Pangolins in Nepal: Conservation in the Terai Arc Landscape

Nepal may be celebrated for tigers and one-horned rhinoceroses, but a far less visible mammal shares the same lowland forests and buffer zones: the Indian pangolin (Manis crassicaudata). Classified as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, the species faces a convergence of poaching pressure, habitat loss, and accidental electrocution that makes Nepal’s Terai Arc Landscape both a critical refuge and a conservation battleground.

Species Profile and Range in Nepal

The Indian pangolin is one of four Asian pangolin species and the only one confirmed to occur in Nepal. Adults typically weigh between 10 and 16 kilograms, and their thick, overlapping keratin scales account for roughly 20 percent of their body weight. They are primarily nocturnal and fossorial, excavating burrows up to five metres deep that also provide shelter for other small mammals.

In Nepal, the Indian pangolin’s distribution is largely confined to the Terai – the flat, sub-Himalayan plain that runs along the country’s southern border – and the adjacent Siwalik Hills, a chain of lower Himalayan foothills rising to roughly 1,500 metres. Confirmed or strongly indicated populations exist within and around Chitwan National Park in the central Terai, Bardia National Park in the far west, and Parsa National Park east of Chitwan. Camera trap studies and seizure records also suggest the species persists in the multiple-use buffer zones that encircle each park, areas where human settlement and agriculture press directly against protected forest.

Above the Siwaliks, sightings become sparse. There are anecdotal reports of pangolins from mid-hill districts such as Palpa and Kaski, but systematic surveys are lacking, and it remains unclear whether these represent resident populations or occasional dispersers moving up from the lowlands.

Threats: Poaching and the Illegal Trade

Pangolins are the most trafficked wild mammals in the world, and Nepal’s Indian pangolins are not insulated from that pressure. Demand is driven primarily by markets in China and Vietnam, where pangolin scales are used in traditional medicine formulations and pangolin meat is considered a luxury food. Nepal serves both as a source country – with pangolins taken from its own forests – and as a transit corridor for animals and scales moving northward from India.

Cross-border trafficking routes exploit the porous Himalayan border crossings between Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. Seizure data compiled by TRAFFIC and the IUCN SSC Pangolin Specialist Group show repeated confiscations at points along the Kathmandu–Rasuwagadhi and Kathmandu–Tatopani trade corridors. Scales are compact, easily concealed in luggage or cargo, and command high prices: wholesale values frequently exceed USD 3,000 per kilogram, creating strong economic incentives for impoverished rural communities.

Poaching for local traditional medicine also occurs, though at lower volumes than the international trade. Scales and meat are used in some indigenous healing practices, and in certain buffer-zone communities, pangolin consumption has a cultural history that complicates straightforward enforcement messaging.

Electric Fence Electrocution: A Hidden Mortality Driver

One of the least-publicised threats to Nepal’s pangolins is electrocution on low-voltage electric fences erected by farmers in national park buffer zones to protect crops from elephants, wild boar, and deer. These fences, often wired to mains electricity rather than low-powered deterrent units, do not discriminate: they kill or maim any animal that contacts them, including pangolins foraging at night along field margins.

Because pangolins curl into a tight ball when threatened – a defence that is highly effective against predators but catastrophic when the threat is an electric current – they are particularly vulnerable. The rolled posture means prolonged contact with a live wire. Mortality incidents have been recorded in and around Chitwan’s buffer zones, but the true scale of electrocution deaths is almost certainly underreported: dead pangolins in remote field margins are rarely found by rangers, and local communities may remove carcasses before they can be documented.

Conservation organisations working in the Terai have begun advocating for subsidised solar-powered deterrent fences that pulse at intensities sufficient to repel large mammals without lethal effect, but uptake remains limited by cost and the pace of government subsidy programmes.

