Pangolin, The 'Artichoke With Legs,' Earns Top Trade Protection
Source: NPR
Pangolin, The 'Artichoke With Legs,' Earns Top Trade Protection
September 28, 20161:54 PM ET
REBECCA HERSHER
Commercial trade of pangolins, the aardvark-like mammal that is the world's most-trafficked animal, has been officially banned by the international body responsible for regulating the international trade of endangered species.
On Monday, delegates to a meeting in Johannesburg of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) voted to approve the strictest protections available under international law — moving the pangolin into a category reserved for species "threatened with extinction."
The ban comes on the heels of a motion earlier this month by the World Conservation Congress to focus attention on the pangolin trade.
In her reporting on the animal, NPR's Jackie Northam described it this way: "The pangolin is about the size of a raccoon and looks like an artichoke with legs. Its head and body are covered with an armor of thorny scales, giving it the appearance of a reptile. When a pangolin is scared, it curls up into a tight ball."
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Read more: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/28/495778859/pangolins-the-artichoke-with-legs-earn-top-trade-protection
[font size=1]A pangolin carries its baby at a zoo in Bali, Indonesia. Delegates at a U.N. wildlife conference have voted to ban commercial trade in all eight species of pangolin.
Firdia Lisnawati/AP[/font]
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