Original subtitles

This programme contains some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.

DAVID ATTENBOROUGH: This is a pangolin...

..the world's only truly scaly mammal.

We know almost nothing about their lives

but these creatures have gained an unfortunate tag -

pangolins are the most trafficked wild mammals in the world.

100,000 pangolins a year are hunted and trafficked like this.

More than 4,000 pangolins were killed to collect

the nearly three tonnes of scales.

Their scales and their meat have become lucrative commodities.

Selling for as much as $500 a kilo.

More valuable than ivory.

Fried pangolin, grilled pangolin, steamed pangolin.

This shy creature may become extinct before most people

even notice it's there.

Conservationist Maria Diekmann is on a mission to save

these vulnerable animals.

There's not a chance this pangolin will be alive a week from now

if I can't save it.

Her journey will take her halfway around the globe.

To Vietnam...

..Thailand...

..and China,

into the very heart of the problem...

There are probably 50 to 100 in each of these bags.

..where she'll discover a sheer determination to save an animal that

we're still tried to get to know.

We've got a very good chance of losing pangolins

within the next decade.

We're talking about a total and complete extinction.

They're the underdogs.

I've got to fight for the underdogs.

BRISTLING

SCALES BRISTLE

Pangolins are shy, secretive creatures.

Quite unlike anything else on earth.

BIRDS CHATTER

Their claws can dig through concrete.

Their thin, sticky tongue... SLURPING

..is as long as their bodies.

They can travel along on their hind legs.

These animals have walked the planet for over 40 million years.

And there are eight distinct species.

Four are found in Africa...

..and four in Asia.

Pangolins are the world's only truly scaly mammals.

Their scales, just like human fingernails, are made from keratin.

But this remarkable natural armour is the cause of their destruction.

In the last 20 years, the demand for pangolin scales

for use in traditional Asian medicines

has decimated their numbers worldwide.

Today, a pangolin will be taken from the wild every five minutes.

THEY CONVERSE IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE

In Namibia, conservationist Maria Diekmann

is on the front line of the battle to save these animals.

She's been contacted by a stranger with a pangolin to sell.

If we see that it's alive, and I can't convince this guy...

..I've got to walk away.

That's really hard. But if I don't walk away,

and then I pay him an extraordinary amount of money,

then I promise you, tomorrow he's back in the bush

and he's getting the next one.

I've got a 50-50 chance.

You can film for a couple more minutes and then camera away.

The call has brought Maria to a poor township

where selling a pangolin could bring great wealth.

But she's determined to pay nothing

to ensure no value is placed on these animals.

I'd love to see her, see if she's OK, but if you keep her,

she is going to die.

She's going to die. There's not a question about it.

There's nothing you can feed her.

Nobody in the world has kept pangolins in captivity,

except for three people. I'm one of them.

This is a guy who's taken an opportunity,

he probably just wants some extra money for his family,

maybe even a good thing, to put his kids in school, who knows?

And he thinks that this is a way to do it.

After a tense four-hour negotiation, Maria leaves...

..with a pangolin in hand.

But this is just the beginning.

Every moment counts.

It's really a life and death situation.

Pangolins are notoriously difficult to keep in captivity.

OK, still alive.

Fortunately, this traumatised animal will have a second chance,

thanks to Maria.

She's one of only a handful of people in the world

to have successfully rehabilitated pangolins.

But for every one she saves,

thousands more are being taken from the wild.

NEWS ARCHIVE: The pangolin is so sought-after,

it's considered the most widely trafficked animal in the world,

critically endangered and facing extinction.

It is a difficult battle and the odds aren't with them.

Maria's fight for pangolins began just five years ago.

She runs an organisation that rescues

Africa's lesser-known wild animals.

It was this work that led to a truly life-changing encounter.

My first real pangolin that came to me, that I spent any time with,

she was actually offered to a shop owner, who bought her to save her,

and he called me.

We formed this incredible bond,

which pangolins don't usually do with humans, but we realised why.

Two days later, as I was preparing to get a tracker on her and try and

release her, she actually gave birth.

Start filming. It's filming.

This has never happened before.

