Prince William's beloved pangolins given a boost with heavy sentences for traffickers

Wildlife rescuers are nursing 165 of the highly-prized scaly creatures after a smuggled consignment was detected in the Far East.

At the same time, two men were handed long prison sentences in southern Africa for illegal possession of dead pangolins.

The prehistoric looking mammals have become one of the most endangered animals on the planet because of their use in Chinese medicine.

More than a million pangolins have been plucked from the wild and traded over the last decade for their scales, said to be panaceas in the Far East for all manner of ills, including women possessed by ogres and crying children.

The demand has seen the blackmarket price for their scales increase by 250 per cent over the last year, reaching £1,000 a pound, although they are made from keratin, the same substance as a toe and finger nails.

Prince William has been highlighting their plight and recently recorded a video in which he warned: “The pangolin runs the risk of becoming extinct before most people have even heard of them.”

Although all eight species of pangolin were “uplisted” to the highest level of nature protection at a global endangered species conference in September, the lure of quick money continues to put the creatures in the sights of wildlife traffickers.

There is bitter irony that the very defence mechanism that has helped the prehistoric-looking pangolin survive millennia – rolling up in ball and relying on the tough scales for protection – makes it so easily captured by poachers.

The authorities are now getting tough.

Details are still emerging of the seizure of 165 "very weak" Sunda pangolins after forestry officials in Laos stopped two vehicles near the Thai border.

The Laos Wildlife Rescue Centre is providing emergency care for the pangolins which are believed to have been smuggled into the country from Malaysia or Indonesia.

Some of the animals are reported to have died before reaching safety while others showed trapping wounds to indicate how they had been stolen from the wild.

The Wildlife Friends Foundations Thailand say two drivers and a passenger, identified as a known wildlife trafficker, were arrested and are currently await trial, while colleagues at the Laos Wildlife Rescue Centre (LWRC) continue to care for the animals

The Thai animal organisation said: “The team at LWRC are working around the clock to give these animals the best chance of survival and to prepare them for the ultimate release back to the wild.

“For now, most of the pangolins are doing good, and have started eating many of the ants and termites that are being collected by villagers.”

As the animals recuperate in south east Asia, the African authorities have been handing down hefty sentences to people caught with pangolins.