Lam Dong (VNA) – The Public Security Department of the Lam Dong province on February 24 said that officers of Bao Lam 1 Commune Police had received a rare and endangered pangolin voluntarily handed over by a local resident.
Doan Hong Hai, born in 1976 and residing in Hamlet 5, Loc Quang Village, Bao Lam 1 Commune, handed over an adult pangolin in good health, measuring 52cm in length and weighing over 5kg, to the commune police a day earlier.
Initial assessments by authorities indicated that the animal is a rare and endangered wild species subject to protection and listed in the Vietnam Red Data Book.
Hai said he discovered the animal near his house. Aware that it could be a rare and protected species, he decided to inform the local police.
The pangolin is currently being kept at the commune police office while procedures are being completed for its transfer to a wildlife rescue centre for rehabilitation and release back into the wild.
Since the beginning of this year, residents in Lam Dong province have voluntarily handed over several rare and endangered wild animals classified under Groups IB and IIB to competent authorities, including wildcats (Felis silvestris), pygmy slow lorises (Xanthonycticebus pygmaeus), yellow-cheeked gibbons (Hylobates gabriellae), red-faced monkeys (Ateles paniscus), alligator snapping turtles (Macrochelys temminckii), and palm civets (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus).
On January 27, a mountain hawk-eagle (Nisaetus nipalensis) weighing about 2.5kg and classified under Group IIB was found entangled in a net in Son Dien Commune and voluntarily handed over by a local resident. Two days later, a wildcat weighing nearly 3kg, also under Group IIB, was handed over by a resident of Da Teh 3 Commune to Cat Tien National Park./
