Twenty live Philippine pangolins, seized from the possession of a local wildlife trafficker in El Nido, were released back to the forests of Palawan Saturday by the PCSD Enforcement Team, PPSRNP, and Palawan Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Center.
It was January 25 when the suspect behind this wildlife crime, a 33-year-old man named Wilter Tenorio, was finally arrested. Reports say that law enforcement authorities of CENRO Taytay have been monitoring him for four days after the man was seen suspiciously trying to sell the pangolins he has hidden in wooden crates.
Tenorio will be facing charges in violation of the Republic Act 9147 known as the “Wildlife Act.”
With the Asian black market’s relentless demand for pangolin scales and meat, the creature is now the world’s most trafficked mammal. Poachers and traders from around the world continuously haunt the forests of Palawan for the Philippine Pangolin, an endemic species in the province. Just recently it was reclassified in theIUCN Red List of Threatened Species as “Critically Endangered,” the last category before a wild vanish completely in the wild.
