Chinese pangolin captured in rare images
Scaly mammal's population has been ravaged by deforestation, illegal trafficking
In early April, a member of a biodiversity survey team of the Luohu bureau of the Ecology and Environment Bureau of Shenzhen Municipality, and his fellow team members trekked into the forest of Wutong Mountain, the highest peak in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. In remote and scattered corners of the forest, they set up four cameras with infrared sensors triggered by heat.
In September, the team members collected data from the cameras. While sorting and analyzing footage earlier last month, they found images of a wild Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla). It marks the first recorded sighting of this rare species in Shenzhen's Luohu district in over 30 years.
"It was a pleasant surprise for us," Huang Qin, technical adviser of the survey team, told China Daily. "It's evidence of the effectiveness of our environmental conservation efforts in the area."
