Biodiversity across the world is increasingly under threat and facing diminishment as climate change, habitat loss, poaching, and wildlife trafficking are ever growing threats. It is important now more than ever to know current populations and ecological statuses of vulnerable and keystone species to better understand what conservation management practices and methods should be implemented to secure a future on Earth for these groups. These factors should provide motivation to target highly trafficked species for conservation efforts before they are classified as critically endangered (Ingram et al. 2018). Southern Africa’s only pangolin species, the Temminck’s ground pangolin (Smutsia temminckii) is at the intersection of these categories, vulnerable, highly trafficked, and acting as a keystone species, whose extinction would cause a top down effect and put the integrity of the entire ecosystem at risk of harm (Jordan, F. 2009).

Pangolin, also known as a scaly ant-eater, are solitary mammals who are predominantly nocturnal. They are covered in scales made of keratin which provide protection from carnivores while they are out of the safety of their burrows foraging. Pangolin play an important role in consuming ants and termites that compete with grazers for food and cause crop loss for farmers, as well as in aerating the soil during feeding and burrowing, which can lead to increased plant germination.