500kg Of Living Pangolins Were Rescue!

Dear Friends and Supporters, we just had the biggest rescue ever with 118 Sunda Pangolins.

After a long and furious chase, Hoa Binh Police caught a car containing 550 kilograms of pangolins in tight bag. We were on the scene right after being informed about the confiscation. Five pangolins were found dead, 113 were brought back to our center at 3am.

It's really over our capacity

This rescue added the total number of pangolins in our center at this moment to 139. We never had to deal with such a crowd before. As a result, four to five pangolins have to share a room.

We really need your help to cover the food and medicine costs for this rescue. Give us a hand!

March was the month of civets

One unlucky common palm civet

In the begin of March, we rescued a Common Palm Civet right in the middle of Ha Noi city. Unfortunately, he was totally drained out after days of starving, with no food  or water. Our staff tried their best but could not save the poor animal.

However, his death sent a strong message to our Vietnamese young audience about not supporting Civet Coffee products - the most popular, cruelest use of Common Palm Civet in Vietnam.

And three beautiful Owston's civets

We also managed to rescued three beautiful, endangered Owston's palm civets from Da Lat city with the help of local rangers. One of the trio had infection in his tail and our Vet took care of that. Nice and neat.

We are proud to be the only rescue centre in Vietnam has a successful track record in the rehabilitation and breeding of Owston’s Civets.

Here come the kids

Kids love our center

“Valuing Nature in Childhood Program” is a project funded by Welttierschutzgesellschaft e.V. with the aim  of bringing children closer to nature, to conservation activities. All of the first five trips ran successfully, sending our nature loving message to 119 students . The kids immediately fell in love with our animals' stories, our games and our especially our Education Center where they can play as long as witness our keepers feeding the resident animals.

So do the parents and teachers

Before the trips started, we also held a workshop for 43 kindergarten teachers, parents and education officers from Nho Quan district to learn about wildlife conservation and the critical role of education in combating wildlife trade.

The event was a buzz in small town as the parents, teachers found the program really meaningful. Bui Thi Lien, the Kindergarten specialist from the district shared: “I wish we knew Save Vietnam’s Wildlife and learned about these things earlier to educate our children generation and encourage people involving in wildlife conservation more actively. It’s late, but better late than never.”

Reaching out efforts from our team

Raising awareness for the big zoos

Last month, our team had chance to give some talks at Newquay Zoo, Paignton Zoo, Zoological Society of London and Royal Burgers' Zoo, explaining the issues of the illegal wildlife trade, hunting and the conservation requirements. It helps to raising awareness for the conservation communities to carry more action to save the pangolins and other wildlife.  We also received help in donation to buy food for pangolins and veterinary equipment in order to raise the standard of care for the animals in our care.

Meeting with His Majesty the King of Netherlands Willem-Alexander

Thai, our Director won the Future For Nature Award last year together with 50,000 EURO for the pangolin conservation. Thai joined the celebration of 10 years of Future for Nature Awards with other 29 past winners as they had the honor to share the incredible stories in the presence of His Majesty the King. He also took part in the workshops discussing about illegal wildlife trade, the difficulties of law enforcement and sustainable use of natural resources with over 500 students of Future For Nature Academy.

Bringing pangolins to Earth Hour

On March 25, we joined Boo Environment at the annual Earth Hour event, bringing the pangolin rescue and release stories to the table.

Our booth attracted both children and adults coming to watch the pangolin videos, play mini games and learn more about how to help saving wildlife.

Pangolin rerearch: a new chapter

Last month our Field Research Team embarked on a reconnaissance of two of the three protected areas selected for surveying by the detector dog project in collaboration with the Center for Conservation Biology, University of Washington. The project involves the collection of wild pangolin scat using specially trained dogs, which will then be subject to DNA analysis in the lab to determine the distinct genealogy of pangolin populations in Viet Nam.

First they traveled to Pu Mat, where the beautiful mountain terrain provided quite the logistical challenge. After slow going from two base-camps, a number of viable paths were eventually identified in areas where pangolin have previously been located. They then traveled North, to Na Hang protected area, which proved a stunning mix of jutting limestone mountains and wide rivers to navigate.

Now, the dogs are in Viet Nam, our team is flying South and the project is ready to go!

Thank you!

“At the end of the day, it's not about what you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what you've done with those accomplishments. Its about who you've lifted up, who you've made better. It's about what you've given back." - Denzel Washington