Pangolin Conservation in Senegal: West Africa's Frontier

Published 14 June 2026 — alphapanga.com

When conservation scientists and journalists discuss pangolin range states, the focus almost always falls on the major forest basins of Central Africa — the Congo, Cameroon, Gabon — or on the well-documented crisis in Southeast Asia. Senegal, which sits at the western edge of the African pangolin distribution, rarely appears in that conversation. This is not because Senegal's pangolins are unimportant. It is because they are unstudied. Senegal is one of the most significant data gaps in the entire African pangolin literature, and closing that gap matters for understanding the long-term resilience of West African populations.

Two Species at the Range Periphery

Senegal harbours two pangolin species, both at or near the western edge of their continental distributions. The white-bellied pangolin (Phataginus tricuspis), also called the tree pangolin, is the more widespread of the two and occupies Guinea and Casamance forest habitat in the country's southern region. The long-tailed pangolin (Phataginus tetradactyla), the smallest African species, is associated with riparian gallery forests and swampy terrain along river systems including the Casamance, Soungrougrou, and Gambia rivers.

Range periphery populations are ecologically significant for two reasons. First, they often represent genetically distinct subpopulations with adaptations to local conditions that differ from the species core range. Second, they may serve as refugia if central populations collapse under hunting pressure — provided they survive long enough to do so. The peripheral position of Senegal's pangolins makes them a conservation priority, not an afterthought.

The Casamance: Habitat and Access

The Casamance region in southern Senegal is the country's most forested area, a narrow strip of territory physically separated from northern Senegal by The Gambia and characterised by moist Guinea forest and dense gallery woodland. Basse-Casamance National Park and the classified forests of Forêt de Dioher provide formal habitat protection, though park management capacity has historically been constrained by the region's political isolation.

The Casamance separatist conflict, which began in 1982 and has produced intermittent low-intensity violence for decades, has limited research access to the region's forests. Field biologists working in Central African range states can enter parks with ranger escorts, establish camera trap grids, and carry out nocturnal spotlight surveys with relative confidence. In Casamance, the residual security concerns — even in periods of relative calm — have deterred systematic wildlife surveys. The published literature on mammals in the Casamance is decades behind equivalent work in the Senegambia savanna zone or Niokolo-Koba to the east.

Niokolo-Koba: A Different Ecosystem

Niokolo-Koba National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in eastern Senegal, represents a different habitat type entirely — Guinea savanna with some gallery forest, covering approximately 9,130 square kilometres. Historical mammal surveys of Niokolo-Koba mention pangolins as present but provide no population estimates. The park has suffered significant pressures including livestock incursion, illegal hunting, and a long period of inadequate funding that led UNESCO to place it on its List of World Heritage in Danger from 2007. Recovery efforts have improved patrol coverage in recent years, but pangolin-specific monitoring remains absent.

The species most likely present in Niokolo-Koba is the white-bellied pangolin at the forest margins and possibly the Temminck's ground pangolin (Smutsia temminckii), which has been recorded in comparable savanna habitats in neighbouring Guinea and Mali. However, without systematic surveys, this assessment is based on habitat suitability modelling rather than confirmed observations.

The Francophone Research Gap

One of the least discussed structural problems in African pangolin conservation is the language disparity in scientific publication. The most productive conservation research institutions publishing pangolin data are predominantly Anglophone: the Wildlife Conservation Society, the African Wildlife Foundation, Panthera, and the Zoological Society of London. Peer-reviewed journals that publish African mammal ecology — Oryx, African Journal of Ecology, Mammalia — publish primarily in English.

Senegal is a francophone country. Its academic institutions, including Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, publish predominantly in French. The Direction des Parcs Nationaux (DPN), which manages Senegal's protected area network under the Ministry of Environment, produces survey and management reports in French that rarely enter the international peer-reviewed literature. This creates a systematic undercount of what is known about pangolins in francophone West Africa. Data collected by Senegalese rangers and biologists does not become part of global IUCN population assessments because it never crosses the language barrier.

The IUCN SSC Pangolin Specialist Group and organisations like the West African Pangolin Working Group have acknowledged this gap and have made efforts to incorporate French-language researchers, but progress has been slow. Senegal's parks service manages records of bushmeat seizures and confiscations that include pangolins, but these records have not been systematically published or shared with international monitoring databases.

Cross-Border Trafficking Dynamics

Senegal shares land borders with Mauritania, Mali, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and The Gambia, creating a complex trafficking geography. Of these, the Guinea-Bissau border is considered the most significant pangolin trafficking risk. Guinea-Bissau is one of the least governed states in West Africa, and its extensive Atlantic coastline and archipelago geography make it a known trans-shipment hub for wildlife products moving from forest interior West Africa toward major ports.

Dakar, with its deep-water port and direct shipping connections to Asia and Europe, is a plausible exit point for pangolin products originating across the Senegambia region. TRAFFIC's West Africa programme has documented pangolin scale seizures in West African port facilities, though published case reports for Dakar specifically are limited. Intelligence shared by enforcement agencies suggests that scales move in small batches through informal networks rather than in the large-scale single shipments that generate major seizure headlines from East African ports.

The Gambia, which physically bisects Senegal, adds complexity. Cross-border movement between Senegal and The Gambia is extremely porous along the 740-kilometre shared border, and wildlife law enforcement coordination between the two countries has historically been weak. Pangolin products from Casamance could move north through Gambian territory before re-entering Senegal en route to Dakar without triggering significant enforcement attention.

Traditional Use and Local Knowledge

In the Senegambia cultural zone, pangolins carry traditional significance in several ethnic communities. The Mandinka, Wolof, and Jola peoples have recorded uses of pangolin scales and meat in traditional medicine and ritual contexts, including as protective charms and in treatments for skin conditions. The extent to which these uses continue is poorly documented. Rapid social change in Senegal's urban centres has reduced some traditional practices, but rural communities in forested areas often retain deeper connections to local wildlife and its cultural associations.

Ethnobiological surveys — systematic documentation of local knowledge about pangolins, including traditional names, ecological observations, and historical encounter rates — would be a low-cost, high-value research investment in Senegal. Communities that live alongside pangolins often possess accurate knowledge about habitat preferences, seasonal movements, and population trends that formal survey methods can take years to replicate. This knowledge is most accessible now, while older community members who grew up in areas where pangolins were more common are still alive.

Conservation Capacity and What Is Needed

Senegal's DPN manages a network of six national parks covering approximately 2.2 million hectares, supported by an environmental police corps with arrest authority. The country has signed and ratified CITES Appendix I protections for all pangolin species. The legal framework is adequate. The implementation gap lies in species-specific monitoring capacity, international data sharing, and the limited research attention directed at francophone West Africa by the international conservation science community.

Three priority interventions would substantially advance pangolin conservation in Senegal. The first is a structured camera trap survey of the Casamance forest zone and Niokolo-Koba, generating species confirmation and relative abundance data suitable for IUCN assessment. The second is formalised data sharing between DPN seizure records and the UNODC and TRAFFIC international wildlife trade databases. The third is a targeted ethnobiological study in western Casamance and the Gambia River corridor, capturing community knowledge before it is lost.

Senegal's relatively stable institutions, its active NGO sector, and its position at the geographic frontier of the African pangolin range make it a valuable investment in the broader effort to conserve these mammals across the continent. The work that has not been done here is the opportunity that remains.

For related coverage see our articles on pangolin trafficking routes across Africa, the long-tailed pangolin, and pangolin conservation in Ghana.