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We arrived in mid-July. My wife and I had no idea what await­ed us on our jour­ney as pan­golin walk­ers. Before com­ing to South Africa in Jan­u­ary, we didn’t even know what a pan­golin was. That was part of the appeal—working with an endan­gered ani­mal and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn some­thing beyond our pre­vi­ous experiences.

At first, we weren’t sure about accept­ing this incred­i­ble job. Fol­low­ing an ani­mal for five to eight hours a day didn’t seem par­tic­u­lar­ly appeal­ing at first glance, but curios­i­ty won out in our deci­sion-mak­ing. It felt like a once-in-a-life­time oppor­tu­ni­ty, so we took it.

Our first days were ded­i­cat­ed to train­ing. We were shown every­thing while walk­ing with Bis­cuit, a pan­golin who had been poached and had just arrived. After our train­ing, one of us would con­tin­ue work­ing with him while the oth­er would walk with anoth­er pan­golin. See­ing a pan­golin walk, eat, and explore for the first time was spe­cial, but that first walk felt strange. Would I real­ly be able to fall in love with these ani­mals so much that I would enjoy spend­ing mul­ti­ple hours with them every day for half a year? More­over, I felt over­whelmed when hold­ing Biscuit—he wig­gled con­stant­ly, and his sharp scales cut into my arms. By the end of the day, I won­dered if he even liked me, despite what my wife and our train­er said. They thought he was more relaxed with me than with oth­ers. That evening, I decid­ed to give it anoth­er day to see who Bis­cuit would be bet­ter off with.

The next day, we went to a dif­fer­ent prop­er­ty with more ants and ter­mites. Bis­cuit did very well, and although he was still dif­fi­cult to car­ry, I felt him grow­ing on me. By the end of the day, I knew stay­ing with him was the right choice.

Our first weeks passed quick­ly as we got to know each oth­er. I learned how he liked to be car­ried, and he accept­ed my pres­ence dur­ing his feed­ing time. It felt spe­cial to real­ize that he was com­fort­able with me, despite the fact that I belonged to the same species that had near­ly tak­en his life. Watch­ing him eat suc­cess­ful­ly brought me so much joy—I felt incred­i­bly proud of him because not every pan­golin his age is able to find food on their own.

When Bis­cuit ate, he did it with pas­sion. Some­times, he dug through small ter­mite mounds, send­ing soil fly­ing into the air. When he was focused on feed­ing, noth­ing could dis­tract him—I could stand right next to him, and he wouldn’t even notice.

We weighed him before and after every walk. This was always an emo­tion­al moment for me—a good weight gain was a vic­to­ry, a rea­son to cel­e­brate; a loss felt like a fail­ure, mak­ing me ques­tion whether I had done every­thing right. It was a huge respon­si­bil­i­ty, and I didn’t want to let him down. He deserved a sec­ond chance, and for that, we need­ed to work togeth­er as a team.

After those first few weeks of get­ting used to each oth­er, our dai­ly walks set­tled into an end­less-feel­ing rou­tine. Just last year, I hadn’t even known what a pan­golin was, yet now, walk­ing with Bis­cuit felt like the most nat­ur­al thing in the world. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I knew time was run­ning out, and it became clear that get­ting him ready for release before my depar­ture would be a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge. That was our ulti­mate goal. So, even though our dai­ly life felt nor­mal, there was always an under­ly­ing pres­sure to pre­pare him in time.

It didn’t take long for me to fall in love with this stub­born lit­tle pan­golin. With each pass­ing day, I felt our bond grow­ing stronger, and I knew that the best outcome—for both of us—would be to get Bis­cuit back to free­dom together.

Our rou­tine, how­ev­er, was often filled with frus­tra­tion on both sides. Dur­ing the win­ter, Bis­cuit want­ed to go out for his walk the moment he woke up. Some days, that was at 8 a.m.; oth­er days, it was 11 a.m. But as soon as he was awake, he couldn’t wait anoth­er sec­ond. He made his impa­tience very clear by tak­ing out his frus­tra­tion on his door—you could always hear when Bis­cuit was awake, but you could nev­er pre­dict when that would be.