This was the first time anyone had filmed the birth of a pangolin.

She was waiting until she felt secure enough

and I was able to provide that.

At that time in the world,

nobody else had ever raised a baby that young.

There were no books that we could turn to,

there was really nobody that had

ever done what we getting ready to do.

OK, so that's a little boy, going in.

We had to sort of pioneer how to handle such a young baby pup.

Look at that, 3.99!

Oh, my God, this is so exciting!

Since that first encounter, Maria has rescued over 50 Cape pangolins.

You're going to go back into the wild today.

Are you going to open up for me?

Each one teaches her something new

about these little understood creatures.

But in 2015, a very special animal arrived.

A baby pangolin that could offer a deeper insight into her species -

and change everything.

The arrival of Honey Bun was probably one of the

saddest arrivals ever.

The mother was seriously abused.

She'd been kicked around.

It was obviously on a cement floor,

because you could see streaks of the paint on her scales.

Honey Bun had no damage whatsoever,

so what had probably happened is the mother had rolled around Honey Bun

to protect her.

So traumatised was she by her mistreatment,

that the mother escaped at her first opportunity...

..leaving Maria to raise the newly named Honey Bun...

GLASS SMASHES ..in a unique living situation.

BANGING

Sharing her home with a troublesome toddler.

Honey Bun?

Honey Bun!

There's nothing for you in there.

When one little baby pangolin comes in,

you're talking about years and years and years of complete commitment.

Young pangolins require round-the-clock attention.

And as they get older, the biggest challenge is keeping them well fed.

Now 18 months old...

..Honey Bun has developed quite an appetite.

Like all pangolins, she feeds exclusively on insects.

Sniffing them out with her highly sensitive nose.

She has no teeth, but uses her long, sticky tongue to lap them up.

Her scales, able to withstand the bite of a lion,

help protect her from angry ants.

And she shuts her nostrils and ears when feeding.

Pangolins need to eat millions of insects in a year.

The only way Maria can provide this diet is to allow her pangolins to

forage naturally for up to five hours a day.

Oh, my goodness gracious,

if I had known that I was going to have to spend this much time walking

with pangolins, I might have second-guessed myself.

Honey Bun can cover up to six miles to feed each day...

..and Maria goes with her, watching her every move.

Their trusting relationship gives Maria the opportunity to observe

natural pangolin behaviour.

I've spent thousands and thousands of hours in the bush walking behind

pangolins. You know,

I've probably observed things that nobody in the world has ever seen.

A lot of people have thought that they knew a lot about pangolins

and those have become facts that are actually incorrect.

You know, the books will tell you that they eat termites and ants.

No, they mainly eat ants.

The books will tell you they're nocturnal.

No, no, in winter they're not nocturnal at all.

And that's the process that we're in now,

is actually determining what's true, what's not true...

..and figuring out really more about them, so that we can save them.

Pangolins are so difficult to study in the wild,

we don't even know how long they live.

Maria's unique access is helping to build our understanding

of this species.

She meticulously records everything she observes...

..and is analysing this with the help of students,

like Harvard graduate Lorena Benitez.

Honey Bun is incredibly important.

No-one else has really been able to follow a pangolin, like,

through their life like this.

So we can really see, like, how feeding patterns, behaviour changes,

not just between seasons, but during different life stages,

so you really understand, like, the whole pangolin life cycle.

With all the data we have from Honey Bun,

there is just a whole new world of possibility opened up for pangolin

conservation in the wild.

Piece by piece,

Honey Bun is helping to unravel the mysteries that surround her kind.

But time is not on their side.

THUNDER RUMBLES, LIGHTNING CRASHES

African pangolins are increasingly under threat.

About three years ago, we started stopping shipments,

looking mainly for rhino and for elephant,

and started finding thousands of tonnes of pangolins.

That was the real wake-up call for all of us.

And nobody knew.

She's a little disturbed this evening. You know,

we've got a really big storm coming in.

THUNDER RUMBLES IN THE DISTANCE

And she just doesn't want to sleep.

And this...

I want to show you something, this is the kind of stuff that...

..actually keeps me awake at night.

