Ground pangolin: 'Extinct' mammal returns to roam Kenya's landscape

The giant ground pangolin looks almost prehistoric. At first glance, it resembles a reptile, covered in hard overlapping scales like armour. Yet it is a mammal that spends most of its nights feeding on ants and termites.

Covered in overlapping brown scales, it can grow to nearly two metres. It moves slowly at night through forests and grasslands, guided mostly by smell. When threatened, it curls into a tight armoured ball and waits.

For decades, Kenya believed this animal had vanished. The last confirmed record of the giant ground pangolin was in 1971 near Lake Victoria.

“For many years, it was presumed locally extinct,” says Beryl Makori, Chief Programmes Officer at The Pangolin Project. “Then in 2021, camera traps in Nyekweri Forest confirmed it was still here.”

The species rediscovered was the giant ground pangolin, the largest of Africa’s four pangolin species. Globally, there are eight pangolin species. Four occur in Africa. Kenya is home to three: the giant ground pangolin, the white-bellied pangolin and Temminck’s ground pangolin.

Today, fewer than 30 giant ground pangolins are known to exist in Kenya. All live within a fragile forest and grassland mosaic near the western boundary of the Maasai Mara National Reserve.

Pangolins play a quiet but important ecological role. A single individual can consume thousands of ants and termites in one night. By controlling insect populations, they protect vegetation and maintain soil balance. According to the World Wildlife Fund, pangolins are among the most important natural controllers of ants and termites in many ecosystems.

The giant ground pangolin is especially important because of its size. It can dismantle large termite mounds that smaller species cannot break apart. Its loss would alter the balance of insects and affect the forest ecosystem.

Yet the landscape around Nyekweri is changing fast. More than 80 per cent of the wider forest in Trans Mara has been lost since 2010. Land has been cleared for agriculture, charcoal production and settlement. Electric fencing around maize and sugarcane farms has become common.

Michael Koskei, a field monitor at TPP, says the remaining population is extremely small. “We are closely tracking three giant pangolins,” he says. “One of them is currently missing.”

Poaching also remains a threat. Pangolin scales are trafficked to Asian markets where they are used in traditional medicine or consumed as delicacies.

Habitat loss, however, is the greatest danger here. Forest clearing shrinks feeding grounds. Electric fences around sugarcane and maize farms have become one of the leading causes of death.

“When they meet fully electrified fences, the outcome is usually fatal,” Koskei explains.

In response to the 2021 rediscovery, The Pangolin Project shifted its focus to Nyekweri. Its strategy was built on a simple principle: conservation must work for landowners to address these threats.

So far more than 190 landowners have joined conservation agreements covering over 13,000 acres. These include forest payment schemes and longer conservation leases. Payments go directly to landowners each month.

Under a one-year forest payment scheme, farmers are paid to keep trees standing. Under a 15-year conservation lease, landowners dedicate about 90 per cent of their land to conservation and restoration. They live and farm on roughly 10 per cent. Families still live on their land and livestock can graze across the conserved areas.

If fencing is necessary around crops or homes, landowners are asked to modify electric fences by removing power from two or three lower strands. In some places, wires are raised slightly above ground to allow pangolins and other small wildlife to pass safely underneath.

For many residents, the difference between conservation agreements and commercial agriculture contracts is becoming clear.

The giant ground pangolin is known in Maa as entaboi. The word suggests something unusual or mysterious. Some believed seeing one brought luck. Others viewed it with suspicion.

Nkararika Noompunito from Illokwaya village, who lives near Nyekweri Forest, says attitudes are changing as people learn more about the species. “Before, we did not understand it. Now we know it is rare and important.”

In nearby Natukuta village, Naisenya Rakita says she has only seen a pangolin once in her life. “It was moving quietly at night,” she recalls. “You feel lucky to see something so rare.”

The Pangolin Project works with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and local rangers to protect the animals. An operations base has been established in the area. Rangers patrol the forest to remove snares and respond to wildlife emergencies.

More than 125 kilometres of electric fencing have already been de-electrified in key locations to reduce the risk to pangolins. Some rescued animals have been fitted with tracking collars. These allow rangers and researchers to follow their movements using satellite monitoring systems and geo-fencing alerts.

Paul Nangida, a monitoring officer in Nyekweri Forest, says the technology has improved protection efforts. “If a pangolin approaches a dangerous area we receive an alert,” he explains. “That helps us intervene quickly.”

Support from conservation partners such as Tusk has helped expand the programme since 2020, funding monitoring operations and community engagement.

Eric Aduda, KWS Assistant Director from Narok County, says collaboration is essential for protecting wildlife outside national parks. “Conservation cannot succeed if it ignores the people living alongside wildlife. Communities must see real benefits for species like the pangolin to survive,” he says.

In the stillness of night, the giant ground pangolin moves through Nyekweri Forest guided by scent, searching for termites beneath trees that remain standing because communities chose conservation over clearing the land.

Its survival no longer depends only on protected parks. It now rests on a patchwork of privately owned land where people have decided that protecting wildlife is also a way of protecting their future.