Once we were out­side, he would start feed­ing, but on hot­ter days, he quick­ly real­ized that sleep­ing would have been a bet­ter choice. Instead of eat­ing his required five to eight hours, he tried to find a com­fort­able spot to sleep. No mat­ter how much I tried to encour­age him, he would only eat when every­thing was just right for him.

Even­tu­al­ly, we adjust­ed his rou­tine, split­ting his walks into two parts. First, I would take him out as soon as he woke up, then bring him back when it got too hot or when he wasn’t inter­est­ed in eat­ing. Lat­er, we would head out again for a sec­ond ses­sion. Some days, I let him rest in the field for a few hours before wak­ing him up, while oth­er days, I took him back after just one hour.

When­ev­er I thought I had fig­ured out his rhythm or pref­er­ences, he would sur­prise me. I was nev­er able to ful­ly under­stand him. Luck­i­ly, on some days, I could at least get a sense of his mood and pre­dict his behavior—but nev­er with com­plete cer­tain­ty. Even though my days were an unpre­dictable mess, I was incred­i­bly grate­ful for Bis­cuit. When he was in the mood to feed, he found ants with impres­sive suc­cess. Bis­cuit was strong-willed and deter­mined, which led to yet anoth­er chal­lenge between us. This lit­tle guy was unbe­liev­ably stubborn—I could hard­ly believe it.

I learned where his favorite bur­rows were, and when­ev­er we approached one, I had to stop him; oth­er­wise, he would dis­ap­pear inside for far too long. But when Bis­cuit want­ed to go into a bur­row, he was deter­mined to get his way. It didn’t mat­ter if I placed him direct­ly on his favorite ant nest—oh no, not Bis­cuit. He would only eat there if he felt like it. And if he had his mind set on a bur­row, he would do every­thing in his pow­er to shake me off.

This pan­golin was clever. He tried to out­smart me mul­ti­ple times by pre­tend­ing to walk in anoth­er direc­tion, only to cir­cle back through thick­er ter­rain toward his goal. He near­ly won count­less times, but I was even more stub­born than he was. I refused to let him have his way if it meant miss­ing out on eating.

Even when he did eat, he nev­er made it easy for me. Bis­cuit had a big pas­sion for fences—particularly the ones he wasn’t sup­posed to cross. There was a small path­way in front of the fence, and every time we reached it, he would pause, hes­i­tat­ing as if decid­ing whether to make a break for it. I’m con­vinced he knew he wasn’t allowed to go there, but if he thought I wasn’t pay­ing atten­tion or spot­ted a gap, he would sud­den­ly sprint across the path toward the fence. With­out fail, I would either scoop him up or block his way just in time.

Block­ing him became a game between us. He would try to sneak through the gaps between my feet, and I would do my best to keep him on the right side of the fence. This lit­tle bat­tle of wills became one of my dai­ly joys with him.

A few months lat­er, I final­ly let him cross a fence—because I knew how to reach the oth­er side. Bis­cuit crawled under­neath, sniffed around for a moment, and then, to my com­plete dis­be­lief, sim­ply turned around and came back on his own. All that fight­ing, all those stub­born stand-offs—only for him to change his mind the moment I final­ly grant­ed his wish. Hon­est­ly, there is no way any­one will ever ful­ly under­stand a pangolin.

As time passed and anoth­er pan­golin, Ren­zo, neared his release, I began ask­ing when Biscuit’s turn would come. Ren­zo and Bis­cuit were sim­i­lar in weight, but Ren­zo was slight­ly ahead. Addi­tion­al­ly, Bis­cuit had a small wound on his tum­my that need­ed time to heal. Our two main pri­or­i­ties were for him to reach 5.4 kilo­grams and to ensure the wound ful­ly recov­ered. To help with the heal­ing, I applied a cream after our walks—something Bis­cuit didn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly enjoy. How­ev­er, I man­aged to find a way to do it with­out him curl­ing up into a defen­sive ball.