The problem of pangolin poaching in Africa stems from the other side of

the world.

More than 4,000 pangolins were killed to collect the nearly

three tonnes of pangolin scales.

In Asia, pangolin scales have been used in traditional medicines for

centuries.

And Asian species have long been hunted for their scales...

Restaurants here openly, but illegally,

serve pangolin on the menu.

..and their meat.

Well, I can see some of these guys don't even have scales.

All different ages. There's quite a young one.

Look at this little baby here.

Probably a newborn, or just about ready to be born.

And this is a delicacy in Asia.

This demand has driven Asian pangolins

to the brink of extinction

and the international black market is now turning to African species.

Hundreds of thousands of African pangolin scales are being illegally

shipped out of the continent.

This increased trafficking means more confiscations

and more pangolins in need of Maria's help.

THUNDER RUMBLES

She has to be prepared for the worst,

so she's building for the future.

I basically sold just about everything I own.

My family thought I was absolutely mad,

and my mother was terrified that I was going to be on the street,

but it was absolutely the best decision I've ever made.

With help from charitable donations,

Maria is building a bespoke rehabilitation centre.

We now have a permanent home.

It's about 300 hectares,

so we've got enough room for animals to move around in.

In order to save money, I'm actually the architect and the designer

and I'm also the site manager.

This centre has to become one of the leading centres for pangolins.

Not for our reputation,

but simply because there's pangolins that need care in this country.

And there's no other place to do it.

Maria will soon be able to house more rescued pangolins.

But to ensure they're well fed,

she will need help walking them every day.

Fortunately, one recent arrival is already making a big difference.

Steven is this amazing young man who walked into our lives out of the

blue. We moved to this new area, and he saw our vehicle,

and he approached one of my students, and basically said,

"I want to work for these people."

And he's been here for about six months

and you would have thought he's been here for 20 years.

Honey Bun adores Steven.

And he adores her.

I feel like it's not a job.

It's something...

..God wanted me to do.

Now, Steven has the responsibility of walking Honey Bun everyday.

Where she goes, he must follow.

Not easy in the dense bush.

And it's clear who's really in charge.

She's the boss.

With Steven on board, things are looking up for Maria.

But every day, it seems there is more bad news for pangolins.

Yesterday's paper, big confiscation of elephant ivory,

but also pangolins, so it's just getting worse and worse every day.

In the last couple of months, even,

we're seeing a lot more confiscations going on.

It's probably a good thing,

in that at least the authorities are catching people,

but I suspect a lot of it is not just due to authorities being really

jacked up, it's due to a lot more trafficking going on.

Two nights ago, our canine unit was able to detect something

more valuable than ivory.

These are pangolin scales.

And it seems the problem is getting closer to home.

Where's the wire? This one.

Steven has found evidence of snare traps.

Maria, I've got two wires again here, one has got a loop.

There.

That's 100% it.

Ah! You see, there's the loop.

That goes in right like...

All right. Oh, man.

Any animal puts its head through,

and then as it gets its shoulders through,

and the shoulders are too big, the wire closes in around their neck.

So it's quite a, quite a violent, um, death.

SHE SIGHS

If I didn't love my car so much, I would kick it.

Just...

That somebody thinks they have the right to come onto my property and

kill my animals, and Steven's animals, it's, it's...

..it's just wrong.

As Maria is fighting to protect her own backyard,

there are more cries for help from further afield -

and they're growing increasingly disturbing.

I just had this gentleman write to me.

He was travelling through Angola,

now he's just sent me a bunch of pictures,

and they're a bunch of pangolins hanging from a wire.

And they're in different positions in every picture.

I just thought it was a...

..whole set of different pictures, then I realised...

..that these pangolins are alive.

Yeah. I had to tell him to leave the pangolins there.

We can't smuggle pangolins,

we can't be thought to be smuggling pangolins.

Um...

We've got to work within the parameters of our laws

and our government's and our agreements with other countries.

INTERVIEWER: How does that feel?

Um...

Very disempowering and really frustrating.

You know, it's not enough to just save Honey Bun.

