But scales of a single animal can be worth US$30,000 at final sale, and even the fraction of this that reaches poachers is to them a significant sum. As a result it is the most trafficked animal in the world. In 2019 alone, assorted enforcement agencies and customs authorities impounded 97 tonnes of scales taken from an estimated 150,000 slaughtered African pangolins.

Perhaps the connection with coronavirus might have made the idea of saving the pangolin less appealing. But in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, at luxury lodge operator andBeyond’s Phinda Private Game Reserve, ecologist Craig Sholto-Douglas reports the number of pangolins rescued from poachers last year was similar to that in 2019.

“But we’re only working on a small scale,” he says via video chat. “We’re basing that on the animals that are coming into the hospital and being rehabilitated then coming to Phinda and other release sites. That hasn’t slowed down at all.”

In late 2019, Sholto-Douglas and I went out to track one of the first handful of pangolins just released into the reserve. A project to protect the Phinda rhino population by involving resort guests in their monitoring had proved wildly successful. Fees paid to observe the work or join in with it were substantially contributing to conservation costs.

Now the plan was to start a similar scheme for the less glamorous pangolins, whose monitoring tags needed new batteries from time to time. They also needed to be weighed regularly to confirm they were finding the local ants and termites to their taste. The origins of the poached animals were unknown, and they might have come from very different environments elsewhere in South Africa, or even Zimbabwe, Botswana or Mozambique.

The first step to locating an animal was to launch a “Find My Pangolin” app on Sholto-Douglas’ phone. Tags on the back of each animal pinged a satellite once an hour, telling us roughly where to begin our search.

The pangolin is a long, low creature with a pointed snout, its body balanced by a broad flat tail of similar mass behind the stumpy rear legs on which it walks, all covered in overlapping scales. It looks like an animated toothpaste tube crossed with a suit of armour.

Its much smaller forelegs sport large blunt claws for scratching at the ground to reveal the insects it mops up with a long tubular tongue. It bumbles about amiably, like an archivist on a rare trip out from the records room into the world, and its sole defence against threats is to roll up into a scaly beachball.

The pangolin was driven from what is now Phinda by clearance for farming. Now andBeyond is returning it to the wild, into a habitat that is again suitable for all the larger creatures that make safaris so exciting.

Out in the reserve, a secondary signal, picked up on a handheld antenna, directed us to duck into thorny scrub.

Safaris are usually spent safely in vehicles, and venturing out on foot seemed a brave move. On the ground were fresh elephant and buffalo tracks as well as suggestions of the recent presence of a black rhino. It was late afternoon and the sky was beginning to dim. If this had been a group trip, it probably would have been cancelled. But Sholto-Douglas judged it was safe with just the two of us if I stuck closely to him and did exactly as I was told.

As rapidly as the undergrowth would permit, we spiralled towards the signal heard in Sholto-Douglas’ earphones, until finally spotting the juvenile pangolin. Its attempt to sidle off pleased the ecologist, as this suggested it was becoming independent. Having been cornered, it rolled up conveniently for lifting into a weighing machine that Sholto-Douglas produced from his backpack.

“He was found when he was only one-and-a-half kilograms and could fit in the palms of your hands,” whispered the ecologist. “So he’s been hand-raised his whole life. He’s about a year old now and he’s been at the Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital for nearly eight months being hand-raised.”

Pangolins resist feeding in captivity and those retrieved from poachers must be treated for malnutrition and dehydration. This one had survived because he had not yet been weaned and so would accept cat’s milk from a teat.

Its curiosity made it uncurl enough to pose for photographs and, once released, it made a beeline for its burrow. We exited the bush briskly before something with teeth could make a beeline for us.

The whole experience had been at once domestic and thrilling.

Just over a year later, Sholto-Douglas has good news.

“That young male, the very first and only hand-raised and rewilded pangolin, is still alive and doing well, and he’s formed a little territory. He’s one of the few that’s managed to keep their tags on so we’ve been able to monitor him through the whole process.”

The Phinda pangolin programme had started well. “When we had full lodges you had to book very far in advance to do a pangolin experience,” says Sholto-Douglas.

The fees from guests paid for the 20,000 rand (US$1,375) satellite tags, while other funding paid for a PhD student to analyse the data collected. Until now, little was known about how many pangolins the land could support, how they would find each other for mating purposes, or even how long they might live. This was a rare case of tourism and science working in harmony.

After release, some pangolins make straight for the boundary fence and have to be repeatedly retrieved for their own safety. One became a crunchy snack for a crocodile, and others have had their expensive tags bitten off by lions, leopards or hyenas trying to open an armour-plated can of pangolin meat.

“We firmly believe they’re still alive and well somewhere in the landscape but we have absolutely no way of monitoring them,” says Sholto-Douglas.

When a lockdown of South Africa in the middle of the year dried up the funding from guests, donors stepped in. But data could be collected less frequently, and where pangolins seemed to have settled, satellite monitoring was replaced with data logging devices that stored the information on the pangolin itself.

“We’re looking at about 1,000 readings per satellite tag,” says Sholto-Douglas. “So if you have that hourly during the activity period of the animal you’re going to get [data for] about three and a half months.”

The answer has been to take three readings between 8pm and midnight, when the animals are most active.

Surprisingly, the pangolin’s characterisation as an alleged Covid-19 villain has brought no corresponding tendency to shun it.

“Until quite recently a lot of people wouldn’t even have known what was happening to the pangolin,” says Sholto-Douglas. “But a lot of these coronavirus stories have said this is the most highly trafficked mammal in the world and it’s drawn a bit of attention to what’s happening to them.”

In January, a female already pregnant when released gave birth to a pup and now there’s excitement as another seems to have become pregnant after arriving. The numbers of pangolins at Phinda are tiny compared with those annually poached, but it’s a start.

When guests can finally return to Phinda, the pangolins may not be pleased to see them, but the visits will help the mammals survive, babies and all.