covid-19 pandemic has now shone a new light on the trade: pangolins have been named as possible vectors for the coronavirus to travel from their bat hosts into humans. In southeast Asian 'wet markets' multiple wild animals are indiscriminately stacked in small cages, one on top of the other, their bodily fluids mingling unchecked, thus providing just the required pathways for transmission of disease.

In Pangolins: Scales of Injustice, Richard Peirce introduces readers to this enigmatic and discreetly charming mammal. He pieces together the likely history of a pangolin poached in Zimbabwe and brought to Johannesburg to be traded. Readers accompany an agent of the African Pangolin Working Group on a real-life sting operation to rescue the animal and capture the traffickers, and follow the subsequent rehabilitation and release of the animal into the wild.

Peirce unpacks the methods and terrifying statistics of the trade, describes visiting markets and restaurants in southeast Asia, explains the links between wildlife and Covid-19, and details China's response to the unfolding drama of the pandemic.