for you to think: None of these people seem to be
having trouble finding pangolins, so how close
to extinction can they be?
The answer is that we don’t have much ofan idea how many there are in the first place.
Nocturnal, solitary, and shy, they’re difficult to
count. But it’s clear from data compiled by Traf-
fic and other nongovernmental organizations
that they’re being consumed in and exported
from Cameroon and elsewhere in western and
central Africa in alarming numbers.
When photographer Brent Stirton and I wentto Cameroon last summer, we called up Ange-
lia Young. A South African living in Yaoundé,
the capital, with her husband and their three
kids, she was arranging to open Cameroon’s
first pangolin rescue center. Young took us to a
restaurant in the Bastos neighborhood, home
to embassies and expats. She handed us menus.
Listed above the couscous, plantains, and green
beans were porcupine, antelope, and pangolin.
This was an ordinary menu for any restaurantin the city, Young said. Bushmeat is popular in
Cameroon, where many prefer it to meat from
domestic livestock. Earlier, when we’d visited a
market in a rural town where a young woman
was preparing a pangolin dish to sell, I’d asked
her why she cooks it.
“Why not?” she’d said. “It’s good.”
We didn’t order pangolin (it’s illegal to hunt,sell, or buy pangolins in Cameroon), but we were
curious to see whether the restaurant had it on
hand. The cook was happy to oblige, bringing
out a platter of small gray frozen bodies on a
tray. Playing the curious tourists, we gawked
and took snapshots.
Young took us back to her house, which,like all the other homes on her street, was sur-
rounded by a tall, thick wall for security. As
we pulled up, I saw a boy in a school uniform,
Young’s son Nathan, walking what appeared to
be a dog. He was pointing his flashlight at the
space between the curb and the neighbor’s wall,
keeping an eye on his pet.
When we got closer, I realized that it wasn’ta pooch but a pangolin. The little creature
was sniffing and snuffling and scratching the
dirt, looking for ants. A pangolin walker, who
was supervising the outing, followed close
behind, keeping watch over both the animal
and the boy. This pangolin was one of a few
Young had rescued and was nursing back to
health in her house.
“I’m always saving things. Cats, dogs, birds,
whatever. I ended up saving four pangolins
and not knowing how to take care of them,”
she said of her first rescue, in late 2016. “The
only person I got to answer the phone was Lisa
in Zimbabwe.”
Hywood began sending Young pango-
lin care packages of medicine and blankets,
along with health guidelines for the animals.
Their conversations eventually led to the
inception of the rehabilitation center Young
was preparing to launch—Tikki Hywood Foun-
dation Cameroon.
Young introduced us to eight-year-old Nathan
and told him we were going to take a walk to the
grocery store around the corner to buy some96 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC