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Oswell Moyo Chronicle Reporter
A BULAWAYO man who found a pangolin outside his gate said yesterday: “Maybe I’ll be rich.”
Lidion Sibanda was preparing to go to bed shortly after 10PM on Wednesday night when his 19-year-old son, Loveleneage, called out after the rarely-seen mammal crawled right up to the gate of their Parkview suburb home.
The teenager said: “I noticed a cat-like creature crawling towards me, I think it emerged from the hedge. It had scales and a long tail.
That’s when I realised that it was pangolin.”
He alerted his father who rushed to report their find at Bulawayo Central Police Station. The pangolin is part of a select group of animals which have been given the conservation status of “endangered species” because they face a high risk of extinction in Zimbabwe.
Lidion recalled: “I saw the creature but it tried to avoid eye contact with light and our eyes. I first tried to call the Parks and Wildlife Management Department but there was no response, I then drove to Central Police Station.”
Neighbour Mlungisi Dube suffered minor incisions from the pangolin’s sharp scales when he chased after it when it made a dash for the undergrowth.
Police took the pangolin and surrendered it to Parks and Wildlife.
A Parks spokesperson said they received the pangolin yesterday morning and it had since been taken to Matobo National Park where it was released back to the wild.
Lidion said this was the second time he had seen a pangolin. In many African societies, the animal is associated with good fortune and its delicious meat is considered in some parts of the world as only fit for kings and rulers.
“I’m delighted to see this creature for the second time, maybe I will be rich. The first time I saw a pangolin was at my farm at Helen Villes along Victoria Falls road, 20km from Bulawayo,” he said.
A pangolin or inkakha in isiNdebele is a mammal that looks like an anteater but has the tough scales of a crocodile. Shy and near-sighted, pangolins only venture out from the safety of their burrows or tree-top homes at night to scour for insects. When startled, they curl up into a ball.
All eight of the world’s species of pangolin, which range from 30 to 100cm (12 to 39 inches) in length, are threatened with extinction.
In November last year, a pangolin was brought to Chief Sigola of Umzingwane by soldiers from Imbizo Barracks who caught it during a training exercise. The chief said he would take the rare creature to the President, but Parks authorities advised that pangolins should be returned back to the wild.
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