2023 Pangolin research

US$1300 to support pangolin research

The pangolin project is based at the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve and facilitated by the Tswalu Foundation. The project aims to understand the specific role that Temminck’s pangolin play in the Kalahari ecosystem. MSc student Daniel Rossouw of the University of the Witwatersrand, supervised by Prof Andrea Fuller and Dr Wendy Panaino, is tracking specific individual pangolins (mostly in the middle of the night) through the use of VHF tracking technology.

WorthWildAfrica has supported the project by purchasing six VHF tracking transmitters to enable Daniel to monitor wild pangolins in the field and gather data on their foraging ecology, and ultimately understand their function in the ecosystem. The project also falls under the Kalahari Endangered Ecosystem Project (KEEP) umbrella, which is a long-term program that aims to understand species responses to climate changes at an ecosystem level.

The invaluable support from WWA reaches into the realm of ecosystem-level and climate change research through supporting one of the projects under the KEEP umbrella.