bengaluru last saturday forest officials in chitradurga district seized 15kg of pangolin scales from a poacher who would sniff out the endangered animal from its burrow without dogs help ramappa aged about 60 and his team of three were hunting and capturing pangolins to profit from their scales ramappas case shocked officials who claimed to have never witnessed a scenario where instead of using trained dogs a poacher relied on his own olfactory senses and other habitat indicators to locate pangolins in november foresters detected three cases of pangolin poaching in chitradurga and one each in ballari and mysuru activists say there could be more but complain that many officials tend to ignore pangolin poaching because of the nature of the animal and the low volume of seized scales the accused will be prosecuted under the wildlife protection act 1972what are pangolins like pangolins are smallsized endangered creatures that are harmless to human beings and are known to be shy solitary and nocturnal they dont bite or attack when approached but merely slither their tongues however they are easy to dominate and capture the animal is known to be an excellent diggerwhy are they poached the animal is poached for three reasons meat consumption chinese medicine and fashion some local groups hunt and eat pangolins whereas some hunt them to profit from their scales or both in ramappas case forest officials found that his gang had captured an adult pangolin and her cub ripped off their scales boiled the bodies and consumed the meat they were preparing to sell the scales when they were caught the animals scales are a common ingredient in traditional chinese medicine but are also used by the fashion industry to make statement clotheswhere theyre found in ktaka most pangolins are said to be found near the andhra pradesh border in the districts of chitradurga davanagere and ballari some are found in chikkamagaluru too they have no specific type of habitat and can be found in tropical forests agricultural fields or grasslands