Conserving Nepal’s pangolins amid COVID-19

It was only February when we were in Udayapur district amid my research work to celebrate World Pangolin Day, 2020. As a pangolin researcher, I was pleased to find people across this rural, forested place to be very enthusiastic to help conserve their local pangolin population, part of growing efforts to protect this critically endangered species. With the local people willing to volunteer their time at the frontline of conservation, we even succeed in forming the district's first village-level Pangolin Conservation Committee. Unfortunately, through sad coincidence, that same district later emerged as the hotspot for the COVID-19 outbreak in Nepal.

Scientists around the world are working to unravel the origin of this zoonotic virus. There is a significant consensus that the virus likely originated in bats, which spread the disease to other species via markets that illegally sell wildlife in China. This may have included spread to pangolins, which may have served as the carriers of the virus before spreading into humans.