Chinese, Malay, and Indian pangolins in China have been given the highest level of protection, The Eastern Herald reports . In China, there are two levels of protection of wild animals, and earlier pangolins were under the protection of the second level.
Now the pangolin population in China will be strictly protected. The Chinese authorities were prompted to raise the level of protection by the fact that the animals are threatened with extinction in the wild.
Previously, the pangolins, which are naturally abundant in China, lived in 17 provincial regions south of the Yangtze River. By 2003, the halo of their habitat in China had declined to 11 provinces. The pangolin population is now estimated at 64 thousand in total.
The reasons for the disappearance of the pangolins were intensive hunting and destruction of the habitat. Hunting these animals in China was banned back in 2007, and in 2018 all commercial imports of pangolins and related products were suspended.
