Rise to fame: events, media activity and public interest in pangolins and pangolin trade, 2005–2016

Abstract

Attention focused on pangolins (Pholidota) and the threats posed to their survival and welfare by international trade (for use in Chinese Traditional Medicine and the Asian wild meat market) has skyrocketed across all digital information platforms over the last decade. Previously obscure and often referred to as the ‘mammal you’ve never heard of’, pangolins are now widely recognised as an icon of the illegal wildlife trade. We document the events that led to the pangolins’ ‘rise to fame’, culminating in its Appendix I listing by CITES in September 2016 and a global commercial trade ban and explore temporal co-occurrence between events and peaks in media activity and public interest with the aim of identifying events (or types of events) that may have been influential in terms of awareness-raising. More broadly, our objective was to highlight lessons in public communication that might be applied to awareness campaigns for other lesser-known threatened species. We found no evidence that any particular type of event was more likely to generate a significant media/public response than any other, but peaks in public interest co-occurred with reports of pangolin seizures, highlighting the importance of news coverage of these incidents. Further, although neither editorial nor social media peaks were strongly correlated with the timing of events, they sometimes co-occurred with different events and each differed in their coverage of different types of events, suggesting that editorial and social media have independent and distinct roles to play in conservation communication. However, despite their iconic status, public interest in pangolins is still not equivalent to that directed at, for example, tigers, elephants or lions, so efforts need to be sustained. Finally, we note that, although attention can help to generate funds and influence policy, this alone will not be enough to achieve a favourable conservation status for pangolins – on-going and future work need to ensure that public enthusiasm for this species is translated into effective protection.