It's not going to help us to make changes here in Africa

and we don't stop the Asian market.

The Asian market is the key market.

And if we can slow that down, or start to put a stop to that,

that's going to solve a lot of our problems.

Sometimes you just feel like this one little person in this big,

big ocean.

For Maria, the time has come to take action.

She is going to journey into the very heart of the pangolin crisis.

Asia's gone through what Africa's going to start going through.

What's important now is that I go over there

and I learn as much as I can.

My reception just goes out,

I'm very lucky to have reception at the moment.

She's reaching out to people in Asia who, like her,

are working on the front line.

I'm not the only person trying to save pangolins.

There's not a lot of people.

We all know each other's names.

Very few of us have ever met.

But Maria is also hoping she can do something

to combat the demand for pangolins.

In Asia, we're looking at the end consumer.

So if we can figure out with the Asians any way to stop

that end consumerism,

then we can stop the poaching over here.

It's the longest I'll ever have been away, from Steven and Honey Bun,

and I think Steven's terrified!

But he's going to be fine.

He'll be perfect and I'm a phone call away if he needs me.

But I think he's going to be perfect.

If you need anything, just call, OK?

Yes.

You'll do great, I'm really proud of you, OK?

I'm going to miss Honey Bun terribly.

Take good care of her. She's a part of my life,

she's been part of my life for so many months and years now that

I'm going to miss her.

Maria's mission will take her over 6,000 miles from home...

..to a completely different world.

The first thing I thought of when I came to Vietnam is the colour green.

You know, I'm coming from one of the driest countries in the entire world

to one of the wettest areas, so there's just water everywhere,

and the colour green is just everywhere.

Maria wants to prepare herself for the challenge of rescuing more of

Africa's pangolins.

So she is here to meet someone who's been leading the fight to save the

Asian species.

Thai Van Nguyen is a world leader in pangolin conservation.

How are you doing? Oh, great!

Oh, Thai, how...

It's amazing to finally meet you and be here.

Thai runs an organisation called Save Vietnam's Wildlife.

Based in the forests of the country's oldest national park...

..his team is dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating the world's most

endangered species of pangolins.

Meeting Thai has been a dream come true.

He's exactly what I wanted him to be, you know, this sort of kindred

spirit that has dedicated, basically, his life to pangolins.

What a pleasure to meet somebody else that makes you realise that

you're not so crazy after all.

I can't wait to see some of the Asian pangolins.

Hiya. Hi.

Hi, I'm Maria.

Hi, nice to meet you, I'm Maddie.

Hi, Maddie, nice to meet you.

Welcome! Welcome to Vietnam. Thank you.

Animal manager Maddie is keen to show Maria

some of Honey Bun's Asian cousins.

SHE WHISPERS: Oh, she's beautiful!

This is a Sunda pangolin.

Do you want to put her on the scales?

This adult female has been at the centre for five weeks

and is being prepared for release.

Is this hair? Yeah, so the difference between the African and

the Asian ones is that the Asian ones have hair between the scales.

Her back feet have much longer claws than our Cape.

Our Cape, the back feet don't have claws. Just the front. Really?

Yeah. Wow! She is... She's absolutely gorgeous.

Unlike the Cape pangolins that Maria knows...

..the Sunda spends much of its life in the trees.

It's the most widely distributed species in Asia.

But, as a result of illegal trade, it's now critically endangered.

Sophisticated criminal networks smuggle pangolins from the forests

of Southeast Asia and across borders.

Roughly 10% are intercepted by authorities.

But the vast majority slip through the net.

The trade is worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

Save Vietnam's Wildlife is a lifeline for pangolins rescued from

the black market.

They've received over 400 this year alone.

And more are arriving all the time.

15 Sunda pangolins were confiscated

near the Vietnamese border with China.

The team assess the surviving animals for any sign of injury.

They've all been vomiting a yellow substance.

And what is the yellow indicating?

That they were force-fed?

Yep. That is the tubes where they tried to put inside the belly of the

pangolin and put through the mouth.

So you can see this here.

THEY SPEAK IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE ON THE RECORDING

These pangolins were destined for the dinner table

and force-fed to increase their weight and price.

