Moses, a former ranger, founded the Pangolin Rescue Centre in Kanungu, Uganda, in 2015. Since then, he and his small volunteer team have rescued more than 180 pangolins from villages along both sides of the Uganda–DRC border, where the animals are often caught in snares and sold for bushmeat. While pangolins are globally associated with organised trafficking networks, the threat here is far more local: opportunistic hunting driven by poverty, limited livelihood options and misunderstanding of the species.
Rather than treating communities as adversaries, Moses has built a network of local informants who now play an active role in rescue. Villagers alert the centre when pangolins are captured and help arrange transport, supported with practical necessities such as phone credit and motorbike access. Many rescues require crossing into eastern DRC, where insecurity and armed groups make travel unpredictable and dangerous, adding personal risk to each call.