Our big goal was clear: reach the tar­get weight and give the wound time to heal. In the mean­time, Bis­cuit gave me the first real proof that he was ready for life in the wild.

Dur­ing one of our walks, we came close to Ren­zo. Ren­zo was com­plete­ly absorbed in his meal when, out of nowhere, he decid­ed to approach Bis­cuit while he was feed­ing at an ant nest. Bis­cuit imme­di­ate­ly stopped, lift­ed his head, locked eyes with Ren­zo, and let out a loud, warn­ing snort. Fight, flight, or freeze? Ren­zo clear­ly didn’t want to mess with Biscuit—he turned and walked away, while Bis­cuit car­ried on as if noth­ing had happened.

I prob­a­bly shouldn’t have been proud of that moment, but even now, I still am. Bis­cuit stood his ground against a slight­ly heav­ier pan­golin and set his bound­aries. To me, this was a pos­i­tive sign—I saw his wild side emerge, and it reas­sured me that he would find his path as a tru­ly wild pangolin.

Through­out my jour­ney with Bis­cuit, anoth­er major chal­lenge weighed on my mind. After spend­ing so much time with him, I under­stood exact­ly what he need­ed to recov­er suc­cess­ful­ly. I knew which prop­er­ty offered the best con­di­tions for him to regain strength and gain weight, and giv­en the hot weath­er, it became clear that lat­er walk­ing hours suit­ed him best.

How­ev­er, there was a problem—Biscuit pre­ferred an area that was slight­ly riski­er for a high­ly poached species like him. In the begin­ning, I always returned to a safer loca­tion as soon as dusk fell, but this led to poor feed­ing ses­sions for Bis­cuit. Even­tu­al­ly, I asked to pri­or­i­tize his needs over my own sense of secu­ri­ty, which opened the con­ver­sa­tion about self-protection—including car­ry­ing a weapon.

This also forced me to con­front a deep­er ques­tion: How far would I go to pro­tect Bis­cuit if a dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion arose?

By this point, I loved Bis­cuit like my own child. Even though I’ve always con­sid­ered myself a peace­ful per­son, I had already made up my mind—if some­one posed a threat to him, I would pro­tect him at all costs. Of course, I didn’t know how I would tru­ly react if the worst hap­pened. No one ever does until they’re in that moment. But I knew one thing for cer­tain: if hurt­ing some­one was the only way to keep Bis­cuit safe, I was will­ing to do it.

In between our lit­tle dai­ly bat­tles over his route and bur­rows, there were moments of pure beauty—small, unex­pect­ed instances that touched my heart.

One morn­ing, Bis­cuit slept in until the lat­est pos­si­ble time for his walk. When I went to get him from his room, he was still fast asleep. I care­ful­ly took his weight and car­ried him to the car. That morn­ing, all the trans­port box­es were gone, so he had to ride on my lap. Nor­mal­ly, this would have been a nightmare—Biscuit nev­er liked to sit still. Instead, he would try to climb, scratch, or dig his way through my arm. But this time was dif­fer­ent. Still drowsy, Bis­cuit tucked his nose under my arm and went back to sleep as we drove to his prop­er­ty. I could feel his warmth, the steady rhythm of his breath­ing, and how com­plete­ly relaxed he was. It made me incred­i­bly emotional.

I am part of the same species that hurt him the most, that near­ly took his life, that left him traumatized—yet here he was, curled up against me, trust­ing me enough to sleep in my arms. It was, with­out a doubt, one of the great­est hon­ors of my life.

I love him so much, and I couldn’t be proud­er of him. He was a brave lit­tle guy, fight­ing for his free­dom every sin­gle day. I tru­ly believe he under­stood my intentions—that we had to work togeth­er to reach his goal. That one sim­ple dri­ve was a defin­ing moment for me. All the strug­gles, all the hard work—it was worth it. His free­dom was worth everything.

Through­out our jour­ney togeth­er, there were moments that test­ed me emotionally.