Every single one of these pangolins went through that same thing?

Yeah. So they were all handled by a bunch of loud, noisy people,

pumping things, rice, into their stomach? Yeah.

When frightened, a pangolin's first defence is to roll

into a protective ball.

But this makes it easy prey for poachers.

Most of the animals are, mercifully, free from injury.

But one young male is in real trouble.

His back leg has been severed, most likely by a snare.

Oh, my gosh.

Would you give him a pretty good chance of survival?

The amount of animals coming in, it's almost overwhelming.

If the demand continues to increase in Asia like it is now,

then Africa's heading for this type of situation,

which means the confiscations are not going to be one or two animals,

they're going to be ten or 20 animals.

Exactly what Thai is dealing with.

If I envision that happening at our centre, we'd have a really,

really difficult time.

It would be impossible for Maria to cater for the number of pangolins

that Thai's team handles in a year.

But there's one big advantage here...

..readily available food.

They can buy frozen ant pupae, a popular snack for people in Asia.

Unfortunately, they're too expensive for Maria to import back home.

I can't imagine you have to walk five hours per animal.

Yeah, I can't imagine you get to open your freezer!

Yeah! Wow!

Ant nests can also be collected from the trees - if you can reach them.

They're like little packaged dinners for the pangolins.

This would never be something we could do in Namibia.

Unfortunately, all our ants are in the ground, so, you know,

we would basically have to decimate a one metre area

and by the time we've done that, to get that piece of ground out,

the ants are going to be forming, you know, poison for the pangolins,

and it'll never work.

But there is one area where Maria can learn a lot from this team -

pangolin surgery.

The young male with a missing leg has been sedated

and is about to undergo a life-saving operation.

Last night, he showed an amazing attitude.

He is, he's a plucky little guy.

All the more courage to him.

Pangolins are so rarely kept in captivity that procedures like this

are not common practice.

For the vets, each one is a new experience.

This is like doctors working in a war zone.

They've got patient after patient after patient

and so they have to learn to work very quickly,

they have to learn to determine exactly what's wrong

and what they're going to be able to do about it,

and that's what these guys have been dealing with.

It's made them very, very good at what they do.

I was actually writing notes to myself - blood pressure, heart rate,

on the amount of gas that they're using.

The operation has gone extremely well...

..and the patient is starting to stir.

His missing leg means he can't be released.

So, when he recovers,

he will be given the best possible life at the centre.

But for animals deemed fully fit,

the aim is always to get them back out in the wild.

Today, nine Sunda pangolins are going home.

The team have driven for over ten hours...

..to a specially selected remote jungle.

They must just not really know what's going on,

but that second that they come out,

and they realise they're actually going back out into the wild,

I mean, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

To give the pangolins a fighting chance of evading poachers...

..the team are heading into the inaccessible heart of the forest.

Pangolins are solitary, so the team must release the animals

at different points throughout the jungle.

As night falls,

it's time for the first of the nine pangolins to taste freedom.

I tell you, Thai, I would walk three times up a mountain

just to see that.

One down, eight to go.

As the hours pass, one by one...

..the rest of the pangolins emerge...

..and then vanish into the forest.

Well, I'm cold and I'm wet, I'm covered in mud and mosquito bites

and I've been pulling leeches off myself,

but it's one of the most memorable experiences

I've ever had in my life.

For the team, it's been a very long night.

But these animals now have a second chance for a life in the wild.

As Maria leaves Vietnam,

her thoughts turn to her beloved African pangolins.

To better understand their fate in this growing illegal trade,

she's heading west.

I must say, it's completely overwhelming.

The number of people, the number of cars, the colours, the signs.

It's very, very different than home.

In the last few years,

Thailand has emerged as a key transit country for illegal wildlife

contraband from Africa.

Thai authorities are cracking down hard on wildlife crime.

But, despite these efforts, the problem is clearly escalating.

Come in.

This doctor is showing Maria evidence from a recent raid.

1060kg? Yeah.

You found giant...

And tree pangolins.

I mean, there are probably 50 to 100 pangolins in each of these bags.

