World Pangolin Day 2021

Towards Sustainable Pangolin Conservation in Nigeria

The Pangolin Conservation Guild of Nigeria held a virtual conference themed, “Towards Sustainable Pangolin Conservation in Nigeria,” to mark World Pangolin Day 2021. Attendees to the conference on February 20th included researchers, scientists, and other professionals working in the field of conservation working to protect this critically endangered species.

Dr. Cristian Gruppi, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar with the Center of Tropical Research at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability presented an invited talk entitled, “Genoscape: A Genomic Approach for Wildlife Conservation,” during the conference’s technical session. The Center for Tropical Research is currently using genomics and other innovative approaches to build an origin-to-destination tracking system for giant pangolins trafficked from sub-Saharan Africa to Asia.

To learn more, visit the Center for Tropical Research's Pangolin Trafficking Project.