The health of all pan­golins is mon­i­tored close­ly, so reg­u­lar blood tests were noth­ing unusu­al. But one morn­ing, every­thing changed—it shook my entire world.

Over time, the repet­i­tive nature of our walks had giv­en me tun­nel vision. I could see that Bis­cuit was doing well, that he was slow­ly gain­ing weight. But that morn­ing, I received a mes­sage that his blood analy­sis looked con­cern­ing. If the results were con­firmed, he would need antibi­otics, which could impact his well-being and progress. For a result like that, he should have been show­ing signs of fatigue or weakness—but he wasn’t. He was still the same Bis­cuit I had been walk­ing for months. Before I start­ed this job, I was warned that pan­golins can dete­ri­o­rate rapid­ly, with­out warn­ing. Was this hap­pen­ing? I was ter­ri­fied for my lit­tle kid. I hadn’t seen this com­ing at all. After I heard the news, I went for a walk and I broke down crying—it felt like my entire world was collapsing.

A storm of ques­tions flood­ed my mind. How could this hap­pen? Had I missed any signs? Was he going to be okay? Would he ever make it to freedom?

Some­times, life can shift from light to dark­ness in an instant.

For the sce­nario to be true, the vet need­ed to con­firm Biscuit’s blood results a few days lat­er. There was still a chance that the ini­tial results were faulty. The days lead­ing up to his next vet vis­it felt end­less­ly long. Because of the pre­vi­ous neg­a­tive out­come, I watched and over­an­a­lyzed his every move dur­ing our walks. I was ter­ri­fied that I might miss some­thing impor­tant. Yet, he remained the same Bis­cuit I had always known—hungry, stub­born, and full of energy.

After sev­er­al ner­vous walks, the big day final­ly arrived. These new blood results would deter­mine the path for­ward. I feared that, if he need­ed antibi­otics, his progress would be set back by weeks. This moment was too impor­tant to sit out, so I joined Bis­cuit on his trip to the vet. Once again, I felt like a par­ent accom­pa­ny­ing a child to the doc­tor, anx­ious and helpless.

At the clin­ic, I held his lit­tle front foot while he was under anes­the­sia. Though I’m not reli­gious, I found myself pray­ing to the uni­verse that he would be okay, just as I had in the past days. We wait­ed for the results, and when they final­ly came, the relief was overwhelming—his ini­tial test had been faulty. Bis­cuit was fine. He would con­tin­ue on his road to free­dom, and for now, my world remained intact.

Still, this scare left a mark. The pos­si­bil­i­ty of a sud­den decline lin­gered in my mind. I became more cau­tious dur­ing our walks, but also more anxious—every tiny change made me fear the worst. In the end, though, I was sim­ply grate­ful. He was still healthy, and that was all that mattered.

This shad­ow on our jour­ney also made me cher­ish our walks even more. When you do some­thing every day, it’s easy to get lost in rou­tine. Some days, you’ll be frustrated—by the heat, by exhaus­tion, or even by the pan­golin him­self. But the moment it’s over, you’ll miss it. There’s some­thing mag­i­cal about watch­ing a lit­tle crea­ture go about its dai­ly life, slow­ly grow­ing stronger, reclaim­ing what was tak­en from him. Of course, the fact that some­one needs to do this at all is both trag­ic and shame­ful for human­i­ty. We often jus­ti­fy our sup­posed supe­ri­or­i­ty over ani­mals by say­ing we think and feel, yet poach­ing and habi­tat destruc­tion paint a very dif­fer­ent picture.

Despite the heart­break­ing rea­sons that make wildlife reha­bil­i­ta­tion nec­es­sary, my time with Bis­cuit changed me. He made me grow as a per­son. So, I tried to be grate­ful for every moment we had togeth­er, even on the dif­fi­cult days. Our evening walks will always hold a spe­cial place in my heart—sitting in the peace­ful dark­ness, beneath a sky full of stars.

There aren’t enough words to describe the highs and lows of this journey.

