I Love the Pangolin

I love the Pangolin
A dear little soul
Walks like ballerina
With such control
CITES banned the trade in 2002
Poor rural hunters
And there are a few
Palm oil plantations
Use smoke to flush
The pangolins out
Really the first brush
With scumbags anonymous
It’s all about
Their scales made of keratin
It’s a huge rout
Some times they send dogs in
Pangolins are
Nocturnal creatures
To badger and scar

No teeth to speak of
They roll into a ball
That’s their defence
Really nothing at all
Sleeping in trees
That’s what they do
Smoked out alas
Yes it is true

In Sumatra they butcher them
Just slit their throats
Strip off their scales
Shipped out on boats
End up in China or where the Chinese
Practice their medicine
Enormous fees

Vietnam South Korea Thailand
As well
What we do to Pangolins
Is Straight out of hell
Smugglers in Sabah
In Nepal and Myanmar
In fact eastern countries
Where the Chinese are

The law is an ass
And money it talks
Corruption is rife
The so called hawks
Appear to be everywhere
But tragically
keratin is no cure all
Take it from me

Weighed against profits
The penalty
Is really not frightening
Apparently
So very few Pangolins now do exist
Marked very scarce on the terminal list
The scales are roasted and what they called ashes, some cooked in oil
Sometimes in urine
All of that toil
for what
For nervousness and hysterical crying
In children apparently
Magic defying
logic in Africa
For women possessed
by devils
Improving lactation
It’s stressed

The most trafficked animals
Now anywhere
It’s called Squamata mantis
So much despair
TCM offers a whole host
Of death
And Destruction of animals