Apart from illegal trade, a cultural belief is a major threat to pangolin survival. Local people either kill pangolins directly for ritual purposes and traditional uses or kill them indirectly by making them suffer from malnutrition and stress by capturing pangolins and locking them in their houses, store facilities, or catch facilities. Several pangolin sightings have been reported in various places in Tanzania through social medias, televisions, and local people showed to praise the animal and pray for goodluck including protection from bad omens, increase food security, and predicting good performance to students.
Recently, a Temminck’s ground pangolin has been encountered at Feo Secondary School in the Ruvuma region and reported by the ITV media. As the students were about to begin the national examination, the school community believed that the appearance of the pangolin would increase the performance of that school. Unfortunately, the pangolin was shown to be inside the house (perhaps in one of the school rooms).
Awareness is needed for Tanzanian local people to stop locking pangolins inside their houses when they encounter them. People are unaware of the diet of this animal as is common to see the animal fed corn flour, cucumber, and pumpkin, while the animal usually feeds mostly on ants and termites. Indeed, is difficult for them to capture termites and ants to feed pangolins, a situation that needs to call for large-scale awareness programs to enable human-pangolin coexistence, especially in unprotected village lands.
Tanzania Research and Conservation Organization (TRCO) aim to investigate pangolin ecology and work with local people to develop mitigation measures to address pangolin threats. Awareness is among of the activity the TRCO is focusing for local people including journalists, as they may increase negative cultural beliefs about pangolins through media that eventually attract attention from other people to think that keeping pangolins inside will bring good luck while it increases their extinction. If the media in Tanzania will report the effects of these negative cultural beliefs may help the recovery of this animal from extinction. Supporting TRCO to conduct research and establish an awareness program would help humans and pangolins to live together.