Around the halfway point, Bis­cuit hit a rough patch—one that test­ed my patience. My time in South Africa was lim­it­ed, and I was grow­ing anx­ious that my time­line wouldn’t align with his progress. For some rea­son, he seemed stuck at a weight about 300 grams below what he need­ed for release. No mat­ter how well or poor­ly he ate, he sim­ply wouldn’t go above 5.2 kg. It was dri­ving me insane.

For­tu­nate­ly, a solu­tion soon emerged. I was giv­en per­mis­sion to walk him on a new property—one that had been untouched by pan­golins for a while, mean­ing it should have had an abun­dance of ants. Our first walk there was incred­i­ble. The place was teem­ing with ants, so much so that even Bis­cuit seemed over­whelmed by the sheer num­ber of choic­es. I hoped this new ter­ri­to­ry would final­ly give him the boost he need­ed to reach his tar­get weight.

The prop­er­ty had plen­ty of advan­tages, but it also came with one major down­side: it was an open field with no shade what­so­ev­er. To make mat­ters worse, sum­mer was creep­ing into Limpopo, bring­ing scorch­ing hot days. We could have switched to evening walks, but Bis­cuit was still wak­ing up in the morn­ings, eager to go. To accom­mo­date him, I start­ed tak­ing him out at 7 a.m. I would let him for­age while using my own body to shield him from the sun, stay­ing out until the heat became unbear­able. Then, we’d return and head out again in the late after­noon, walk­ing until ear­ly evening. At the time, this seemed like the best way to bal­ance his needs and habits.

By now, you’d think that with a prop­er­ty full of ants, his weight would start climb­ing effort­less­ly. But things had to get worse before they got better.

Just before my week­end off, his weight start­ed to drop. The biggest drop hap­pened while I was away, and when I returned, he had some­how end­ed up back at the same weight as when we start­ed this jour­ney. I couldn’t believe it—he had more food, eas­i­er access to it, yet he was still los­ing weight. Moments like these remind you that no mat­ter how much time you spend with a pan­golin, you’ll nev­er ful­ly under­stand them.

The weight loss drove me crazy, and my frus­tra­tion bled into our walks. Time and time again, Bis­cuit would stroll through a land­scape flood­ed with his favorite ants, only to ignore them com­plete­ly. Instead, he ded­i­cat­ed his time and ener­gy to climb­ing trees. It was infuriating.

A few days after my week­end off, his weight slow­ly start­ed to climb again—but only back to where it had been before. Just after one small bump on his path to free­dom, a much big­ger obsta­cle appeared. One evening, I ran out of ener­gy, bare­ly man­ag­ing to fin­ish our walk with­out faint­ing. Instead of putting all my strength toward Biscuit’s release, I found myself bat­tling tick-bite fever. It took me out for at least a week—precious time for Bis­cuit. I felt hor­ri­ble for let­ting him down, for need­ing time to recov­er, and I was ter­ri­fied he might start los­ing weight again.

That week felt like a month, filled with relent­less heat, con­stant wor­ry about Bis­cuit, and ter­ri­ble headaches from the infec­tion. With the lit­tle ener­gy I had each day, I checked in on his weight and prayed to the uni­verse that he would be okay. For­tu­nate­ly, a good walk­er took over in my absence, but pan­golins are sen­si­tive to change, and I knew this dis­rup­tion could have a big impact on him.

While I was sick, heavy rains came, and one day, Bis­cuit even reached his tar­get release weight. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it didn’t count—the mud cling­ing to him had arti­fi­cial­ly inflat­ed the num­ber. Still, against my worst fears, he man­aged to sus­tain his weight while I was away.

As soon as I was well enough to walk again, I threw myself back into it, deter­mined to push him over the fin­ish line. At the same time, I made peace with the pos­si­bil­i­ty that I might miss his release. My time in South Africa was near­ly up, and I had to accept that while I could give my best, I couldn’t force things to hap­pen. This mind­set took the pres­sure off our remain­ing time togeth­er. I even post­poned my depar­ture as much as pos­si­ble, giv­ing us a final chance to com­plete this jour­ney side by side.