Yeah.

If not more.

Today, 80% of pangolin scales confiscated from the global

black market are from African animals.

It's a lot of pangolins.

Yeah. A lot of pangolins.

In Africa, we're hearing about the fact that our scales are coming to

Asia and we see pictures of it, but to touch those bags

and know that the babies that I work with were in there...

..and just to envision how they must have died...

..was...was tough.

Can I see some of them?

Well, these are - they're definitely African.

That'd be down there by the tail

and this is their defence mechanism.

It's quite sharp, almost like a knife.

Often, you can tell individual pangolins by the colour, too.

So that's probably three different pangolins.

Yeah.

I'm afraid you're actually going to open these

and you're going to find even more than two species.

You know, we've got four species in Africa,

you could very well have all four species here,

and you could very well have our Cape pangolin.

You know, every pangolin scale that I looked at today...

..I thought about Honey Bun...

..and, you know, it's hard not to do that.

You're supposed to stay unemotional, you're a scientist,

but I'm a conservationist before I'm a scientist

and I've been fortunate enough to hold these little creatures alive in

my hands, so it's hard not to envision them in those dead scales.

Maria cannot help but think of home and Honey Bun.

PHONE RINGS

PHONE CONTINUES RINGING

Hello, Maria! Hi, Steven! How are you?

Very well, very well, it's good to hear from you!

Tell me, how's Honey Bun doing?

Honey Bun is really eating well.

Yesterday, she ate around 56 times.

Oh, just hearing your voice makes me want to come home right now.

Thank you very much, goodbye!

OK, bye. All right.

Let's go, Honey Bun. Honey Bun, come.

Come! Let's go.

Let's go.

Oh, let's go! Yes!

It was just so nice to hear Steven's voice.

Let's go. All right.

Maria was just calling and greeting you.

Let's go now.

Yeah, it makes me want to get into a plane and just go home and see how

everybody's doing myself.

But Maria won't go home just yet.

There is one more destination she must visit.

The end of the line for the majority of trafficked African pangolins.

In 2017, Chinese customs officials intercepted the largest illegal

shipment of scales on record.

Pangolin scales are one of the oldest traditional

Chinese medicines and even as recently as last year were listed

by practitioners as a cure for the symptoms of cancer.

Scales from historic stockpiles can legally be prescribed in hospitals.

But as long as there is a demand for pangolin products,

there will be a black market.

You can't help but observe the fact that there's this really,

really ancient culture here...

..sort of in conjunction with this really, really modern culture.

I think if the change is going to come here,

it's going to come through the younger people.

And that's why Maria has come to China -

to join forces with a highly influential young woman...

..who's taking a bold approach to addressing the demand

for pangolin products.

She is one of China's biggest megastars.

An actress...

..a model...

..and icon -

Angelababy.

KNOCKING

Hello! Hi, Angela, nice to meet you!

Nice to meet you, Maria!

With over 80 million online followers...

..she's been using her considerable public profile

to seek help for pangolins.

Angelababy's a perfect ambassador for pangolins.

She's hitting this whole new young generation, people really love her,

and she's very, very well known on this continent.

It's a great story and it's literally Honey Bun's story.

So the little pangolin that I have, that's exactly her story,

and it happens over and over and over.

Wow, wow!

Yeah, it's a long tongue.

Wow. Yeah, their tongue is almost as long as their body.

Maria is keen to introduce Angelababy to Honey Bun.

Wow! How old is she?

She is actually about a year and eight months now.

A year and eight months? Yeah.

Oh, so cute!

Look how they walk! They walk almost like dinosaurs. Yes!

Very slowly. Yeah.

I like this. POPPING

She's thinking, "Which way should I go?"

They're so cute with their hands!

Angela's going to bring a totally different perspective for the entire

campaign of saving pangolins.

Pangolins definitely need that high profile.

The rhino have gotten it, the elephant have gotten it

and pangolins have sort of been left behind.

This journey has been phenomenal,

but I'm ready to pack my bags again and get on that flight home.

But Maria's work is far from done.

Hi, Brad!

Maria! My dog is the official greeter!

