{"id":15929,"date":"2023-03-22T14:27:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-22T14:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/explorersagainstextinction.co.uk\/blog\/?p=15929"},"modified":"2025-01-16T14:30:06","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T14:30:06","slug":"the-story-of-ally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/explorersagainstextinction.co.uk\/blog\/the-story-of-ally\/","title":{"rendered":"The Story of Ally"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hubble-live-assets.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/eae\/image_asset\/file\/232\/content_Ally_Francois_Meyer.JPG\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2021 we supported the work of&nbsp;<strong>African Pangolin Working Group (APWG)<\/strong>&nbsp;&#8211; an NGO established by Professor Ray Jansen in South Africa more than a decade ago.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The funds we donated&nbsp;were specifically used for telemetry equipment which help to monitor pangolins rescued from the illegal wildlife trade,&nbsp;and rehabilitated for release back to the wild.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tracking pangolins enables researchers to discreetly monitor movements and ensure the animal is safe,&nbsp; while camera traps help to build up a more detailed picture about daily life and activities.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ally<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ally is a&nbsp;<strong>Temminck\u2019s pangolin<\/strong>, one of eight species of pangolin worldwide. Temminck&#8217;s pangolins are&nbsp;found in the woodlands and across savannah in&nbsp;Eastern and Southern Africa. They are also known as &#8216;ground&#8217; pangolins as they do not climb trees like other species but live entirely on the ground.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ally&#8217;s story begins in April 2020 when she was found dehydrated, underweight, and severly traumatised by the&nbsp;South African Police&nbsp;Service (SAPS) Endangered Species Unit in the&nbsp;Alldays region of Limpopo Province.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ally had been a victim of the Illegal Wildlife Trade. Over a million pangolins are thought to have been&nbsp;trafficked worldwide&nbsp;in the last decade. Pangolins are taken alive from the wild, sold by the ton,&nbsp;frozen and transported by land and sea to the Far East where their flesh and scales are sold for human consumption.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pangolins are very easily stressed and the ordeal of being poached can often be too much.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Ally&#8217;s case, she was suffering from pneumonia.&nbsp;&nbsp;A scan revealed that she was also pregnant with a pup.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She was very carefully treated and monitored at the&nbsp;<strong>Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital<\/strong>. One of the challenges is feeding &#8211;&nbsp;&nbsp; pangolins only eat live termites and ants that they find themselves &#8211; you can&#8217;t hand-feed a pangolin.&nbsp;&nbsp;Thankfully after a few days under careful supervision Ally was strong enough to do a little foraging and by the middle of May was ready for release.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The team, led by APWG&#8217;s field manager Francois Meyer,&nbsp;&nbsp;selected a release site in Limpopo, established camera traps around the area&nbsp;and fitted Ally with a tracking device.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There have been very few opportunities to study pregnant pangolins so the vet team was unsure of exactly when the pup would be born but they did know that&nbsp;getting Ally back to the wild would be the best chance for both her, and her pup.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can imagine the joy when the team first saw&nbsp;Ally,&nbsp;&nbsp;caught on one of the&nbsp;camera traps in August,&nbsp; with her pangolin pup, Pod on her back. This is the first time a pangolin has been recorded giving birth to a pup in the wild after being&nbsp;rescued from the trade, rehabilitated and released.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An incredible success story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Pod<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The team continued to discreetly monitor both Ally and her pup Pod using both telemetry and camera traps.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The pair thrived in their new home in Limpopo and provided a wealth of information for researchers. Pod grew strong&nbsp;and healthy and within a year he was ready to leave his mother and go off on his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>After Pod&#8217;s departure, camera trap footage revealed a new wild pangolin visitor.&nbsp; Watch the film to find out more..<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/DDivJxfh1L0\">Watch the video here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Images: Francois Meyer APWG &#8211; Ally; Ally and pup<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2021 we supported the work of&nbsp;African Pangolin Working Group (APWG)&nbsp;&#8211; an NGO established by Professor Ray Jansen in South Africa more than a decade ago.&nbsp; The funds we donated&nbsp;were&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15930,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[517],"tags":[629,47,628],"powerkit_post_featured":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.1 - 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