After my break, a few things had changed. With the shift­ing sea­sons, Bis­cuit final­ly adjust­ed to evening walks—a huge step for­ward, since our split sched­ule was no longer ide­al. Our walks also became short­er, and his behav­ior shift­ed. He no longer need­ed six or sev­en hours to for­age because food was so abun­dant on the new property.

Instead, a new pat­tern emerged. When we arrived, he wouldn’t eat for an hour or two. Some­times he napped, oth­er times he just wan­dered. But when he did start eat­ing, it was intense—he would gorge him­self until there was no more space left in his bel­ly, not even for a sin­gle ant. After that, he either roamed aim­less­ly or began search­ing for a burrow.

At first, I didn’t under­stand what was hap­pen­ing. The Bis­cuit I knew always woke up full of ener­gy, eager to take on the day. But that wasn’t him any­more. He had become a sleepy pan­golin who need­ed to be wok­en up before we could start our walks. I also had to give him more space, let­ting him move at his own pace.

And then it hit me—he was becom­ing wild again. He no longer want­ed to fol­low the rou­tine dic­tat­ed by reha­bil­i­ta­tion. He need­ed his free­dom, his own sched­ule, and, ulti­mate­ly, to sep­a­rate from humans. I did my best to adapt. I gave him more dis­tance, kept as qui­et as pos­si­ble, and let him feel as though he was tru­ly on his own. In the begin­ning, it hurt when he some­times seemed afraid of me. But at the same time, I saw him grow­ing up—and that was all I had ever wanted.

One of the most intense times of my life was our final weeks togeth­er. Bis­cuit had final­ly bro­ken through the weight plateau that had held him back for so long. From that point on, it was all about gaining—more and more each day. Before I knew it, his weight had sky­rock­et­ed, and he had offi­cial­ly reached his release target.

All the strug­gles, all the hard work—it had all been worth it. I felt a mas­sive wave of relief and excite­ment, my hap­pi­ness for him lim­it­less. But we weren’t done just yet. He need­ed to main­tain his weight for anoth­er one to two weeks to con­firm he was tru­ly ready. His future home had to be approved, a release date set, and his final vet vis­it sched­uled to ensure he was healthy for this huge step.

Because this time was crit­i­cal, I post­poned my week­end days until after his release to make sure he had no rea­son to drop weight. I gave every­thing I had—every ounce of love and energy—to see this jour­ney through to the end.

Over the next few days, a release time­line came togeth­er, and every­thing seemed almost too good to be true. I was still ner­vous, afraid that some­thing unex­pect­ed might threat­en this per­fect out­come. So, I took every oppor­tu­ni­ty to make sure it hap­pened. When­ev­er I saw shoot­ing stars at night, I wished for Biscuit’s suc­cess. Before every walk, I talked to him, telling him about his upcom­ing release—that if he just kept doing his best, he would soon have his life back.

One morn­ing, I even showed him the track­ers who would be mon­i­tor­ing him after his release. I told him how close he was to becom­ing a free pan­golin again. Believe it or not, I think he under­stood. He was more deter­mined than ever. Gone were the days of wan­der­ing aimlessly—he ate with laser focus, fill­ing his bel­ly until it was round like a ball.

Every time we returned from our walks, I was danc­ing and grin­ning like an idiot because he kept beat­ing his per­son­al best weight, over and over again. In those final weeks, he gained more than he had in the months before.

But there was still one last challenge—this time, it was my own.

Thun­der­storm sea­son arrived, and with it, an unex­pect­ed per­son­al lim­it. I had nev­er real­ized how much storms unset­tled me until I found myself on an open field with light­ning flash­ing toward us. Pan­ic took over, and I had my first-ever pan­ic attack dur­ing one of our walks. Some­one else had to take over that day. But for Biscuit’s sake, I had to find a way to push through.

We came up with a plan in case a storm hit, and I learned a few tech­niques to man­age the fear. Most of the time, they worked. But what sur­prised me the most was Bis­cuit. He picked up on my fear, and—against his usu­al behavior—he stayed close to me when I was afraid. His pres­ence helped calm me down. Even as he grew wilder, our bond remained unshaken.

