Face-to-face with a pangolin: Free AR app launches for World Pangolin Day

A new augmented reality (AR) cellphone app is offering the public a rare chance to come face-to-face with South Africa’sonly pangolin species, without disturbing wildlife in the wild. Launched to markWorld Pangolin Dayon 21 February, the Wild Voices: Pangolin is a free AR app developed through a partnership between the Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital, the Habitat Nature Parks Foundation and its immersive production studio, Habitat XR. The app allows users to project a life-sized Temminck’s ground pangolin into their own environment using a smartphone, interact with it and ask questions about its biology, ecological role and the threats it faces.

The experience is powered by immersive 3D technology and conversational artificial intelligence, drawing on scientifically informed data. For nearly nine years, the Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital has been at theforefront of pangolin rescue, treatment and rehabilitation in South Africa. The hospital has treated more than 200 pangolins rescued from illegal wildlife trafficking, many arriving severely dehydrated, injured and traumatised.

Despite this, pangolins remain largely unknown to the public. “So many people still don’t know what a pangolin is,” saidKarin Lourens, the co-founder and head veterinarian at the hospital. “By making this experience free and accessible to anyone with a smartphone, we can reach far beyond the walls of our hospital.” The app, she said, allowed someone to stand face-to-face with South Africa’s only pangolin species in their own living room, “turning an unfamiliar, abstract animal into something real and worthy of protection”.

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Pangolins are the most trafficked mammals in the world. “If technology can help more people care about them, understand them and stand up for them, then it becomes a powerful conservation tool.” All eight pangolin species — four of which occur in Africa — remain threatened, facing a high, very high or extremely high risk of extinction based on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species assessments in 2019. The primary drivers are overexploitation for illegal trade, including the use of scales, local and sub-national trade and widespread habitat loss.

All eight species are listed on Appendix 1 of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), which bans all international commercial trade in wild-caught specimens, providing the highest level of international protection. A recentCites reportfound that between 2016 to 2024, there were 2 222 seizures of pangolins and their parts across 49 countries involving an estimated 553 042 animals. Seizures in just 10 countries accounted for 96% of the total. At least 74 countries were identified as being involved in the illegal pangolin trade, spanning no fewer than 178 unique trade routes.

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