Animal in the eye of the storm

Writer: Elaine Davie.

This is a story about a storyteller telling a story about a strange little mammal very few people are ever likely to see, an animal on the edge of extinction. It is the story of the epic journey of two filmmakers into some of the wildest places remaining in Africa today in search of the four species of African pangolin still hanging on to survival by a thread.

It is the story of Director and Producer, Bruce Young, who, together with Director of Photography, Johan Vermeulen, produced a documentary in 2019 called Eye of the Pangolin.

Poster for the film ‘Eye of the Pangolin’.

Before Covid-19 most people had probably never heard of the pangolin, but now, with its suspected involvement in the transmission of the Coronavirus to humans in a grisly wet market in Wuhan, it has become a hot topic. In fulfilment of the notion that it’s an ill wind that blows no one any good, the glare of the global spotlight might just be the pangolin’s saving grace.

Directors Johan Vermeulen (left) and Bruce Young in a small village which straddles the border between Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire near Ghana’s Bia National Forest.

Director and Producer Bruce Young (right) and a member of the Ba’aka tribe with a Black-Bellied Pangolin in Central African Republic.

Click below to read more. (The full article can be found on page 9)