In those final days, Bis­cuit made sure to keep things interesting—just to remind me who he was. He found a pile of cow dung and glee­ful­ly wal­lowed in it, so every time I had to car­ry him, my hands and arms were cov­ered in filth.

Then, there was the cow inci­dent. While Bis­cuit was eat­ing, two nosy cows snuck up on us. One in par­tic­u­lar got far too close, inspect­ing him with great curios­i­ty. But Bis­cuit? He was com­plete­ly unfazed. He stood his ground, stub­born as ever, until the cow final­ly huffed and walked away, seem­ing­ly offended.

Even in our last moments togeth­er, Bis­cuit was, well… Bis­cuit. And I wouldn’t have had it any oth­er way.

The last day arrived faster than I had expect­ed, bring­ing a whirl­wind of emo­tions. I was immense­ly proud of Biscuit’s jour­ney, over­joyed that he had made it this far, but also heart­bro­ken that our paths were about to diverge. And beneath it all, there was fear—the fear that, after every­thing he had endured, he might be poached again, that all his strug­gles would have been in vain.

He deserved free­dom. He deserved the right to live and to be part of nature.

The day of our depar­ture was emo­tion­al­ly over­whelm­ing. I removed his name from the sign out­side his room, know­ing that when I returned from his release, he wouldn’t be there any­more. The real­i­ty of that hit hard—I was going to miss my pan­golin son. But after months of relent­less work, we had earned the right to fin­ish this jour­ney together.

When we arrived at his new home, I didn’t feel the relief or joy I had expect­ed. Instead, I was filled with anx­i­ety. This prop­er­ty was new to pan­golin releas­es, and Bis­cuit was going to be their first. That meant they would be learn­ing from him—and I wor­ried they might make mis­takes, that they might unin­ten­tion­al­ly upset him, or worse, that he wouldn’t make it.

His first walk in his new home was chaotic—there were too many peo­ple. How was a pan­golin sup­posed to adjust to unfa­mil­iar sur­round­ings with a crowd of humans, unaware of their move­ments and noise?

But Bis­cuit, as always, had his own pri­or­i­ties. The high­light of his first night wasn’t the peo­ple but the sheer num­ber of bur­rows avail­able to him. For the first time, he was allowed to explore them freely, and with an abun­dance of aard­varks in the area, the options were end­less. Instead of set­tling down, Bis­cuit spent the night bur­row-hop­ping, dis­ap­pear­ing into one hole after anoth­er. We wait­ed for hours beside dif­fer­ent bur­rows, won­der­ing when he would final­ly emerge.

Despite the dis­trac­tions, he did eat well at one spot—a small but sig­nif­i­cant suc­cess for his first night in his new home.

For the first two nights, we took him back to our accom­mo­da­tion overnight. The sec­ond night didn’t go well—he bare­ly ate and lost weight. We had to dig him out of a bur­row dur­ing the night.

Pan­ic crept in. Doubts flood­ed my mind. Was this too much for him? Had the trau­ma of poach­ing tak­en away his abil­i­ty to live a nor­mal life?

All I could do was wait and hope.

On day three, he expe­ri­enced his first night of freedom—we didn’t bring him back with us. It was exhil­a­rat­ing to see him make it this far; now he just need­ed to adjust and start eat­ing more. That night, I had to accept that I had tak­en him as far as I could. It was his time to shine—a new begin­ning for Bis­cuit, the moment he could final­ly live life on his own terms.

Every detail made me ner­vous, and I felt like an over­pro­tec­tive par­ent forced to let his child go and make their own choic­es. I was con­fi­dent in Biscuit’s abil­i­ty to suc­ceed, yet the scari­est part was know­ing that he still shared this world with humans who might kill him for prof­it through his scales. That thought still weighs on my heart.