Legal Framework and CITES Status

Nepal’s primary wildlife legislation is the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1973 (NPWCA), which has been amended several times since its enactment. The Indian pangolin is listed under Schedule 1 of the NPWCA, the highest level of domestic protection, which prohibits hunting, capture, trade, and transport of the species or its parts. Penalties include fines and imprisonment of up to 15 years for the most serious offences – among the steepest wildlife crime penalties in South Asia.

Internationally, Manis crassicaudata is listed on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), prohibiting all commercial international trade. Nepal is a CITES signatory, and the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) is the designated management authority. Customs and border enforcement agencies are responsible for intercepting illegal shipments, though coordination between these bodies and park-level rangers has historically been inconsistent.

Conservation Organisations and Field Programmes

Several organisations maintain active programmes relevant to pangolin conservation in Nepal, though few focus exclusively on the species.

WWF Nepal operates across the Terai Arc Landscape and incorporates pangolins within broader wildlife crime and landscape connectivity programmes. Their work includes ranger training, community engagement in buffer zones, and support for the DNPWC’s monitoring systems. The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) has run field programmes in Nepal’s Terai that include wildlife crime intelligence gathering and capacity building for front-line rangers, with pangolins increasingly incorporated into their monitoring frameworks as awareness of the trade has grown.

The National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC) manages the Annapurna Conservation Area and has contributed to pangolin documentation in mid-hill zones. The DNPWC itself coordinates anti-poaching operations across all protected areas and maintains the national wildlife crime database from which seizure statistics are drawn. Community-based anti-poaching units, known locally as Community-Based Anti-Poaching Units (CBAPUs), have been established in several Chitwan and Bardia buffer zones with support from these organisations, creating local employment and local ownership of wildlife protection.

The Terai Arc Landscape and Connectivity

The Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) is a 49,500-square-kilometre transboundary conservation landscape stretching across the lowland forests of Nepal and northern India, managed collaboratively by the governments of both countries with support from international NGOs. The TAL concept recognises that viable wildlife populations cannot be maintained within isolated protected areas alone – connectivity corridors between parks are essential for genetic exchange, dispersal, and resilience to climate change.

For pangolins, the corridors linking Chitwan to Parsa, Bardia to Banke, and the forest strips along the Babai and Karnali river valleys are particularly important. These corridors pass through community forests and private land, where legal protection is weaker and human–wildlife conflict is higher. Maintaining pangolin-friendly habitat in these corridors – through community forest management that retains dead wood and termite mounds – is an emerging but underdeveloped aspect of TAL management planning.

Research Gaps and Monitoring Challenges

Knowledge of Indian pangolin ecology in Nepal is strikingly thin. As of the mid-2020s, there had been no published GPS telemetry studies tracking individual pangolins within Nepal, leaving home range size, habitat selection, and movement ecology essentially unknown at a local level. Camera trap surveys have documented pangolins within Chitwan and Bardia national parks, but coverage outside park boundaries – precisely where conflict with humans is greatest – remains patchy.

Population estimates are largely inferential, based on extrapolations from habitat suitability models and seizure trend analysis rather than direct density surveys. This lack of baseline data makes it extremely difficult to assess whether populations are stable, declining, or recovering in response to conservation interventions. Closing this research gap through systematic camera trap grids, community-based sighting networks, and non-invasive genetic sampling is a stated priority of both WWF Nepal and the IUCN SSC Pangolin Specialist Group’s South Asia regional programme.

Community-Based Conservation in Buffer Zones

Given that many threats originate within or pass through buffer zone communities, long-term pangolin conservation in Nepal is inseparable from community engagement. Buffer zone user committees have legal authority to manage forests and collect fees from park visitors, giving them both the mandate and, in some cases, the financial resources to invest in wildlife protection.

Awareness campaigns that frame pangolins as economically valuable through wildlife tourism, rather than as a source of immediate income through poaching, have shown some success in Chitwan’s buffer zones. Pangolin-watching as a niche ecotourism product remains nascent – the species’ nocturnal habits and cryptic colouring make reliable sightings difficult – but training community members as guides and wildlife monitors creates alternative livelihoods and surveillance capacity simultaneously.

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