Maria's meeting in China has resulted in an exciting opportunity.

Oh, I'm so glad you're here.

Angelababy is starring in a new charity campaign for pangolins,

to be rolled out across the globe.

And she'll be joined by another very special leading lady...

..Honey Bun.

If you think about all the major conservation efforts

in the world, most of them have started because of great footage.

Or a classic picture.

I honestly believe in my heart that the only way we're going to save

pangolins is to introduce them to the mass public.

Renowned wildlife cameraman Brad Bestelink has come to film with

Honey Bun.

You're going to see about the pace that she walks, I mean...

Funny little tummy!

Not many people get to see a pangolin tummy!

She's quick here. Yeah, she's real quick. She really moves.

I mean, she's hurrying down there.

Stay with me.

Stay with me.

Brad is ready to give Honey Bun her close-up.

But that's easier said than done.

Stick with us.

It's a lot harder work than I thought. You know,

they're moving incredibly quickly through the bush

and you've got to really scratch around to keep up.

It may be tricky work,

but filming a pangolin so at ease is a privileged opportunity.

I've spent the best part of 20 years in the bush.

I've seen three in my lifetime, twice when I was filming,

once when I was child.

It's just great to spend a little bit of time

with a pangolin just getting on with its normal life, you know?

It's just so unusual, it's really special.

The power of these rare images can't be overestimated.

They will showcase pangolins as never before.

Hi, Maria! Hi, Maddie, how are you?

I'm good, thanks, how are you? Ah, pretty good...

I think, before I went to Asia,

sometimes I felt like I was... not a ship alone,

but sort of a ship alone in a big sea.

And now I've realised there's lots of ships out there.

Hi, Ellen! How are you? Good.

How's the little baby that they did that operation on - with the leg?

He's doing really, really well.

Oh, that makes me so happy!

Maybe some of us were working a little bit individually

and now I think we're a bit more of a cohesive unit.

And I think that's going to be really important for the future of

conservation with pangolins.

With these new-found friendships, Maria is now firmly part

of the international effort to save pangolins.

And her new sanctuary is getting closer to completion every day.

But it is Honey Bun's recent collaboration with Angelababy that

could have the biggest impact of all.

The campaign has been launched online

and viewed in China over 25 million times in just the first day.

Honey Bun may not know it...

..but she's now a global ambassador for her kind.

But even as the campaign is making waves around the world,

day-to-day life for this celebrity remains the same.

The seasons are changing.

Spring rains are on the way.

Oh, Honey Bun loves this time of year.

So she's going to be going much deeper,

she's going to be finally able to get into those ant eggs...

..which are full of nutrients.

It's actually really nice to anticipate how she's going to look

in a couple of months.

She's going to gain some weight and she's going to gain some length

and she's going to turn into a young adult.

As Honey Bun grows up,

she will reveal more precious secrets about her species.

But there will come a time for her to leave Maria

and live as a wild animal.

In order to prepare her for the wild, we start pulling back.

And it's not just a physical way of pulling back,

it's also a mental way of pulling back.

I've got to start letting her go.

Hey, HB, what are you doing?

She's actually digging a deep hole, even deeper.

This is all really great preparation

for her going back out into the wild.

As the sun starts to set,

she's realising she needs to prepare for the night.

If she were in the wild, she'd go to sleep right there.

She's growing up and she's becoming more and more independent of me

and in a way it's kind of sad,

and in a way it's really exciting.

So, you know, it's all about that day that I'm going to say, you know,

"Hey, babe, you're on your own."

She's actually sucking my fingers like she used to suck a bottle.

She hasn't done this in ages.

There's just these moments like this that are so endearing

because they take us back, you know,

a year and a half when she would have been suckling milk out of her

little bottle and I would have been holding her like this.

And there's not many of those moments any more,

but once in a while, they just hit you, and it's...

It's really like going back in time.

If the pangolin went extinct in the wild,

I've failed.

And if we're going to fail on that,

then what else are we going to fail on?

Not, not on my watch.

Not on my watch.

PHONE RINGS

SHE SPEAKS IN HER OWN LANGUAGE