Despite tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties and peo­ple occa­sion­al­ly get­ting too close for Biscuit’s com­fort, progress was slow but evi­dent. We saw him wal­low­ing in ani­mal dung—a promis­ing sign. He began to adjust his feed­ing times to the heat of the day, and his weight slow­ly start­ed to climb again. My heart filled with joy when I saw him eat­ing his favorite ants; he was final­ly where he belonged.

Yet, with each pass­ing day, a lit­tle sad­ness crept in. I knew that the moment was near when our jour­ney would end, when we would have to say good­bye for­ev­er. Bis­cuit had trans­formed from an annoy­ing, wig­gling pan­golin into my lit­tle pan­golin child. He meant the world to me, changed me, and I wasn’t ready to let him go. Our bond was unique, and I knew that our cross­ing paths would leave a last­ing mark on both of our lives.

My heart melt­ed when he once again sur­prised me with his gen­tle behav­ior. His track­ing tags mal­func­tioned, and we had to change them twice. Each time, I held him in my arms while his head peeked over my shoul­der as the tags on his bag were adjust­ed. Calm and con­tent, he seemed to savor my close­ness. Bis­cuit nev­er sat still when some­one was hold­ing him—I like to think it was his way of say­ing good­bye and show­ing grat­i­tude. I embraced those moments and returned his love with all my heart.

On the last day, every­thing hap­pened so quick­ly. We found Bis­cuit for­ag­ing for ants, took his weight, and then the time came to say good­bye. Just like that, our jour­ney reached its end. I was the proud­est per­son on earth because he had made it. Bis­cuit sur­vived the trau­ma, fought for his sec­ond chance in life, and achieved it.

This lit­tle guy allowed me to be part of his recov­ery, and I was hon­ored by his trust. Ani­mals feel deeply, often more than we give them cred­it for, and they con­tribute so much to the health of our plan­et. A mag­i­cal bond like the one Bis­cuit and I shared shows that there’s no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for treat­ing ani­mals so hor­ri­bly. If you open your mind to their emo­tions, you’ll see the beau­ty in each individual’s char­ac­ter. Bis­cuit, and all oth­er pan­golins, deserve the right to live as freely as any human. I’m for­ev­er grate­ful for the months we spent together.

The last time I saw Bis­cuit, I picked him up and placed him on my shoul­der, just like in the days before. His head was cov­ered in ants that even crawled onto me, leav­ing me with the com­fort­ing thought that he had his very own ant heaven—enough to eat as much as he need­ed. I let him go, telling him how proud I was and promis­ing that I would always be there for him, even as he embarked on his new jour­ney. I urged him to go wild, to enjoy his freedom—but to be cau­tious around humans—and final­ly, I told him that I loved him. I watched Bis­cuit for­age for a while before he slow­ly dis­ap­peared into the bush, and that was it.

Back at the reha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­ter, I took a few days off to process every­thing and catch up on sleep. I felt both ful­filled and emp­ty at the same time. We had made it, but our paths were now sep­a­rat­ed. I hoped to be freed from the con­stant wor­ries that had bur­dened me for months, yet I couldn’t help but con­tin­ue to wor­ry about him. I eager­ly await­ed any update on his progress—the only way I could still keep an eye on him. Bis­cuit left a gap in my heart that still aches today, but I am grate­ful for his suc­cess­ful recov­ery. He belongs to nature, and that was the ulti­mate out­come of our jour­ney. Not every pan­golin sur­vives the trau­ma­tiz­ing expe­ri­ence of being poached by humans, and too many are lost in the time I spent with Bis­cuit. Know­ing that he is final­ly free fills me with a bit­ter­sweet feeling.

Thank you, Bis­cuit, for this jour­ney. I will nev­er for­get the time we shared and the impact you had on my life.

And a huge thank you to Emma and every­one ded­i­cat­ing their lives to sav­ing this incred­i­ble species. You are true heroes! With­out you, this world would lose its col­ors. I have wit­nessed the con­sum­ing dark­ness of pan­golin loss, yet you face it every day. It takes an extra­or­di­nary amount of strength to do what you do. Thank you!

 

~Daniel