yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Opiates and Pangolin Scales is Rumor Debunked | National Geographic


3m read
·Nov 11, 2024

(upbeat music)

[Rachel] Pangolins are a really unique group of mammals. They are covered with these scales that are made of keratin, which is the same material as human finger nails. And it's those scales that are in high demand, and it's driving a lot of illegal trade that we see.

[Ken] Here at the National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory, we're very much like a police crime lab, in that we examine evidence in a triangular fashion. We attempt to link suspect, victim, and crime lab together with that evidence. We assist investigators at the state, national, and international level to investigate violators of wildlife laws. We're the only such full service wildlife crime lab in the world.

(upbeat music)

We're very much aware that the pangolins have been killed for a wide range of reasons. These little creatures have a hard time protecting themselves; their defense is to roll up into a ball. Which makes them easy for the poachers to collect.

[Rachel] Pangolin scales have been used in traditional medicines in different parts of the world for a long time, but it's just now that it's on this, kinda, larger commercial scale. That's where we see this species being threatened.

[Ken] But then we became aware of this interesting story that you could grind up a pangolin scale and exarate chemicals out of there to make illicit drugs.

So there's this rumor that on my news resources that pangolin scales contained tramadol. Tramadol is a synthetic analgesic, so it's used to treat pain. It's not known to be synthesized in any natural system. And then there was, on top of this, even some suggestion that the trade in pangolins was driven in part by this demand for tramadol, which was then being used for the manufacture of methamphetamine.

(upbeat music)

We weren't really sure to what extent this kinda rumor was actually driving the trade, but it was something we could actually address with the data that we had and actually look for it.

[Ken] We were asked to identify pangolin scales early on, simply because they were being seized as evidence.

[Rachel] We actually probed the sample for tramadol, and we did that for 104 scales, representing 104 different individuals of all species. All right, so what we do is just go in and try and find a spot that minimally invasive, that people aren't gonna notice too much. A little end of it here, and we don't need very much. So the dart can obtain profiles from really small pieces of material.

So the dart is getting the full chemical profile of that keratin. It gives us, in a bit, the entire spectrum of what's in there, and we can probe that chemical profile to look for tramadol specifically. And that's what we did.

It's telling you the size and the intensity of the ions that are actually in the sample.

[Rachel] I came to this lab because I wanted to do something that I thought could make a difference. We're just doing our small part to help reduce illegal wildlife trade. We looked at all species and we didn't find any evidence for tramadol within our detection window. So, we're confident that we didn't find tramadol. (laughs) That's what it is, yeah.

We've worked a lot of the interesting cases in which we examined evidence on rhino horn pills, rhino horns themselves, sea turtle meat, or sea turtle leather in the glass eels, wide range of wildlife parts and products. But I think the pangolin scales offered us something a little different. I'm happy to think that our work is gonna help stop the killing of these poor creatures for a myth, for a story that simply isn't true. If that's the case, we'll be happy indeed.

(upbeat music)

More Articles

View All
Sue's Dirty Jobs - Deleted Scene | Life Below Zero
Day whatever of the journey of getting Cavic back up and running. Chuga, chugga, chuga—knocking stuff off my list. I have a little bit in here I still need to clean. I don’t have food to cook for people, but even if I wanted to make hot cereal, I can’t d…
THE FED JUST RESET THE MARKET | Major Changes Explained
What’s up guys, it’s Graham here and, uh, welp, it just happened. The Federal Reserve completely just shocked the market right now with the 75 basis point rate hike, setting off yet another chain reaction that’s about to impact the entire market at the co…
Khan Academy Ed Talks with Dan Willingham, PhD - Wednesday, April 21
Hello and welcome to ED Talks with Khan Academy where we talk to influential people in the field of education. I am excited today to talk with Dr. Dan Willingham. Before we get started with that, I want to remind all of you that Khan Academy is a non-prof…
A Quick Guide to Stock Market Investing (For Complete Beginners)
[Music] Hey guys, welcome back to the channel! We’re continuing on with the new money advent calendar. Today, I’m going to keep this video quite short because, let’s be real, you’ve been seeing a lot of my face over the past couple of weeks. So, in this…
ROBINHOOD JUST LAUNCHED A $1 INVESTMENT
What’s up guys! It’s Graham here, and it’s been about a month since I reported on this whole Robin Hood stock trading drama fiasco. Because for the most part, there really haven’t been any updates worth sharing, and I began to believe that things were set…
Why You Care So Much
I made my first video on this channel in July 2017 after months of going back and forth on whether or not I actually wanted to create a YouTube channel. What would people think? What if people hate the videos and tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking…